Uncensored April Build Spotlight Entry: The Pacifist Utility Warlock!

As some of you probably figured, this was our contribution to April Fools’ 2018! Hope you enjoyed it!

You guys may know that Perfect World currently runs a new spotlight format where you can submit your original build idea and might get featured on Arcgames! In April, Community Manager Nitocris is searching for the best builds for the Scourge Warlock class, and I decided to throw in an entry as well! So here’s my submission, the Pacifist Utility Warlock!

General Build Concept and Idea

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The “Pacifist Utility Warlock” is for all those adventurers that don’t find joy in all the killing you have to do to advance in the game. How can you tell who’s good and bad anyway? Yes, the Many-Starred Orcs might have occupied the Tower District, but don’t they have families to feed? The Cloaked Ascendancy members are just corrupted by the Spellplague, and aren’t you tired of doing countless favors to Lord Neverember without getting properly paid? Then lay down your weapon, and join the pacifist movement with this build! We will be doing less slaughtering and focus on other areas instead.

The Warlock class is perfect to take a stand against war. In D&D lore it has an overall poor reputation and is often evil by nature. I feel it’s time to change that! In Neverwinter, Scourge Warlocks are also one of the more mobile classes, which allows us to easily escape from fights!

How to Acquire Any Gear as Pacifist?

At the start of my build guide, there is one general conflict to tackle. How do you acquire gear as pacifist, or boons, or anything? Well, that’s true. What I’m providing here is a build guide for tired adventurers that have seen enough killing. As dropout you naturally already own gear, and it should be allowed to use it. At no point however you should kill to complete your build. You work with what you have or have to spend ZEN or AD.

Powers & Feats

Pacifism wasn’t one of the main things the devs had in mind when designing the game. That’s why we unfortunately can’t use any of the At-Wills, Encounters or Dailies as they all involve at least damaging other individuals. So we’re basically stuck with two Class Features:

  • Shadow Walk: This might be our most important power. It helps us to flee fights on the battlefield.
  • Dark Prayers: While not essential for the build, this one at least gives us a little bit more defense when we’re under 50% HP.

Pretty much the same can be said for the feat trees. There’s not a ton of help for the Pacifist Utility Warlock. You should max the feats we listed and it doesn’t matter which ones you choose to get there.

  • Shadow Fold: Less Stamina consumption is what we want when we have to outrun opponents.
  • Desperate Restoration: Not essential for the build, but we don’t have something against other people healing us.
  • Aura of Despair: Less damage from opponents that are chasing us.
  • Eldritch Momentum: Stamina on getting hit is perfect for this build.

Equipment

For this build we’re prioritizing all non-offensive stats. We especially want as much Movement as possible to quickly get away from any fights. A bunch of utility stats additionally make sure that we max in the areas of the game that don’t involve killing. Especially “Gold Gain” is useful to amass riches! Here are the stats tats you aim for:

  • Movement: Most important stat for the build. Get it as high as you can!
  • Regeneration: Important to get back to max HP after running away from fights.
  • Hit Points: You want as many as possible to be able to suck up as much hits as possible while escaping.
  • Gold Gain: Amassing riches through skills nodes and open world chests is one of the main benefits of this build. And a solid Gold Gain certainly helps.
  • Incoming Healing: While we won’t be fighting, we do not oppose healing.
  • Stamina Gain: More Shadow Slip = less harm.
  • AoE Resistance: Extra defense to resist ill-advised perpetrators.

I’ve set up an example character here. A couple notes:

  • Weapons: Pick the ones that do the least damage, but never attack!!!!
  • While we prioritize non-offensive stats, we don’t need to skip them entirely. Since we won’t be attacking at all, it won’t hurt the build.
  • Ring of the Battledancer +5 is perfect for the build, because you get defensive procs while moving. And you’ll be moving (running away) a lot! Good alternatives are Ring of Ambush +5 or Ring of Sieging +5.
  • Artifact Gear doesn’t help a ton as it features zero passive stats. So the older Personalized items are much better.
  • If you’re using the Greater Everfrost Undercoat and Greater Everfrost Tunic, make sure your Life Steal is higher than your Deflect. Otherwise the set proc will hurt opponents!
  • For Insignia Bonuses, we’ve picked the best ones that feature a combination of Illuminated, Enlightened, and Crescent. Those are the only ones that feature Movement.
  • The summoned companion can only be an Augment, because it won’t attack any other individuals. Additionally it’s great to establish a very high health pool to suck up initial hits from aggressive jerks until you’re out of range. The Bulette Pup is the best choice thanks to its defensive bonus and three defensive rune slots.
  • There’s a lot of active bonuses to pick from. The Energon is “bis”, and you should fill the rest with defensive procs such as reduced threat or damage mitigation.

