The pacifist way?

[HairyLou]

Every summer/vacation needs a new project. I'm thinking about going non-violent in CoH this summer, to level up a character without doing any damage at all on the way, but I do require some input:

 

Basic premise: Don't earn a single "damage dealt" point up until level 50

Do you think using Confuse to let them kill each other is cheating?

How about playing in teams that do damage but I still only do holds, immobilize etc and healing? I don't really see a way of going all the way to 50 without that.

Archetype and build? Right now I'm thinking ice/empath controller. Ice slick etc will help me get away without dealing damage. Then again, Mind control with the confuse could be useful if we don't think of that as cheating. Would you suggest any other AT/powersets?

 

First bunch of levels isn't too hard, all exp badges and plaques with double xp on. After that there is single missions and story arcs with more role playing elements, but most of them do end with some combat. Even glowie mission often require killing, (cough), defeating and arresting everything in the last room. So, any tips on the way up, any good missions/arcs?

[Shred Monkey]

You should talk to this guy... 

[nihilii]

You have to deal at least 1 point of damage to earn experience from confused mobs, so that would be out.
Badges and such also don't give XP until you earn your first experience point.
Not sure about your options. Would destroying ("defusing") a bomb be considered violent? You could take down rikti bombs from raids and earn XP that way, they give elite boss XP. At least to get started so you can then earn XP through exploration badges.
It's true you could pick newspaper/radio missions that are strictly "collect glowie". Use Confuse for all mobs in the room to defeat each other. Then use Telekinesis to push the remaining mob towards mobs outside the room, where you Confuse other mobs to kill him. Get mission completion XP that way. It would be pretty slow 😄

Edited July 2, 2020 by nihilii

[CaptainLupis]

Are there any holds and immobs that don't do any damage? I can't think of any off the top of my head.

[MangoKulfi]

^

Petrifying Gaze and the hold in Blaster's Temporal Manipulation.

 

If you went /dark instead of empath you'd have more controls/debuffs to help get away with not doing damage on a team.

[HairyLou]

Hmm, been running around debuffing with a corr for the last few days. Didn't thing fear, confuse, sleep did any damage at all. I know most holds (all?) and immob do damage as well.

But damn, so you HAVE to do some damage before you even start making xp out of exp badges. Well, then it's already failed even before I started.

 

I didn't really mind a team doing a bunch of damage as long as my "damage done" doesn't go up. I guess I could have someone do the initial seal clobbering for me and then go for the exp badges etc? That still doesn't take you very far though. Don't mind that it takes time generally, but I do opt for efficiency.

 

Looks like I'll have to go back to the drawing board.

[Marine X]

For the Seal Clobbering, go to Croatoa and Defeat Sally, She only has 2 Hit points, and She could pass for a Seal if you were on Hallucinogens and Wild Turkey.

Also you'll get that, " I'm a Horrible Person " feeling, that you could use to explain your desire to be a pacifist.

 

 

 

PS ( Off the Giant Seal twice and you've only caused 4 ticks of Damage and you get a Badge )

Edited July 2, 2020 by Marine X
spelling and a PS

[EmmySky]

Plenty of fire farms you can hire on to secure the door 😝

 

If you make a PB you get fly at level 1.  Use fly to collect all explore badges in all zones, explain to folks what you are doing see if you can sit in on TFs and monster kills for badges without dealing damage.  I think explaining to folks what your doing they will be glad to help. 

 

Also look up the lowest damage badge and maybe give yourself leeway, don't deal enough to earn that badge but you can still deal 1 or 2 points here and there for confuse purposes etc.

 

Be very careful of holds and immobs because many sneaky sneaky deal damage.  Was on a DFB once where glue was damaging the cadavers...its crazy.

[Peacemoon]

3 hours ago, HairyLou said:

Every summer/vacation needs a new project. I'm thinking about going non-violent in CoH this summer, to level up a character without doing any damage at all on the way, but I do require some input:

 

Basic premise: Don't earn a single "damage dealt" point up until level 50

Do you think using Confuse to let them kill each other is cheating?

How about playing in teams that do damage but I still only do holds, immobilize etc and healing? I don't really see a way of going all the way to 50 without that.

Archetype and build? Right now I'm thinking ice/empath controller. Ice slick etc will help me get away without dealing damage. Then again, Mind control with the confuse could be useful if we don't think of that as cheating. Would you suggest any other AT/powersets?

 

First bunch of levels isn't too hard, all exp badges and plaques with double xp on. After that there is single missions and story arcs with more role playing elements, but most of them do end with some combat. Even glowie mission often require killing, (cough), defeating and arresting everything in the last room. So, any tips on the way up, any good missions/arcs?

