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Dove is a pacifist of unknown origin. She is incapable of directly attacking enemies, using only a flower to confuse them instead.

Dove is unlocked by completing Zone 2.

Rules and Restrictions[]

Dove starts with a Crystal Shovel, Flower, Ring of Peace, Bomb, and 3 heart containers (including the container provided by Ring of Peace).

The Flower is a special "weapon" that does no damage, but confuses the hit enemy for 8 beats, incrementing the groove multiplier on every hit. The first time a given enemy is hit, it will drop gold and contribute to spell recharge costs. Dove can never replace the Flower with another weapon - attempting to do so will result in a death to "Cowardice".

Dove must use the exit stairs (or Shrine of Rhythm) to advance. Trapdoors are removed from the game, and letting a song end will instantly kill her (again by "Cowardice"). The exit stairs are always unlocked, and there are no boss fights. Sarcophagi also do not appear in the exit rooms of Zone 4. Dove wins an All Zones mode run by exiting 4-3 (Amplified dlc 5-3).

Due to her pacifist nature, Dove is unable to find any items or shrines pertaining to weapons, kills, or damaging items. This includes all Weapons, Ring of Might, Ring of Courage, Boots of Strength, Boots of Pain, Boots of Lunging, Infernal Torch, Crown of Thorns, Glass Jaw, Sunglasses, War Drum, Blood Drum, and Fireball (both Spell and Scroll). All shovels are also removed from her item pool. Ring of Gold, Ring of Phasing, Amplified dlc Dove Familiar, and Synchrony DLC Shield of Shove are unavailable for difficulty balancing reasons. Shrines of Blood, No Return, Phasing, and Sacrifice will not spawn for Dove. Arenas will not appear.

In addition, Dove's bombs are modified to teleport enemies away instead of dealing damage, though Dove herself can still be hurt by the explosion. Bombs placed by Goblin Bombers or Bomb Traps still deal damage normally. Scroll of Need is also modified to act as a Scroll of Fear if used with two or more adjacent enemies.

Shopkeepers will allow Dove to take one item for free, though shops will only contain two items.

Note that hitting an enemy with the Flower will reset its usual attack pattern, causing it to "attack" immediately (this usually means causing it to move away from Dove immediately). While this behavior is usually useful, it also means that hitting a Mushroom will cause it to immediately attack Dove, making this hazardous.

As an exception to the usual confusion behavior, using the Flower on a fully random enemy (Blue Bats, Red Bats, Green Bats, and Direbats) causes it to move cardinally away from Dove. However, since Black Bats are not fully random, this exception does not apply to them and confusion reverses their movement as usual. (This ironically means that confusing a Black Bat while having a Ring of Luck is dangerous, since a Black Bat right next to Dove may randomly choose to move away from her, which is reversed by the confusion causing it to attack.)

Strategy[]

Since Dove's one and only goal is to reach the exit stairs, a map (or even just a compass) is very valuable to her. Since enemies will rarely ever die, Miner's Cap is tremendously helpful both in keeping enough space open to maneuver around enemy swarms and to reach the exit quickly. Dove should never remove her Ring of Peace, unless attempting to score run. The flower's confusion effect can make enemies lose aggro if it expires while they are sufficiently far away from the player. Since items that reveal enemies cause all ghosts on the floor to instantly aggro, they are generally risky.

Due to the lack of boss fights and the smaller shops, reliably finding certain items can be somewhat difficult. Even entering and exiting shops can prove very challenging for Dove if too many enemies are chasing her. Combined with the looming threat of instant death when the song ends, it's best for Dove not to linger for too long. Keep an eye out for spike, bomb, and fire traps as a means of indirectly killing enemies.

Trivia[]

  • Ring of War is still available to Dove, perhaps as an oversight.
  • Dove makes a moaning sound when she sees an enemy being blown up by an explosion, although the enemies teleport instead of dying.
    • Dove will also make a concerned sound if an enemy lands on a trap and is killed.
    • In two player, Dove will also make a concerned sound when her ally kills a monster.
      • This effect will still occur even if Dove is dead.
  • While taking a Shrine of Rhythm in 4-3 will normally complete the run, doing so in All Characters Mode appears to result in a crash.
  • Through Training mode, Dove is still able to access all boss fights, though the only one she is able to defeat is King Conga 4 by using her shovel or a Bomb to destroy King Conga's throne and then making sure both Goblin Bombers explode on both her and King Conga.
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