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Playstyle

The playstyle of the “Pacifist Utility Warlock” is fairly simple. It just celebrates life, talks to friendly NPCs and travels the world. In the unfortunate situation that we get attacked by those that not yet share our philosophy, we have plenty tools to escape the trouble. Fire Aureal Armament to stun them, run away using your superior Movement and quickly replenish the lost HP thanks to a good amount of Regeneration. Just in case always have a Stone of Health ready and charged, but your massive health pool should help you survive any critical situation.

And don’t you think that the game can’t be fun without fighting. Here’s a list of tasks to perform:

  • Level Professions
  • Trading
  • Farm nodes throughout the Sword Coast (especially flowers in Chult!)
  • Complete exploratory achievements
  • Engage in role play
  • Visit lower level zones and mourn the dead mobs other players kill
  • Play and design Foundry Quests that don’t involve killing
  • Buy and spend ZEN
  • Decorate the Guild Hall and tend buildings
  • … probably much more!

Points of Contention

  • Aureal Armament is a Combat Power that attacks enemies, but doesn’t deal damage. So it could be seen as purely defensive CC. I could totally understand if you still don’t want to use it.
  • Some pacifists might prefer not equipping a weapon at all. This is perfectly legit, but note that you won’t be able to Shadow Slip in that case. It makes escaping fights much more difficult.
  • The participation in group play in which others kill individuals is controversial. Some say as long as you don’t engage in fights yourself it’s fine, others however already find it too cruel. I personally think that you at least block one spot in the party that otherwise might be taken by a reckless assassin.
  • Some pacifists accept using powers that deal 0 damage.
  • Depending on whether you would classify Beholder Piñata as “individuals”, it might be ok to hit them to proc certain powers and feats.

That’s it folks! I think we created a gem here. If you feel likewise, make sure to advertise the build in the official spotlight thread! Also tell us what you think on our social channels, in the comments below, or the corresponding thread on our message board!

Neverwinter UN:Blogged is always looking for writers to contribute to the blog. If you are an active player and search for a way to spread your opinions, analysis, diaries or reviews to more than 40,000 regular visitors, then don’t hesitate and get in touch with us on our contact page or message board! We are currently especially looking for console and PVP content, but that’s not exclusive. There is no frequency requirement, you post how often you want.

j0Shi

j0Shi plays the Neverwinter MMORPG since the open BETA in 2013 and is a regular contributor to the blog and the whole UN:Project. Originally a Guardian Fighter, he has built up ALTs of all classes and plays on BIS/near-BIS level.

3 thoughts on “Uncensored April Build Spotlight Entry: The Pacifist Utility Warlock!

  • April 2, 2018 at 10:53 am
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    Pacifist or Coward? And if you have to spend Zen to get gear, no wonder they are looking at it to award a “Best Build” Prize! LOL! 🙂

    And from it’s activities, it looks like every Leadership/Invoking/Professions Mule I rolled since Mod 2!

    Very interesting idea. I like unusual, specialist builds. EG the Pacifist Illusionist/Monk in Skyrim, where you would pacify hostiles or make them fight each other, slip Alchemy poisons into their inventory with Pick Pockets to deplete their Stamina, make them sleep etc). The problem with NW, is if a build works well, it will become part of the Meta, like the high INT/CHA APG/Recovery AC DC, which at first no one understood as it did not heal much.

    But I’d like to see a video of you soloing Valindra’s Tower or something.

    Shame you did not upload this yesterday, j0Shi, on April 1st!

    🙂

  • April 2, 2018 at 9:45 pm
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    In 4E, the Pacifist Healer feat’s downside only triggers when dealing damage. Ergo, anything that CCs but doesn’t deal damage doesn’t qualify as being anti-pacifist, so you’re good.

  • April 3, 2018 at 6:33 am
    Permalink

    The chillax peacelock class.

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