Hey there...
Lately when I start a new run, even more so for an orb-farming normal run, I do this little self challenge/chicken run: see how far I can get with the starting bonus hammer.(glorious bscotch hammer of gratitude) Now if you don't have this hammer, you receive it when you butter up (as I did) or with some of the other packages I do believe. It's a nice upgraded weapon to start with, not overly powerful, but can get you decently deep quickly.
That is where the challenge comes in, how far can you, or will you go on the hammer only? That's why I say chicken run, you're basically playing chicken with yourself by ignoring all those juicy weapons. Artifacts don't matter, grab whatever. Now obviously you have to replace the hammer eventually. As I type this my tablet is on depth 500 on normal mode (pete is long dead) and its getting pretty, pretty...pretty tough! I'm not quite fully upgraded and on my first few runs of 'Pete's reckoning' I realized I'll need to buy the last two upgrades in those 4 skills, putting me into some farming, no big deal, actually want to, reckoning will be a nice challenge! Don't let it kill your run.. but stretch the limit! heh heh
Anyway, there it is, a fun side game you can do... it's also great for the 'Knocker' mastery, knock 250 enemies off.... baddies won't be 1 shot so easily...eventually...
Besides beating Pete's Reckoning, it's the only mastery I have left. Hey... it could maybe even be an idea for a new side game, or mastery or something... I donno ¯\_(ツ)_/¯