The Great Experiment: The "Pacifist Hunter"

[Sukurachi]

Well, I am now at over 1,000,000 exp from purely herbalism.
My Scribe, a level 75 Hunter, started yesterday with little (like 100 or so) experience into his rise to level 76.
As of this afternoon, he has over one million experience out of 1,600,000 necessary to level.

I decided to see how far I could get without actively attacking any mobs.
My toon is allowed to defend himself if attacked, but I must first go out of my way to avoid any conflict.

besides, since herbalism gives me a steady 4200 exp per pick, and mobs only give me 1800-2000 (including resting bonus), the choice is obvious: herbalism wins out. Its far easier, costs less in repairs, and is surprisingly fast. The average quest at my level gives around 18,000 - 20,000 exp. The time to DO any of those quests,is considerably longer than picking the 5 or so plants I need to get the same experience.

I have been doing a regular circuit around Sholazar Basin (where I cannot accept any quests anyway, since they seem to start at level 76), and my bags are regularly full. A good thing for a Scribe

EDIT:
And to give you an idea of just how fast it goes, since writing this post, it has been around a half hour, and in that time I got another 200,000 exp.
I do NOT have an epic flyer. This is on a regular flying mount.

And once I hit 76... Pitch, you are MINE!!!! MOUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Sukurachi]

Well, I reached 76 with a bit of OCDing.
It was amazingly fast.

And I got Pitch because then I don't have to level him to catch up to me
He's also ALWAYS there, while Humar is not.

[Karrosh]

That's a neat idea. I never knew herbalism granted exp. I have from time to time simply tried to avoid quests involving killing mobs I wanted to avoid killing (non-aggressive beasts and the like). Good on ya for that, and congratulations on Pitch!

[Sarayana]

It's completely new Karrosh, implemented in patch 4.01.

[Teigan]

Interesting idea...hm, I guess one could level a new toon to the level where they get professions (is that still like 6 or something?) by exploring, then use the herbing to level. Huh.

[Sukurachi]

That IS one of the conundrums I have come across while considering the viability of being a "complete" pacifist.

One will, by necessity, NEED to kill a few mobs in our early levels. I think there is no way around it.

With this little experiment, I went quite far out of my way to NOT confront any mobs. For example, there is often a single mob sitting right on top of one particular herbalism node. It will not path away from that node. It just sits there. To remain true to my aim with this exercise, I was obligated to forgo that particular node every time.

There were also moments where I found myself hovering in the air, waiting for a tenacious and aggressive mob to path away from my target node.

Even if I gave myself a bit of leeway (never attack first, but fight back in self-defense), I still tried to keep fighting to an extreme minimum.

I can honestly say that over the 1,600,000 experience points I needed to get from level 75 to 76, I got away with killing MAYBE in total a dozen mobs. I'm very happy with how this worked out.

And I absolutely LOVE Pitch. I have not decided on a name for him yet. But he looks so much like one of my two cats, that I MAY name him in honor of my RL kitty.

[Sarayana]

You could also ice trap the mob on the node and run out and feign after.

I know it's possible to level completely without killing cause it's been done, but it'd imagine it's a headache at times. I mean, there are always delivery quests, but you'd have to get very familiar with the wowhead database to find them all.

Oh, I told my husband about this and he decided to circle Icecrown on his 74 rogue - you know, the sides along the "valley" round, outside one way and inside going back. He leveled 1/2 level in an hour. And got three titaniums, the bugger.

[VelkynKarma]

I bet you could probably get a friend to kill stuff for you in the early levels, until you can pick up a profession. Have a bigger person escort you around or something for the first five until you can snag herbalism/mining.

Too bad you can't do it with skinning too, but for obvious reasons things need to be dead before you can skin them XP

~VelkynKarma

[Sorcha Ravenlock]

Hmmm... inbetween non-combat quests, mining and herbing you could probably get quite far that way. Taking a class like priest with self-heals and the bubble, you could avoid getting hurt pretty easily, and thus level up the passive way.
That might be fun to try at some stage, see how far I'll get being a pacifist

[Sarayana]

I bet you could probably get a friend to kill stuff for you in the early levels, until you can pick up a profession. Have a bigger person escort you around or something for the first five until you can snag herbalism/mining.

