Borderlands 2 player spends over 800 hours beating it without taking a single hit, but another player swiped the achievement 10 hours earlier

pcgamer.com:

Twitch streamer and challenge runner HeyBlasty practiced for nine months and over 800 hours to beat Borderlands 2 without taking a single hit. But another player, Darksmoke11, managed to pull it off around 10 hours before HeyBlasty's successful run.

There's no rivalry between them, though. HeyBlasty inspired Darksmoke11 to attempt it in the first place, and he gave credit to him over on the Borderlands 2 Reddit. Who did it first seems moot when they both managed to do something people thought was impossible using slightly different methods.

HeyBlasty says he plans on explaining how he did it on his YouTube channel soon, but you can watch him fire the last few bullets into the final boss on X. The fight played out similarly for Darksmoke11's run on Twitch. Both of them planted themselves at a safe distance away from where the beast erupts out of the lava and sniped away its health bar.

HeyBlasty got it on his 112th attempt, after spending most of his time developing a safe route through the game, and Darksmoke11—working off of HeyBlasty's route—got it on his 13th. And each run took over 20 hours to complete.

Run #112: Borderlands 2826.8 Hours / 9 MonthsMy proudest achievement when it comes to routing. All my years of routing experience was put to test in this game and i managed to come on top.Another game thought to be impossible damageless/hitless has been taken down. pic.twitter.com/E13reMNe8bOctober 28, 2024

Speaking as someone who only played a few hours of Borderlands 2 and definitely took more than one hit, it looks like their strategies largely involved hiding behind rocks with a scoped weapon and letting Axton's turret do the rest of the work. HeyBlasty was more specific on Reddit, but I couldn't tell you what any of this means: «I used a combination of Axton's turret, Fastball, homing grenades, snipers, and a combination of Lady Fist and The Bee shield to melt some enemies and bosses.» Presumably, the ideal build is one that lets you clean up weak enemies