It depends how you want to go about this.

 

Are you still a pacifist if you stand in a team with everyone killing stuff around and you doing no harmful actions? Technically yes, but sounds like it sort of goes against the principle of the idea. It’s like signing up to the military but refusing to shoot and defend your teammates. So even though it fits the rules does it really fit the concept? Unless you aim to be a medic who doesn’t hurt people themselves?
 

In game you might (rightly) annoy people with a rigid concept that prevents you from doing any ordinary actions. So bear that in mind, people are only human after all.

What about pets doing damage for you, such as a mastermind with Empathy? You refuse to get your hands dirty but your minions can do the work for you. Similar to the above but pets aren’t so bothered, and usually a natural way to play a MM.

 

Otherwise you will have a hard time earning xp without leeching off of others. If you can’t deal damage you won’t be able to earn xp solo. Confuse could do the heavy lifting for you, but you still need to deal some damage yourself to get any xp; you can’t just be a spectator.

 

A Controller’s single target controls actually do reasonable damage, none are really zero damage. 

So if you want to avoid doing damage yourself you’re looking at either a MM or Illusion controller, A Controller that focuses purely on no damage powers (Mind, Ice and Plant can do quite a bit of AoE control without dealing damage), or just standing around in a team leeching until you get kicked 😜

 

Also is you do go this route, I would advise using a lot of power pool powers - there are some really good ones that don’t actually deal any damage yourself. Such as Leadership. 
 

Empathy is an obvious choice but there are other buff sets that don’t actually deal much damage. For example radiation emission only really does damage on Fallout (easily skipped) and EMP (only against robots - and would they count?)

Edited July 2, 2020 by Peacemoon

[Zinnar]

Okay, I like this idea, I'll bite as well.

 

I think the best bet for this is for you to pick a Controller of some kind. In my opinion, a "pacifist" would not avoid directly harming enemies, but also wouldn't want them harming each other either. This takes out Confuse powers. What I'm thinking is someone who engineers situations where enemies are left helpless in some way. So, what controller set has a lot of abilities that hamper enemies without harming them?

 

Ignoring the first powers, which you have to take and which all do damage...we can start with Earth Control. Earth has three powers that don't deal any damage, yet have meaningful impact on your opponents: Quicksand, Salt Crystals, and Earthquake. You get some -Speed, -Def, Knockback, and a bit of soft control in the Sleep from Salt Crystals. Not bad, but we can do better!
 

Enter Ice Control. Right in a row you get Arctic Air, Shiver, and Ice Slick. You get a wealth of soft control, and Ice Slick is one of the best soft control powers in my opinion. A little bit later you get Glacier. Now, technically this is cheating- Arctic Air can cause confusion, leading your enemies to harm each other. It's a strong debuff, but if you believe (as I do) that enemies harming each other is against the rules, we won't pick it. Not to worry! We can still get a lot of control from Shiver and Ice Slick. Frankly, even if those are all you cast you'll be contributing quite a bit.

 

But let's do better...enter your secondary. There are a lot of options, but might I suggest Time Manipulation? Whether you decide to take Arctic Air or not, Time's Juncture covers a lot of the same bases. Moreover, Time Manipulation has a hold that as far as I recall doesn't do damage, along with a wealth of group debuff and buff powers...all which do zero damage.

 

A lot of other controller secondaries don't have any ability to do damage, Empathy, most of Dark Manipulation, Electrical Affinity...but I think in terms of ability to contribute meaningfully to your team while not making use of most of your primary powers, Time will be able to carry the most weight.

 

Don't forget! There are a lot of useful pool powers. From Experimentation you can take Experimental Injection (ally +Regen +Recovery +Status Resist), Speed of Sound, and Adrenal Booster (self +Special). You can get Medicine for a wide variety of group buffs and heals (Injection, the heals, Field Medic, the rez), take Leadership, or Concealment, or Teleportation. Really, there are a lot of "utility" powers here that your team will be happy to have (who ever complains about Team Teleport?).

 

Finally, what about the epic pools? There are really two (maybe three) good options. Probably the most universally useful is Primal Forces Mastery for Conserve Power, Temp Invuln, and importantly Power Boost. Other options include Mu Mastery (Power Sink, Charged Armor, Surge of Power), or Psionic Mastery for Indomitable Will. Ice is also an option for Hibernate and Frozen Armor, plus it's directly thematic. Of course you could always just take Mace Mastery for Scorpion Shield and be done with it, but you'll have a lot of empty power picks in this build, so why not get some more tools?

