Challenges

Unlike Achievements, these challenges are self-imposed, not directed by the game.

D1
--

The Soda Stein can upgrade relics even though the relic interface is not available in Dimension 1.

### Timeline

* Difficulty: Moderate
* At least floor 25K without problem.
* Expect progress to slow down later as the Stein gets outscaled compared to Gold and Essence.

### Implications

* Gain essence directly — no Magic Fountain.
* **Available in D2**: Scripting, The Primal Lands, Mythics
* **Not available**: Adventure Guild including Time Sword, Oddities, Essence Gnomes, Boss Rush, Uranium Bars, Power and Omni Forge (no Plating or leveling items past 4), Laser, 4x Nailed It
* PL floor can never go higher than Castle floor.
* Only the first two Janitors in Castle and only 1 in PL.

### Suggestions

* Relic of Health helps the whole team survive, even support characters. It also helps survive Delirium, especially for magic characters who have weak default attacks. Eventually, Soda Fairy healing is enough.
* Train a class to level 50 early for damage. Darkmages are good at clearing although weak against bosses without Tech Gems.
* Steady progress can be made after Withering and Battle Credits Per Boss Defeated are obtained. Withering is important throughout the game.
* Main push is in Castle. When progress starts to slow, visit PL with a team for farming Mythics. Then use BC for essence and resume pushing.
* No need to dive deep in PL — floor 20K gives access to all drops.
* Early on, the Fishing Rod compensates for whichever relic was not chosen.
* No need for X or Hidden Character because of so few lower level Janitors.

### Example Builds

 W N Dm O H T
 T N Dm Dm Dm O
 W N Dm Dm O T
 4Dm O T

### Timeline

* Difficulty: Moderate
* Progress is slow for awhile with either HP or ATK Relic but not both, and limited essence.
* Goes smoothly starting about floor 5K with some mythic items. Progression is linear rather than exponential due to lack of gold or essence relics.
* Scaling in The Castle is manageable, so it is possible to reach floor 1M and not experience slowing.

## Ironman

Craft and wear only basic iron items, or no items at all.

### Suggestions

* Push in The Castle since the lack of Cleanse makes it difficult to progress in The Primal Lands.

## No Relic Upgrades

Don't upgrade any Relics past their starting level.

Dimension Boss fights become difficult for even experienced players. Much more of a disadvantage than going without items.

### Timeline

* Difficulty: High
* The goal here might be to defeat story bosses, not necessarily to keep pushing.

## Single Class

Only Soda Junkies. Or only Huntresses with key settings using random Portals 100% of the time.

Interesting for Scripting because one script must handle everything.

## Solo Adventure

Who needs allies? Outnumbering the enemy is unfair!

### Implications

* No Arena battles because 3 members are required. This makes it take longer to gain Green Smithing Crystals and Battle Credits when getting started in the WD, but otherwise it's not much of a problem.

### General Strategy Points

* Portals are powerful for pushing. You only need 10 floors to make progress, and even a Mineshaft allows you to bypass a floor and fill up with HP Regen or MP Regen if you have it. Warps and healing fairies are better yet.
* It is often useful to turn Autocombat Off to gain 10 more floors.
* Darkmages have a group attack, two accessory slots, and the Curse ability to rest, along with good intrinsics, so she is the best at both pushing and defeating Dimension Bosses. It works to use her for farming as well, because she can more effectively traverse floors than other classes and she'll gain XP.
* Evasion is essential to survive the attacks that come your way because of being outnumbered. Sly may be needed more often than Patty.
* Gear is important and will need to be regained in each dimension. Vampire Suits are expensive but important until you can get a Karuta. A Space Gem or Jade Talisman enables traversing floors sustainably.
* Most Dimension Bosses can be defeated either with Evasion or Status Resist gear, or a combination of both. Damage Reduction equipment is often useful as well.
* Relic of Regeneration is especially important, and more benefit can be gained by combining with Damage Reduction and Evasion.

