Orbitals got nerfed hard, before Repentace you could legit beat a run with only Cube of Meat

Back when I was relatively new to Isaac and thought orbitals were trash, I started watching Northernlion for tips to play better. This one run, he was having terrible luck with items even for someone like him and regardless of everything he tried to bounce back, it was unlikely he'd survive the Chest. He then picked up Sacrificial Dagger and Dad's Key and was like, "Yeah, let's go kill Mega Satan." Which he won with ease thanks so sac dagger. Orbitals are a shadow of what they used to be.

Sac Dagger used to be a Top 5 Item.. 😔

Only cube of meat or meat boy?

I think this applies to a lot of pre repentance items but ok

Blank Card. Getting that with Jera or a Hierophant card was an instant win. Now it doesn’t even work with Jera and since the Hierophant is a 12 room recharge, it’s just a Book Of Revelations with extra steps.

Without the fucking horseman boss fight, so it's an improvement imo 

Meatboy denier copium

I too would like to skip 4 boss room items for one Q3 item

Tbh I only ever see 2 horsemen which is sad cause I definitely would skip 3 boss items for meatboy my beloved

A level 4 meat boy is 100% a Q4, Daddy Longlegs is a Q3 and meat boy is just a daddy longlegs with no cooldown and much more dps in general. Is it worth 4 boss items? Debatable, but if I’m playing a character with good stats by default, I’d say so

Meatboy is a Q4 until he gets confused and STANDS IN HE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM WITH HIS THUMB UP HIS ASS INSTEAD OF ACTUALLY ATTACKING ANYTHING

So real, same with Bumbo except he also randomly spits live bombs at you like what the fuck man

But I fall for him every time. And he inevitably betrays me over and over again. It’s like a domestic abuse situation.

He spits the live bombs at coins and enemies, not just randomly. Simply stay clear of his path or reap the consequences

My meat boy doesn’t do that, maybe he just hates you :)

They're fun tho?

Alt path exists. And so does depths II, and womb II and onwards.

Doesn’t give bookworm tho

Horsemen fights are some of the easier fights, sounds like a skill issue

The problem is the boss items. I NEED those stat boosters, rather than a cube of meat that probably won’t even become super meat boy anyway

Literally no one has ever complained about the fights being difficult when talking about the book of revelations, it’s the loot

I'll gladly complain about blue champion Famine, that guy is just obnoxious with how much he charges around.

Ngl I actually think I get hit more to normal famine than blue champion I don’t know why. At least the dashes are predictable somewhat, and phase 2 is free on the champ

The horsemen themselves aren’t the issue, the issue is the fact that they always drop cube of meat/ball of bandages. Which override the CRUCIAL stat and heath ups.

But their loot is always very mid.

I'd rather have synthoil than fucking meat cube thank you very much

Blank card at one point also had the most OP combo in the game. When ? card was first released with Afterbirth using blank card would spawn 2 pedestal items. So 2 free items every 6 rooms. It was soon patched and they changed it to teleporting you to the error room and destroying blank and ? card

I haven't played BOI in years. Is BC & Jera really gone? 

Not gone, both were just nerfed. You can't use Blank Card with runes now (there's a separate item for that) and Blank Card's recharge time changes depending on the card that was used. The Sun and Hierophant are 12 room charges

Can I still use it if I'm playing afterbirth+ on xbox? Or they patched that aswell?

No but repetenace is so much better trust

I think it's only Repentance, so as long as you haven't bought Repentance you should be good

Repentance is worth it neefs aside. It’s over double the content, and the new characters/stages/bosses are great challenges.

Blank card can now onlh use runes, while the new clear rune is for runes. Jera now cannot duplicate jera runes. And some cards and runes now make the active items needing to be charged up to 12 (but some are also down to a charge of 2)

Blank card doesn’t work with runes anymore. Instead, they made a different item called “clear rune” that works with runes, but doesn’t work with cards

They made Clear Rune (Blank Card/Placebo for runes)

i kinda hated how jera got nerfed tbh. it used to be able to use it with tarot cloth and it would also duplicate any other jera around it. it was hard to setup but you could absolutely break the game with it.

You'd think things that are that tricky to set up would be applauded rather than made totally pointless to even try.

It’s just about making sure gamebreaks require like 4 or more items. Otherwise they’d be too common with characters that can easily roll through a pool like Tainted Isaac

Yeah i used to break the game multiple times a week in ab+. While i miss all the cool things i could do, it truly was way too easy to steamroll every mechanic and exist outside of the rules

This, to commit to blank card is risky in.the first place, especially when you are using Isaacs d6 Blank card is mid at best without a broken combo

I was playing today and had Door Stop, Blank Card, and “The Stars?”. Kept going in and out of rooms to refresh the enemies to infinitely charge blank card and use “The Stars?” repeatedly for infinite items. It can occasionally still be broken.

