Dash only Difficulty 30 run - Challenge Run

[Katsu]

It is done.
Rules: No damage sources (Except Reprisal) other than Ball Lightning dash.

Screenshot Showcase:

https://i.imgur.com/TXa5rdI.png

Took about a dozen attempts. Necro shotgunning was an issue and dashing into sheild boys was an issue. Dracula was pretty long fight, but otherwise a little easier than the necro section. This run I got First Strike fairly early on and it was a huge help. It is not necessary as it really just helps get xp from small mobs. It was helpful on shield boys box. Despite the challenge, this was really fun to do. I got the idea after cruising through normal difficulty so well with dash only and wanting to take it to the max.
Also people complaining about difficulty 30 only viable with X builds got me salty so I wanted to prove a point about making other builds work.

Written Portion:

This was done on Nixi.
The most important mandatory thing is Sign of Grasshopper and +1 Dash boots.
You also are required to have some passive exp gain to avoid attacking, but the more you have the smoother and faster you go online.
In most cases you will need banish dice to remove the perks with damage or get stuck choosing one and void the rules and alteration to get out of banned gods.
Highly highly recommend master stacking as novice lightning dash (And yes I did attempt several runs with it) put enemys too behind mainly the bosses (Necromancer always made it to shield section and was super annoying there)

Quality Stats:

• Spell Crit - Not required and I ended up getting 12% from 3 Mjolnir shrines
  
• Exp Gain % - Just faster and more levels. As you can see in screenshot I ended 36
  
• Revival - A nice way to recover from a bad mistake and dying
  
• High move speed - makes dash go zoom zoom
  
• - Dash Cooldown - More zoom zoom
  
• Dash Range - Not super important as you can find Sprinter and Move Speed
  
• Item Skill "Cool Off" - This is a 10% chance in a dash to refresh ALL dash charges (The in game says "a dash charge," but it is all) This looks super important, but it's actually not. You NEED to space out your dashes to have as minimum time outside of dashes as possible. While it is fun to get a bunch of consecutive dashes, if you don't get the cooldown and have a few seconds out of it, you'll instantly die in some areas like Slime Time. See Strategy for more on the dash timing.

Boons

All damage boons that do not require attacks are banned as per the rules of the run EXCEPT reprisal as it's a very nice defensive perk. You will need banishes for lightning bans.

Leigong:

• Required: Ball Lightning - You definitely want the master, but I did have a close run I started novice and rarity it up to expert. Level it up faster to help vs bosses.

Banned Boons: All others except Brevity. (I actually don't know what his legends are, so maybe not one of those if it doesn't do damage).

Lady Justice:

• Divine Shield - I did not get this until like 15 min into my run because I had enough damage and was hunting for a master version (goes down to 7.5s at max) You can get any level if you need/want. It is a very nice quality of life.
  
• Reprisal - Novice is okay, and this is a neat way to help stun bosses and ranged enemies that can be a bit of a nuisance.
  
• The rest are quality of life defenses. Regen and Protection probably more valuable than the others.

Banned Boons: Day of Judgement as it screen wipes. Consecration, albeit it low dmg, was also banned, but I wouldn't say it is a huge deal if it was chosen and might as well count.

Winter:

• Haste - Makes you go zoom with the dash. Higher rarity is better, but any is nice.
  
• Path of Frost - This turned out to work very well. Novice is okay as you zoom so much you can paint it all over the place and helps stun bosses every so often.
  
• Wintertide - Your lightning ball can get decently big which just helps the swarm sections. Any rarity works, but higher is better.
  
• Icebound - More damage (do not get if you are not getting Path of Frost as rest of the ice boons are not allowed or do not work without autos)
  

Banned Boons: Frost Dragon and Blight

Moirai:

• Sprint - Makes you get out of pinches nicer and zoom zoom
  
• First Strike - The high end damage on getting this perk is NUTS. I was able to hit 8k hits with crits on undamaged enemies with this (which is any enemy not hit by reprisal).
  
• Fleet-Footed - So so nice as it's another dash stack. I never found this, but wish I had. ALWAYS take this if you see it.
  
• Evasion - quality of life defense

No banned perks, but the rest are pointless

Time:
Now I ended up deciding not to go with Time, but he dose have some perks that are handy.

• Time Field - definitely the best defensive option on his kit. Pairs well with spell are.
  
• Gem High - This perk is hilarious on this build and I dashes so fast after it the game struggled to render in time. Now, the issue is that inside black boxes I dashed so fast I would go from wall to wall being stuck and it got me killed. It's okay if you are in dash, but coming out stuck to a wall got me killed a few times. This is the main reason I decided not to take time anymore.
  
• Temporal Lord - Basically a revive, but it is unfortunate if you are close to killing a boss and it pops. Still a failsafe.

Banned Boons: Temporal Lord and Force (I do think it's fair to get Force if you get a shrine that gives you 0 pick up as that feels awful and it does so little damage)

BANNED GODS: Mort, Krom, & Summer

Strategy

It's fairly straight forward and mostly just skill based pathing. The most important part is the rhythm. You want to as evenly as possible space out your dashes to keep the uptime as much as possible as you are immune to damage during the dash. If you do a bunch of dashes in a row and have to wait a few seconds you'll end up dying really fast in some sections. I highly recommend dashing to as many shrines as you can flying through packs as you do. You'll pick up the gems as you go so it's best to keep moving unless you have a shrine you are saving or using, but taking too long you'll miss out on cool shrine buffs.
Now your dash does NOT destroy projectiles so be careful where you end your dashes. Your turn radius is not perfect so be careful trying to whirl around faster than you're actually able.
If you get to slime time and you don't have dash you're probably going to die so I'd recommend just resetting if you don't have your dash dmg by 4 minutes.
Trying to abuse the Cool Off item skill I pretty much ignored as it got me killed if I tried to use it in the bosses and swarms. It's nice to help get around the map more when there's little threat is the main thing.
Shrines:
Many of them are entirely up to the player's choice. The nicer ones are spell crit (Mjolnir), Master stacking (Oni), and revive shrine. Fate shrines help reroll for master or alteration/banish if you need more. Gremlin house I took dash cooldown every time, but max hp is nice too.
If you have less than 1hp regen a second do NOT take the dash cooldown and range for 1 damage a dash. It also destroys divine shield, but technically you don't die to it so you can dash at 1hp on it.
Armor and evasion are nice, but I had like 19 evasion at the end of my run so it's definitely not a requirement.

Closing note:

This was a really fun challenge. If anyone does this without reprisal, they're better than me and it's even more valid than my damage run. I understand without exp gain doing some attacks early to get your ball lightning, but when you have that you should not attack anymore. Ideally you have 0 atk on your results page as I did.

Alternate dashes: You can I guess use another dash, but I'd find it difficult to accomplish except maaaybe Mort's lifelink with spell projectiles stacked. If you try another one rules still apply as it should be your only damage source.

TLDR: Challenge for the community/anyone. Beat Difficulty 30 with dash as your only damage (reprisal is ok). Mort, Summer, Krom are banned. Banish and alt away from rest of damage source.

[Katsu]

I have moved this into a guide for the purpose of updating and commenting as new patches and things develop. I dunno if this discussion is as relevant anymore or how to close it, but yeah here ya go.
Started this mostly in spite of the rage posts I see here, but ended up really fun.
Guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3090546689

[Specrez]

interesting guide, haste is the lighting skills not fate, i will try it later

[Katsu]

Originally posted by Specrez:

interesting guide, haste is the lighting skills not fate, i will try it later

Oh thank you. I will edit this.
Also you have a nice guide. Good work.

[Purromi]

gz