### Getting Through D1

* A Heal Stone is critical to survive.
* Level up gear early as it's a good value for only 1 wielder.
* Carpenter to get 1k gold for Mystic Fizz. Without a group attack you'll need to sustain more damage and Status Effects.
* Mystics are better as they can group attack and have more MP. Good at grinding for resources after obtaining MP Regen at level 9.
* Online progress is slow.
	+ Wait offline for about 3k Battle Credits for XP and Gold
	+ Take all random portals, as there is a chance of something good, and failure is not a setback.
	+ The Gorgon is often deadly, so start runs at floor 21.
* To get past floor 89, use a Darkmage for her stronger group attack and extra accessory slot.
	+ Magic Ring for more MP and group damage.
	+ Turn Auto Off.
	+ Due to faster Speed, you get an extra turn every 1 in 20 turns as long as it's not an Ambush, which you can use to continue healing until you get an extra turn and can attack for free. A Meaty Club helps, and a Saber is even better.
* Instead of taking down Demona, repeat until you get a warp (either locked or random) to bypass floor 90.
* The DL isn't as hard as Demona against single targets. He's vulnerable to poison.

### Survival Pushing Script

Darkmages can use Curse to greatly aid in recovery.

### Later Dimensions

* The Lord of Light requires extra Relic levels along with strong equipment for a single party member to do enough damage to overcome Meditate, and you'll still need enough defense to survive. A Skull Blade provides several of these benefits.
* The Soda Stein is effective in getting enough Relic levels to defeat Gaia. Example equipment: Ganalar, Stoplight Shield, Tech Gem, Karuta, 2 Copper Bracelets, Sly.
* Use a Darkmage to farm for the Soul of Ornos. Item Find of less than 200 does not improve Mythic drop chance, so get Damage Reduction and Evasion instead to survive Reap.
* Finally, transition to a Nurse. Example build: Widowmaker, Crystal God Guard, Tangleheart Embrace, Soul of Ornos, Sly.

### Timeline

* Difficulty: High
* To get through D1, expect many short Quick Battle trips, as well as defeats while playing without Autocombat.
* Other dimensions require extensive farming but aren't as difficult to survive except for Dimension Bosses.
* The game starts to open up when the Darkmage Class Relic is unlocked and EARTH can be defeated.
* A Nurse with the Soul of Ornos can make steady progress, although scaling is slower without as many party stats from equipment.

## Now Hiring

This challenge encourages improvisation, making do with whoever shows up in the Tavern.

### Rules

* Do not purchase the following Tavern Upgrades: *Beds*, *Coat Check*, or *Tap Select*, and do not use loadouts.
* Do not change items from what is Auto Equipped.
* Unlock all sodas up to Double Bubble as soon as you have cash available. Do not hire unique characters or unlock their sodas.

### Implications

* **Not available**: Wizard, Owner, Secret Character, Hidden Character, Soda Stein, Widowmaker, Ganalar.
* While it's possible in emergencies to enter and exit the dungeon to get different choices, the goal is to figure out how to assemble teams from the characters available.
* Equipped items can be controlled by selling any items that have a higher Priority than the desired items. Unique items cannot be sold however.
* Choose what order to hire party members in to determine who gets which items. After the team is hired, change their order in the party screen.

### Suggestions

* Often you may decide to change your next move based on who can be hired — for example instead of fighting a boss as planned, spend some BC or fight in the Arena using that team, and then fight the boss when a Nurse shows up.
* It's difficult to get a full set of Nurses and Carpenters for a boss fight. Instead, farm extra for Relics and then make do with only one or two Nurses. Blademasters make decent substitutes for Carpenters if needed, and their ability to wield two swords can help get to a good lower priority weapon.
* Equipping Doodle Charms for The Darkest Lord is tricky because they are low priority. Also some characters have two Accessory slots, so either craft two charms for each of them, or hire only characters with one slot for that fight.
* Sanity Gems and the Cleansing Wand require many other items to be sold first, which is tedious. Liquidating helps, especially if everything is plated, because then you can liquidate down to 0.
* Don't craft unique weapons unless you want them for the rest of the game, because they cannot be sold and may prevent you from equipping a lower priority item.
* Instead of a specialized team for Gold, use a single comp to gain gold while pushing. Simplified Mining and Boss Rush teams are practical to assemble however.
* Work towards eliminating the need for Mystics and ideally even Nurses as they are not always available, and rely on Soda Fairies instead.