 

Now, obviously you can't really solo, unless you just allow Confusion to count and let enemies kill each other while under Arctic Air. If that's the case, then you could swap Ice Control for Mind Control (Confuse, Mass Hypnosis, Telekinesis, Total Domination, and Mass Confusion all do no damage directly), but if you really want to deliberately try to cause no direct or indirect damage, I think an Ice Control/Time Manipulation/Primal Forces Controller might be the best option for a purely "pacifist" character that also won't cause your teammates to hate you.

[Haijinx]

Just play Energy Melee

[Peacemoon]

36 minutes ago, Zinnar said:

Okay, I like this idea, I'll bite as well.

 

I think the best bet for this is for you to pick a Controller of some kind. In my opinion, a "pacifist" would not avoid directly harming enemies, but also wouldn't want them harming each other either. This takes out Confuse powers. What I'm thinking is someone who engineers situations where enemies are left helpless in some way. So, what controller set has a lot of abilities that hamper enemies without harming them?

 

Ignoring the first powers, which you have to take and which all do damage...we can start with Earth Control. Earth has three powers that don't deal any damage, yet have meaningful impact on your opponents: Quicksand, Salt Crystals, and Earthquake. You get some -Speed, -Def, Knockback, and a bit of soft control in the Sleep from Salt Crystals. Not bad, but we can do better!
 

Enter Ice Control. Right in a row you get Arctic Air, Shiver, and Ice Slick. You get a wealth of soft control, and Ice Slick is one of the best soft control powers in my opinion. A little bit later you get Glacier. Now, technically this is cheating- Arctic Air can cause confusion, leading your enemies to harm each other. It's a strong debuff, but if you believe (as I do) that enemies harming each other is against the rules, we won't pick it. Not to worry! We can still get a lot of control from Shiver and Ice Slick. Frankly, even if those are all you cast you'll be contributing quite a bit.

 

But let's do better...enter your secondary. There are a lot of options, but might I suggest Time Manipulation? Whether you decide to take Arctic Air or not, Time's Juncture covers a lot of the same bases. Moreover, Time Manipulation has a hold that as far as I recall doesn't do damage, along with a wealth of group debuff and buff powers...all which do zero damage.

 

A lot of other controller secondaries don't have any ability to do damage, Empathy, most of Dark Manipulation, Electrical Affinity...but I think in terms of ability to contribute meaningfully to your team while not making use of most of your primary powers, Time will be able to carry the most weight.

 

Don't forget! There are a lot of useful pool powers. From Experimentation you can take Experimental Injection (ally +Regen +Recovery +Status Resist), Speed of Sound, and Adrenal Booster (self +Special). You can get Medicine for a wide variety of group buffs and heals (Injection, the heals, Field Medic, the rez), take Leadership, or Concealment, or Teleportation. Really, there are a lot of "utility" powers here that your team will be happy to have (who ever complains about Team Teleport?).

 

Finally, what about the epic pools? There are really two (maybe three) good options. Probably the most universally useful is Primal Forces Mastery for Conserve Power, Temp Invuln, and importantly Power Boost. Other options include Mu Mastery (Power Sink, Charged Armor, Surge of Power), or Psionic Mastery for Indomitable Will. Ice is also an option for Hibernate and Frozen Armor, plus it's directly thematic. Of course you could always just take Mace Mastery for Scorpion Shield and be done with it, but you'll have a lot of empty power picks in this build, so why not get some more tools?

 

Now, obviously you can't really solo, unless you just allow Confusion to count and let enemies kill each other while under Arctic Air. If that's the case, then you could swap Ice Control for Mind Control (Confuse, Mass Hypnosis, Telekinesis, Total Domination, and Mass Confusion all do no damage directly), but if you really want to deliberately try to cause no direct or indirect damage, I think an Ice Control/Time Manipulation/Primal Forces Controller might be the best option for a purely "pacifist" character that also won't cause your teammates to hate you.

Yeah confuse is quite a devious and aggressive power. You’re right that a real pacifist wouldn’t confuse enemies into hurting themselves. That’s like Psycho Mantis saying he didn’t hurt Meryl, and it’s not his fault she shot herself in the head!
To be honest I don’t think people really appreciate just how evil confuse really is. One of the most evil things you can do is get two people who are comrades, to fight and kill each other. I’m CoH it is always portrayed as some sort of benign non-aggressive way of defeating foes because of the no-aggro, but it is actually really cruel. It really fits villainous characters very well. If npcs reacted more emotionally to confused allies it would really be more apparent I guess.

 

Also you’re probably right that a pacifist is more likely to be a controller who will lockdown foes as a defence and run away/sidestep/wait for support. Would be an interesting character in a comic!