Too bad you can't do it with skinning too, but for obvious reasons things need to be dead before you can skin them XP

~VelkynKarma

Hmm. I really wonder what that guy did with his rogue and priest... perhaps he just explored? I think having a friend kill for him was counter to the whole purpose of making the toons pacifist. *runs to google* I found his blog: http://pacifistundeadpriest.blogspot.com/

In the wow.joystiq.com article linked in his sidebar, he says:

Both my priest and my rogue try not to hit anything, although there's always a chance of a misclick when trying to open a quest item with mobs fighting near it. Both of them always wield a fishing rod, so any accidental hits won't increase their weapon skills. Neither of them will do quests where they have to kill things. In battlegrounds, my rogue will throw bombs to interrupt flag captures and stun people and may even accidentally kill players low in health or nearby critters. My priest only heals, so he is actually closer in roleplaying terms. Neither will "get around" these limits by grouping and having other players do their dirty work.

So while the escort idea will work, it's definitely possible to do it without. I can also imagine AV would be a great BG to do, since you get good exp and can do turn-ins of items and collect animals for resources.

Oh, and with fishing and cooking dailies being available in Orgrimmar and Stormwind in Cata, it should be easier to get exp that way too!

... Kinda makes me ponder the idea of a pacifist toon. Hehe. Cause I don't have enough alts planned as it is.

Edit: They also added the self-heal to herbing since he leveled his toon, so... the idea of a rogue that can stealth through iffy areas and the herbing self-heal when needed... I like it!

[mpd_84]

skinning doesnt give exp like mining or herbalism anyway.sadly,nether does fishing...

[Calomel]

I did this on my hunter, Tanin! From 76 to 80, he spent 90% of his time mining and herbing it up in Sholazar, doing circuits. Consistently farming up all that Adder's Tongue and Saronite pushed him through four levels in less than a week.

Also, I think that the XP bonus from the Heirloom gear stacks with the herbing/mining experience gain. I only say so because it seemed that way, it might be an unintentional bug. I was getting 5100 xp from every node and plant that was at least green to me, while a druid of my level without the gear reported much lower numbers in the 4000's.

[VelkynKarma]

Hrm...I might have to try this on my DK just to get him through the rest of outland. I love Nagrand but I finished it up on him, and I'm SO tired of Shadowmoon and Netherstorm...

~VelkynKarma

[kamoodle5]

I like how those two professions give experience. Funny how Blizz didn't think of that a long time ago. I've been getting easy 1.9K exp out of mining fel iron rested, and well...the remaining halloween candy gives more exp...for now, that is.

[Kryte]

I bet you could probably get a friend to kill stuff for you in the early levels, until you can pick up a profession. Have a bigger person escort you around or something for the first five until you can snag herbalism/mining.

Too bad you can't do it with skinning too, but for obvious reasons things need to be dead before you can skin them XP

~VelkynKarma

Well, you COULD do it with skinning. You'd just have to be a little leech, quietly trailing after those who DO kill things.

[Gungnir]

They should make an achievement for "Realm first Vegetarian Level 80"

[Sarayana]

I bet you could probably get a friend to kill stuff for you in the early levels, until you can pick up a profession. Have a bigger person escort you around or something for the first five until you can snag herbalism/mining.

Too bad you can't do it with skinning too, but for obvious reasons things need to be dead before you can skin them XP

~VelkynKarma

Well, you COULD do it with skinning. You'd just have to be a little leech, quietly trailing after those who DO kill things.

Skinning doesn't give exp though.

[Mockingbird]

This looks like a really fun experiment!

The best classes for it, I would think, are hunter and druid.

Hunters can (once high enough) feign death to avoid combat, plus if your personal rules allow it, let your pet keep something busy while you don't touch it (though pet kills might be said to be disallowed. Certainly I'd say we couldn't deliberately sic our pets on folks and still call it pacifist, but if my loyal bear happens to feel defensive about me...)

Druids can stealth, soothe animal/hibernate (very useful for those there's-a-boar-on-my-herb moments), use flight form WHILE HERBING (so if something attacks you, you just fly up and OOC ), heal (to be more active while not killing) and if all else fails, turn into a moonkin and /dance.

I'm tempted to give this a try myself with a low-level char.

[Sarayana]

I imagine a resto shammy could pretty much rock this too... Earth shield, Stoneclaw totem (glyphed!), and Ghost Wolf (also glyphed) would be three solid abilities, in my opinion, that would make this a fun experiment. I like the idea of the rogue too, with Stealth and Vanish.

I was going to reroll my elemental shammy on Nesingwary to experience the troll starting zone, but I might just turn her pacifist.

[Sukurachi]

LOL!
I've created monsters!