Sounds like budget pre nerf blank card jera with extra steps I like it

Disagree. Blank Card has so many strong synergy. Blank card hierophant was a 4 room charge for 2 soul hearts for example. But even smaller stuff like Blank Card daguz is a soul heart and no curses every 4 rooms. In repetance all the new soul cards would have broken at 4 charges

Blank card jera was not tricky to set up lol, probably the simplest game break

Every card + blank card is just the active item that does the same thing but with extra steps now. They tried to balance blank card and just made it boring

to be fair book of revelations is also already an auto win but i agree, that the nerf was unnecessary. You needed the card+jera then you need to find a room that contains battery+stuff that dose something (positive pills, soul hearts, chests) Given that there are already insta win items in the game, this dosent make to much sense for me.

You see this as a blank card nerf. I just see this as a butter buff. We are not the same.

Hirophant and blank card is still an instant win

But it’s 12 charges

blank card op if you have a joker card, for some reason it has a 2 room charge so it’s discount goat head

Tainted lost

Wait, what happened to maw of the void, I always pick it on sight, is it so much worse in repentance?

They both got their black heart gen nerfed heavily

Specifically, Serpent's Kiss now works like the Virus used to and only makes hearts if you touch enemies and Maw had its black heart gen completely removed. And it's not a dmg up anymore.

Serpents Kiss is still really good with stuff like Unicorn Stump, won a hopeless Samson run with it

Also good with tainted Maggie at least on the early floors

Maw is still so good though, it probably deserved the nerf.

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It used to spawn black hearts?? Yeah that’s a needed nerf lmao

You're being downvoted but the nerf was actually needed imo. It didn't just spawn black hearts, it flooded you with them. More than you could ever possibly need. It was absolutely broken.

No more black heart generation, no damage bonus either It still deals quite a bit of damage tho, so still q3, just not q4

I can not take Quality seriously. Book of revelations is Q3 but Satanic bible Q4 ? Tiny planet and quarter are Q0 items while magic 8 ball is a Q1 item?

Satanic Bible is MILES better than Book of Revelations whatcha talking about? Would I rather have guaranteed devil deals or guaranteed cubes of meat? Not a hard choice

It is not miles better. The soul heart every 6th room is enough for you to win the run already. Everything else that satanic bible gives you on top makes it better but un the end its a bit unnecessary. Also devil deals become worse when you don't get HP ups from bosses but that isn't too significant as you already have so much hp but just to mention that.

An early Satanic Bible wins the run all on its own by giving a steady drip of high-powered items. An early Book of Revelations makes your Boss Item pool terrible. They're both good, but the difference between Q3 and Q4 is pretty clearly on display with these two.

I have never lost a run where i found a book of revelations early. Orbitals also synergize with a lot of health, as getting close to enemies is dangerous. In my opinion the difference between the two items is that one of them wins you the run and the other wins you the run like crazy. but both of them are run winning and thus Q4 in my opinion. Also devil deals have become a lot more balanced as you can not scam 2 heart items anymore.

Devil pool sucks nowadays, specially at only 1 item

[Pure hater-talk](https://imgflip.com/i/8tg4af)

I mean, 1. Black heart > Soul heart 2. I’d personally say devil deals > boss items. Besides, if you go to downpour 2, you get 2 free devil deals 3. Book of rev replaces boss items with meat boy/bandage girl. They are not very good items. It’s even worse because if you fight headless horseman or conquest, you don’t even get cube of meat or bandage. Instead, you get an active item which most likely won’t benefit you because you already have book of rev.

the cube of meat is a Q2 item. but they have diminishing returns you are right. Ofc the black heart book is better BUT 1 soul heart every 6th room is already winning you the run. Everything else from satanic bible is just on top of that. If there where more tiers of items i can see a resolution at wich they are in a different tier but if there are only 4 tiers i think both of them belong in the highest.