 

I would suggest getting invisibility/stealth. If you do play solo a pacifist can complete many missions without any combat, or very limited. Only fighting when absolutely paramount.

 

Edited July 2, 2020 by Peacemoon

[Bastille Boy]

58 minutes ago, Peacemoon said:

Are you still a pacifist if you stand in a team with everyone killing stuff around and you doing no harmful actions?

No. The key word here is "team." You're not a bystander if you're on a team. If you agreed to be part of a team that does violence, intending to benefit from your teammates' violence, you are violent.

 

In many jurisdictions, if an innocent person gets killed during a bank robbery, all the robbers can be charged with felony murder, including the one who only drove the getaway car. Maybe that's unfair if the getaway car driver went in thinking that the guns were all unloaded. I don't think that's unfair if the getaway car driver knew that the other robbers had loaded guns and were planning to open fire.

 

A more viable challenge would be to run missions on a team that never does permanent physical injury to enemies. (Permanent psychological harm is probably inevitable after these kinds of confrontations.) That means nobody on the team has powers with a smashing/lethal component. You can take boxing, but don't put it in your tray. No fire, no poison, no radiation, no disintegration. Only cold, electrical energy, negative energy, and psionic attacks.

 

This is a trivial challenge as a solo player, but a real challenge to put together a team that agrees to play by these restrictions. Potentially interesting roleplaying if you can find the right people.

[Peacemoon]

1 minute ago, Bastille Boy said:

A more viable challenge would be to run missions on a team that never does permanent physical injury to enemies. (Permanent psychological harm is probably inevitable after these kinds of confrontations.) That means nobody on the team has powers with a smashing/lethal component. You can take boxing, but don't put it in your tray. No fire, no poison, no radiation, no disintegration. Only cold, electrical energy, negative energy, and psionic attacks.

 

This is a trivial challenge as a solo player, but a real challenge to put together a team that agrees to play by these restrictions. Potentially interesting roleplaying if you can find the right people.

There are always RP teams on Everlasting and if you formed something like this I’m sure people might be interested. But your post does highlight how these made up rules can get very complicated and excessive very quickly 😜

[Nafsmar]

 I think you’re looking at this the wrong way. Being a pacifist you may not want to do battle but sometimes you are forced to. Take for instance a very non-violent man who tries to live his life in a very calm and righteous way but something terrible has happened to his child. Suddenly he finds himself in a situation where he can get the revenge as he sees fit. Nobody will fault him for doing it. Looking at it another way say you’re in a building where you have to defeat some foes in order to stop hundreds of innocent deaths,  pacifist or not, you are not doing the wrong thing by taking them out. What I’m trying to say is sometimes fighting cannot be avoided and I think you should play trying to do as little fighting as possible but just enough to get the job done. 

[Bastille Boy]

1 minute ago, Nafsmar said:

 I think you’re looking at this the wrong way. Being a pacifist you may not want to do battle but sometimes you are forced to. Take for instance a very non-violent man who tries to live his life in a very calm and righteous way but something terrible has happened to his child. Suddenly he finds himself in a situation where he can get the revenge as he sees fit. Nobody will fault him for doing it. Looking at it another way say you’re in a building where you have to defeat some foes in order to stop hundreds of innocent deaths,  pacifist or not, you are not doing the wrong thing by taking them out. What I’m trying to say is sometimes fighting cannot be avoided and I think you should play trying to do as little fighting as possible but just enough to get the job done. 

I would agree with you that violence is called for when it's necessary to stop a wrongful attack. Pacifists do not agree. Pacifists think that using deadly force is wrong, even in defense of themselves or other people. It's an extreme view, one that not many people hold. Some very smart people have been pacifists, though (e.g., Leo Tolstoy).

 

I don't think I agree with you about the revenge part. Revenge is not justice. Only the state can do justice, with fair punishment after a fair trial or an uncoerced guilty plea. I would absolutely fault the man in your story for seeking revenge.

 

The writing in the game shows appreciation for this point about vengeance in the alignment cycle. Vigilantism is a step on the road to villainy!

[srmalloy]

4 hours ago, HairyLou said:

Hmm, been running around debuffing with a corr for the last few days. Didn't thing fear, confuse, sleep did any damage at all. I know most holds (all?) and immob do damage as well.

The Sleep in Psi Blast for Blasters does a significant amount of damage.

[MTeague]

5 hours ago, HairyLou said:

Every summer/vacation needs a new project. I'm thinking about going non-violent in CoH this summer, to level up a character without doing any damage at all on the way, but I do require some input:

 

Basic premise: Don't earn a single "damage dealt" point up until level 50

Do you think using Confuse to let them kill each other is cheating?