### Example Build

Put a Nurse in position 1 with a Cleansing Wand and the Soul of Ornos. Put a Darkmage in position 2 to kill everything. Other positions are chosen based on the number of accessories they can have, in order for the Soul of Ornos to end up on the Nurse. Once everything is plated, liquidate Weapons/Shield/Armor to 0 and Gems to 2.

### Timeline

* Difficulty: Not recommended for beginners because setup is tricky.
* Progression often encounters delays when the wrong characters show up. Also it can take longer to overcome some bosses.
* The power curve isn't much more of an issue than with a normal game, as Withering can still be obtained.
* FPH may be limited a bit without The Wizard but should still benefit from the Timesword in the late game.

## Reflection

Tank and eventually stop using direct damage. Recommended by The Blacksmith.

### Rules

* Do not use gear, relics, or active skills to increase direct damage or cause damage-over-time effects.

### Implications

* There are still two ways to increase direct damage: leveling up classes and Huntress Soul Bond.
* Carpenters, Nurses, and Mystics cannot be used with the Default script as they have special damage skills.
* Loadouts and Auto Equip On will always try to equip a weapon, so to go bare-fisted, you'll need to unequip them before each run.
* Can equip gear such as a Blade of Virtue as long as that character doesn't attack. To be careful not to attack with weapons, it is convenient to use two scripts, one for attacking and one that never attacks.
* Transmute can be used in mining builds.

### Example Builds

 6My
 5N My
 H H N H N My
 Bs H H N N My
 Bs H H W J N

1. ↑ Three Huntresses would be required to completely remove the Taunt cooldown. However, currently there is a bug where Lure often gets stuck, lasting forever instead of ending after 3 hits. So, it may not be beneficial to have three Huntresses.

### The Lord of Light

* Level 25 Blacksmith with Widowmaker, Dinoskull Shield, and Hallowed Plate, all upgraded to 10.
* Do not script Defend, as that reduces reflected damage. Instead, equip a Heal Stone with a condition that always triggers, such as `Self HP > 0`.
* Put two Huntresses on the same side as the Blacksmith, also with reflective gear and heal stones.
* Nurses and Mystic can wield Withering gear to somewhat improve the ratio of boss healing to reflect damage.
* Relic of Reflection level 45.
* Meditate should only heal about as much damage as one Smite plus one default attack.
* Wait up to an hour for the RNG to attack more often than the heals (see Enemy Default Script) can make up for.

### Gaia

* Push several thousand floors deep in The Castle first.
* Bi-Blade?

### Timeline

* Difficulty: High
* Direct damage is required until reflection is obtained. Throughout the story dimensions, Huntress default attacks are good for normal enemies.
* The Lord of Light is the most difficult boss except for Gaia, harder than the PL Story Bosses that can be reached by then.

## Speed Run

Without Battle Credits, how fast can you get to and defeat the boss on floor 100, 1000, or 10K.

A similar challenge is to choose a fixed time, for example 10 hours, and see how far you can get in that time.

### Goals

* Either select particular goals or aim for an open-ended game of completing everything that seems interesting or feasible.
* Player Book is the primary indicator.
* Perhaps the ultimate way to win the game is by maxing Relic levels. Gurtha has done this: https://www.reddit.com/r/sodadungeon/comments/wo1l2w/47244641486/.
* For max stacks of items such as Skull Blade for each level, see Item Level Dropped.
* Could include Stats such as a team with max Item Find.
* Things that don't have a clear upper limit, such as the number of floors, would probably not be goals unless you want to arbitrarily set a target.

### One Timers

A few things can be missed and there is no chance to obtain later.

* Huntress captures
* A Little Something

To make sure you don't miss the window, keep a copy of the save
file so you can revert the file if necessary.