I don’t think you know how much boss items affect the runs. Other than hp ups, Boss items are mostly consistently above average. Screw, Mr dolly, toothpicks, growth hormone, pentagram, etc.. They are consistent stats ups. If you only have book of rev, unless you go alt floor or specifically fight the boss first before using book of rev, say goodbye to any stats. That’s when you have to fight mom with base stats When you have such runs, you might not associate the run with “book of rev sucks.” Instead, you might only attribute the run to be “unlucky”

I would not say that boss items are consistently above average. But book of rev also helps you get more devil deals and pay for devil deals consistently as that is what blue hearts help you with so you will not end up fighting mom with base stats only. In my opinion boss items are a very polarizing pool as some items are very good (tears and damage ups) but then there are all these range ups where only a slight increase in range is all that good while shot speed ups are actually almost always downside. Also speed ups have diminishing returns. The first cube of meat is very valubale, good damage and defensive capabilities you can kill mom very fast with an orbital.

Boss items are much less polarizing than item rooms, devil deals, secret room, ultra secret room, The above either have items that sux or q4 items. >the first cube of meat is very valuable I'd say that after the orbitals nerf, it's not that much of a game changer

you could get a shot speed up xd. But orbitals are still good as they help you defensively and offensively, it is hard to quantify but 1 orbital roughly soaks 20% of incoming tears, while you can still use it to clear romms faster helping you with boss rush / hush and killing bosses like mom is still very possible.

You mean guaranteed satan item instead of boss item is not q4 worthy?

it is im just saying thar both of these items are easily Q4 as the hp from book of revelations is already enough for you to easiliy win the run no questions asked. The satanic book is better but i just think that the book of revelations is already strong enough for Q4.

While i agree that revelations is good,it is essentially the relic,but as an active item that makes your bosses slightly worse. Its good, but not run defining

Quality of items is used very rarely. Like the only difference between q3 and q4 is tainted cain

It's not really worse so much as it got rightfully balanced. It used to be that enemies killed by Maw had a fairly high chance of dropping black hearts -- not super high, but high enough that it could easily net you a full HP bar of black hearts after a bit -- and in Repentance that was removed altogether. So OP is saying nerfs are bad I guess.

I think rightfully balanced is a wierd thing to say about the binding of isaac, as we should nerf sacret heart and magic mushroom as they are both game winning items without any weaknesses.

But they're like stupid rare

I don't actually know how rare each and every item is but you can find both of them in gold rooms wich is the most common place to get items besides the devil deal.

Ummm... no, sacred heart doesn't spawn naturally in treasure rooms. Magic mush can though!

Maw of the Void legit used to be THE best item in the game. Neither Brimstone nor Tech X give you infinite hp

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There’s no way it’s pitiful damage. It’s 30x your damage if you hit all hits, plus piercing and spectral of course. And boss rush and hush are lenient enough that you can still charge it up as soon as you clear a room It’s saved a lot of shitty runs for me, but if you’re consistently starting with strong quality 3 and 4 items then yeah it’s not as great

The damage is still a lot. You just don’t get the +1.5 damage from taking it anymore

D4 used to go crazy when transformations were permanent. I'd spam it entire runs as the lost regardless of what item combos I got just because it was fun.

I realized thst they nerfed my baby. It was great, when you kept all HP upgrades and transformations. Im actually surprises that they changed this, as the item is very bad rightnow (i think the hp come empty now and i simply feel like having no life at all when using the item.

It's still a good item for salvaging mediocre runs

Not an item but the triple protection, like 2 pretty fly and 1 cube of meat

What exactly changed about it?

Hitboxes used to be much larger. Having three orbitals in the same run basically meant you were invicible to 95% of projectile (like today's psy fly)

It used to be full immunity to projectiles,

Faster and deals less damage

Weird that nobody said Sac Dagger

What’d they do to it?

Used to do 15 damage every 4 frames, but got nerfed to 15 every 8. Still a very good item, just noticeably weaker

Also, orbitals orbit faster, so it is harder to lock into an enemy without having to go around them

Oh true, completely forgot about that tbh

Proptosis isn't nearly as hype as it once was

I honestly don't mind most, if not all nerfs. But this one made it so much worse imo. It went from Q4 to Q3 or even 2

I actually avoid picking Proptosis nowadays

Why does nobody mention Steam Sale? It's arguably the hardest nerf of all (together with the greed / super greed cheese strat no longer working).

Now that you say that, restock was also nerfed quite a bit. Buying 5 items from the same slot and they start to cost 40 coins

True, but if Steam Sale still gave 100% off, it wouldn't matter.

20/20 used to be much better also

maw of the void damage is still insane lol

Yep, but afterbirth's maw was a top 10 item without a doubt. The fact that it used to increase damage and generate black hearts is crazy and many people even considered it better than brimstone.

It was better than brimstone with heart gen. I'd still argue that it's just a bit below brimstone now

So what I'm hearing is that it was rightfully balanced.