How about playing in teams that do damage but I still only do holds, immobilize etc and healing? I don't really see a way of going all the way to 50 without that.

Archetype and build? Right now I'm thinking ice/empath controller. Ice slick etc will help me get away without dealing damage. Then again, Mind control with the confuse could be useful if we don't think of that as cheating. Would you suggest any other AT/powersets?

 

First bunch of levels isn't too hard, all exp badges and plaques with double xp on. After that there is single missions and story arcs with more role playing elements, but most of them do end with some combat. Even glowie mission often require killing, (cough), defeating and arresting everything in the last room. So, any tips on the way up, any good missions/arcs?

 

I can appreciate this as a personal challenge / thing to do, just to try it.  

 

I wouldn't feel right joining most groups and doing this without telling them.  I'd only really do this with a SG team, or regular friends who knew I was doing it and invited me anyway.  But that's me. I tend to get minorly annoyed at Defenders who ONLY use their support powers and never any blast powers, etc.   For normal gameplay I consider that "doing it wrong".  But I suppose if I knew up front they were doign this kind of pesonal challenge, I'd kind of waive my objections.

 

Confuse is my favorite power in the game. I don't consider it cheating. If you're fine with being a team where everyone else defeats the mobs for you, that's really no different from mobs defeating mobs.

HOWEVER.   Keep in mind, you get Zero XP if a Confused mob defeats other mobs and no one on your team does any damage to it.  So Confuse will only work as a team option for you, not a solo option.

 

Immob's often do damage, but maybe some do not. 

[Troo]

5 hours ago, HairyLou said:

Basic premise: Don't earn a single "damage dealt" point up until level 50

Rather than pacifist, an "observer" might be more achievable.

[catsi563]

I think the  issue is one of semantics youre looking at it froma  numnbers standpoint rather then a fluff standpoint. the ""Damage""  isnt or neednt necessarily  be actual physical harm applied to the mobs you could have a damage secondary that does subdual damage or the like. the use of less then or non lethal options. Combined with debuffs and or controls to take targets into custody with out or with minimal harm to them.  

 

A rad blast need not be a blast of radiation persay it could be  a blast of Bio energy that distupts the targets system (ie causing HP damage) which renders the target unconcious (aka defeated) safely for capture and incarceration. 

 

other powers could have similar design ethos behind them

[Luminara]

Archery blaster.  All pink.  No pants.  Name yourself Eros (or some variant thereof).  Arrows inject hot, viscous love into the targets, they faint from the extreme pleasure.

 

I triple-dog dare ya!

[Sovera]

There are no DPS meters in CoH so you will join dozens and dozens of team who will not even be aware you're not doing damage as long as you're busy. I was going to say go Empath, but heck, go Kinetics, you can still do the no damage challenge and you will not drag the team down because Kinetics.

[Hexquisite]

First, define your rules early, and what style of pacifism your character is practicing, and stick to it. Arguments could be made that buffing your allies so they can do more damage would be anti-pacifistic by enabling them to better harm others, as well as not preventing people from doing violence to begin with. That's lame, and would make people hate you, so I'd avoid that. Basically, don't be Vash the Stampede.

 

Second, if you're RPing this character, also figure out why they eschew violence, and if there is any situation where they might be forced into action. Everyone, even pacifists, have their limits. The Doctor rejects violence whenever possible, preferring to solve problems through being clever. But when he (10th Doctor, if I'm remembering correctly) heard the Master was back, the first thing he did was reach for a gun.

 

Third, powers . . . the only ones that come to mind are a Defender who doesn't use their secondary, a Controller with as little damage in the primary as possible, or a Mastermind who either orders their pets don't attack unless the MM is attacked first, or is completely petless, using only their secondary. Of these three, Controller seems most likely to accomplish your goals, and I don't know enough about the AT to suggest powers.

 

And finally, if you're on Everlasting and need a team, hit me up. Provided you don't simply stand there doing absolutely nothing, I'm always willing to help people try out new and interesting ways of playing the game. 😄

[Marine X]

It might also be worth checking to see if Damage Dealt in the Tutorial applies to the Damage Count, or if it begins once you reach Atlas. I am not sure, but I know I am able to get badges immediately If I do the tutorial, so if they don't count.....

[Black Zot]

9 hours ago, CaptainLupis said:

Are there any holds and immobs that don't do any damage? I can't think of any off the top of my head.

 

Most of the AoE hold powers do zero damage unless you put procs in them.  Same for the single target hold in Time Manipulation.