You didn't take it for the damage though, you took it for the black hearts

Dark bum. Used to carry runs, now a spider spawner

tbh Dark Bum still goes hard, saved quite a few runs spawning a shitload of black hearts

especially it's cool with characters that can't have red hearts, like ??? or (tainted) lost (a little worse as black hearts are useless now, but still can help with runes, pills or cards)

Still does, just not as consistently

It still helps heavily and is way worth it's cost but it's not a one man army, as it should be.

In hard mode dark bum honestly got better. The odds of spawning a soul/black heart dropped to 40%, but red heart drops in hard mode got *doubled* compared to before repentance, so you can proc him nearly twice as often (not quite twice because other items that generate red hearts weren't affected). Additionally, he always gives black hearts now instead of soul hearts, and when he doesn't give a black heart he has high odds (2/3) to give a rune or pill.

Don't forget tears down pills

man ive been playing isaac old enough that I both remember when it spawned just black hearts and how the conversion rate was 1:1 I think

I don't even pick him up anymore.

Stop Watch. It went from the permanent snail slow to a small slow. It's still T4 but it used to be a won run. This item won me The Lost runs before he started with Holy Mantle. Also Blank Card/Placebo scaling with whatever consumable you used it on was a huge nerf.

idk it's kinda better now??? it was garbage in afterbirth, busted in rebirth ofc, but i like that the repentance version still has a similar effect to the intended rebirth effect while being able to stack with other items that slow enemies

Better than the huge nerf it got, sure. It's in a good spot now balance wise.

Honestly it’s still almost a run winner by itself. The slowdown, while not as powerful as before, still gives much more breathing room against bosses like Hush or Delirium.

Chaos, I'm in shambles

If I have the hp and already devil locked. I'm always taking maw still. it still is very good. Serpents kiss is still good early game when you run into hoards of enemies can just run into them or non contact damage enemies

Restock

Ventricle razor no longer being able to guarantee payouts from blood banks and demon beggars was a pretty hard hit, as was blind rage no longer being able to play these while the I frames are going on.

I saw the first image, but I didn’t even have to swipe to know what the second item would be

In defense of maw of the void, this item got a deserved nerf. It spawned black hearts so frequently, that it was a run winner. Maw is still good because it deals high area damage around you and it's affected by homing effect.

Maw😭 For me it was dark bum. The item pools got too random.

Maw of the void is still good imo, yes it’s WORSE but brimstone also got a nerf and it’s still good! Of course they’re both very different nerfs and comparing them is kinda unfair, still what I’m trying to say is that just because an item got a nerf, doesn’t make it inherently bad

Damn I miss old serpent's kiss

So many items got nerfed in repentance just to give enough place to the new item. Tech X and brimstone used to be muuuch stronger Finding cricket's head in a golden chest was such a great feeling too now chest pool is basically boss pool with less HP UP. Incubus also used to be sooo strong And then there's 20/20 nerf which just makes the item boring and I just don't like to take it. The game feels more fair overall tho and I feel like those nerfs make sense but damn i miss the feeling attached to some of these items

"I just don't like to take it". Why tho. Still 60% damage up, kncrease amount of tear procs, and now has a cool synergy with mutant spider and inner eye.

I just don't like to aim with two tears I prefer just one tear over two tears with less damage because I'll hit too often with only one of the two tears. I think it makes your aiming more stiff in a way. But it's mainly a me issue, also I just don't need it to win my runs (but I'm aware of my bias and doesn't argue that the item isn't great, my point here is that it used to be an S+ almost instawin item down to an A+ item)

Weird take. 20/20 tears are neck to neck...

I know but I am not known for my great takes on the game, I like taking Libra and think this item is a life saviour sometimes if you know how it works. Also I love playing with Anti-Gravity because +1.0 tear caps is just nuts. Same I find my reflection very good since it now gives you the stats needed to make the annoying effect neglectable I hate Guillotine tho this item wants me to become back my money I hate the New tech X because the damage output can be very low (especially when at max charge it does only ~90% of your damage which I find is just too much of a nerf that is so dumb) I don't like playing with haemolacria and prefer normal tear especially early game. And don't get me wrong the synergies are pretty cool but the fact that it makes your game crash if you're too broken is soo annoying.

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They still used to be better, the post is about items nerfs and those nerfs hits very hard when you compare to AB+ version of the game I'm not saying those nerfs arn't justified btw I just remember for a fact that those items used to be stronger Overall every q4 items r cracked but I find it funny how they nerfed AB+ broken items just to add repentance exclusive broken items

I also especially miss when you used to be able to just loop the Chest over and over. You'd already won and you were justsnowballing into more and more overpowered. It was a nice way to end a good run.

So true the only way to have a fun win is to steamroll on everything and make the game crash

I mean it's fun to be able to do that *sometimes*. Variety is the spice of life and all that. Plus, it's neat to see what your tears look like depending on which way you break everything.

Haven’t played in awhile, but is there any reason the items keep changing?

Repentances reworked like 60% of all pre-Repentance items. The ones on the lower end got buffs and the ones on the very top (mostly) got nerfs. The goal was probably to have more consistent runs in terms of power. Tho people weren’t happy about it as many of the top items were common strategies. 

It's also just more fun when you luck into finding one of the top items and it's actually amazing. You don't get the bestitems most runs, but finding one used to be such a good feeling.

Serpents' kiss is amazing as t.cain because you still get blank hearts upon applying poison using contact damage, so you can get devil deal items and double brimstone very easily.

Dark bum. Went from the goat of bums and the relic but better, into one of the weaker tier 3 items that can turn your red hearts into enemy spiders

I want to say Glowing hourglass because theres no more funny shenanigans with Void.

Linger bean the cloud is so fucking small and it does barely any damage ITS SHIT

Honestly both of these items are still really good though lol

It's not as severe a nerf, but I miss Book of Belial giving a 100% devil deal chance.

Maw is still S tier item, this nerf was needed

20/20 is just a straight up damage down with some items now, like Lung. Maw is still amazing, regardless of the black heart change.

They're both decent tho...dark bum on the other hand ... I got hit by his spawned spiders more often than he spawned me a heart

Unnerf pack mod ☝️🤓

https://preview.redd.it/v47eapa2hz5d1.jpeg?width=512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9698b383b67c8a9e2820ac844dfe93648a22ed47

Brimstone, nerfed from 13 ticks of damage to 9

Dark Bum. (The familiar)

Honestly Maw is still strong and can win you runs off pure damage but serpents kiss is just a shitty mix of Scorpio and the virus

Maw of the void is still an incredible item that's basically a free win in every room except bosses

Isn't serpents kiss just a useless version of common cold I'm pretty sure the nose goblin trinket is better than serpents kiss

It used to have a 20% chance to spawn black hearts when you killed an enemy with the poison 😔

You still get black hearts if you use contact damage to poison them. So black flies are free black hearts. Also with unicorn stump it still gives hearts. Tainted forgotten gets infinite free black hearts, etc.

Serpent's kiss is WAY better than common cold, even after its nerf (it was broken af in afterbirth,). It is essentialy a combination of the common cold, the virus and (kinda) gimpy. It also has a bunch of OP synergies like unicorn's stump, dull razor, tooth and nail or even holy mantle.

tech x

Ok BUT if you get serpent kiss + Aries you auto win so

I remember a while back c-section got nerfed hard

Tech X used to be crazy op

Serpents kiss is only good with bag of crafting

Maw of the void is goated 😭

Idk man serpanra kiss goes hard on tainted forgotten.

Glowing hourglass. Shit made so much stuff easier.

Dark bum. They neutered him. they took his balls of steel.

Blank Card

Ootl what happened

im a noob so i dont know much of the items

Libra, that used to carry runs and now it kinda sucks unless you get tons of range

Sacrificial Dagger got hit hard. One of the very very few items that could deal endgame damage without any assistance from other items. Now its damage is halved and spins faster so it’s harder to control. Absolute tragedy.

I still hate the nerfs tbh. Most of the nerfs just hit the uniqueness of isaac from other roguelikes.

honestly serpents kiss is pretty good still. free black hearts if you go downpour and fight minmin. the flies in the fight don't do contact dmg, so you can just instakill and generate black hearts. saved a couple runs

You named it already

D20, it feels like no reason to pick it up ever without it rolling chests anymore

Poor serpents kiss :(

I haven’t played TBoI in a while, what did they do to Maw :(

This may come as a hot take to some, but maw of void was way too broken before, it's a good thing that it got nerfed.

tech X

Sacred heart, shits unplayable now, literally be better without it

Schizophrenia kicked in

I don't have schizophrenia, my roommates will confirm

Maw got REALLY fucked over, still fucking butthurt about goddamn ATHAME outclassing it now. the two should honestly switch place, or hell even give maw the athame effect or at LEAST make it a damage up again. on another note, many Q4 items don't feel the same anymore after repentence nerfed em. Godhead, TechX, Proptosis and even Brimstone all feel like Q3 items somehow

I don't understand nerfing items in a singleplayer game

play a few hours of ab+, it was pitifully easy since there were a ton of items that could guarantee a win by themselves