The Nail or Satanic Bible

[Steelz Cloud]

Which to take?

[LSDBunny]

Depends on preference. Satanic Bible gives you black hearts, which are preferable to soul hearts, and increases your chance for libraries. Taking three books in one run also transforms you to Bookworm.
The Nail on the other hand will also increase your damage and enable you to stomp rocks but also decrease your speed for the current room. Meaning, used right the Nail can help to find crawl spaces and get even more soul hearts through tinted rocks.
Satanic Bible is definitely the safer item but tactically used The Nail gives greater rewards.

[servertoni]

Nail, because you can crack rocks. Satanic Bible helps you in large rooms if you take damage. But who want's to take damage?
Cracking rocks allows you to get tinted rocks (small rock!) and routes to bombs, pennys and keys. Satanic Bible cant do that for you. Also walking over skulls gives you good stuff from time to time. Finding crawl spaces not to mention.

[burn1none]

Originally posted by Affenkombat:

Depends on preference. Satanic Bible gives you black hearts, which are preferable to soul hearts, and increases your chance for libraries. Taking three books in one run also transforms you to Bookworm.
The Nail on the other hand will also increase your damage and enable you to stomp rocks but also decrease your speed for the current room. Meaning, used right the Nail can help to find crawl spaces and get even more soul hearts through tinted rocks.
Satanic Bible is definitely the safer item but tactically used The Nail gives greater rewards.

Satanic Bible in no way increases your chance of a library unless you know something the wiki doesn't

personally I would take the Nail because you are able to crush rocks and get a damage boost when used

[LSDBunny]

Originally posted by burn1none:

Originally posted by Affenkombat:

Depends on preference. Satanic Bible gives you black hearts, which are preferable to soul hearts, and increases your chance for libraries. Taking three books in one run also transforms you to Bookworm.
The Nail on the other hand will also increase your damage and enable you to stomp rocks but also decrease your speed for the current room. Meaning, used right the Nail can help to find crawl spaces and get even more soul hearts through tinted rocks.
Satanic Bible is definitely the safer item but tactically used The Nail gives greater rewards.

Satanic Bible in no way increases your chance of a library unless you know something the wiki doesn't

personally I would take the Nail because you are able to crush rocks and get a damage boost when used

In the original all books increased the chance of library spawns. I so far assumed that carried over, I thought I even read something on it somewhere but I can't find anything right now :/

[burn1none]

Originally posted by Affenkombat:

Originally posted by burn1none:

Satanic Bible in no way increases your chance of a library unless you know something the wiki doesn't

personally I would take the Nail because you are able to crush rocks and get a damage boost when used

In the original all books increased the chance of library spawns. I so far assumed that carried over, I thought I even read something on it somewhere but I can't find anything right now :/

never played the original but yeah I read a few wikis for books and didnt see that mentioned anywhere so Im guessing it was scrapped

[Arghaab]

It depends on your number of bombs and the number of books you've already touched.

I would take the Satanic Bible for the increased chance at the bookworm transformation later on, but if I'm low on Bombs, I would consider The Nail.

Considering your playtime, both are probably game winning items, so it doesn't really matters.

PS : I too had the belief about the books increasing the chance of libraries. Don't know where it comes from.

[burn1none]

while I can corroborate your claim for the original Isaac I cant find any evidence that Libraries are influenced by picking up a book in this game

http://bindingofisaacrebirth.gamepedia.com/Library

[LSDBunny]

Originally posted by burn1none:

Originally posted by Affenkombat:

In the original all books increased the chance of library spawns. I so far assumed that carried over, I thought I even read something on it somewhere but I can't find anything right now :/

never played the original but yeah I read a few wikis for books and didnt see that mentioned anywhere so Im guessing it was scrapped

Not necesseraly. There are some spawning mechanics, that seem unknown by the fan base. For example I have a seed that will spawn a vault on the second floor but only, if you took Moms Key in the shop on the 1st floor. I'm guessing that the amounts of keys you have increase the chance of vaults to spawn, but I don't really know. (heres the seed, btw: 0C4B T7BW)

[burn1none]

Originally posted by Affenkombat:

Originally posted by burn1none:

never played the original but yeah I read a few wikis for books and didnt see that mentioned anywhere so Im guessing it was scrapped

Not necesseraly. There are some spawning mechanics, that seem unknown by the fan base. For example I have a seed that will spawn a vault on the second floor but only, if you took Moms Key in the shop on the 1st floor. I'm guessing that the amounts of keys you have increase the chance of vaults to spawn, but I don't really know. (heres the seed, btw: 0C4B T7BW)

regardless, it seems a bad idea to give advice with no proof to a new player about something that was in a completely different game. you may be right but I've never seen any evidence of it and I've played this game a lot.

[LSDBunny]

Originally posted by burn1none:

Originally posted by Affenkombat:

Not necesseraly. There are some spawning mechanics, that seem unknown by the fan base. For example I have a seed that will spawn a vault on the second floor but only, if you took Moms Key in the shop on the 1st floor. I'm guessing that the amounts of keys you have increase the chance of vaults to spawn, but I don't really know. (heres the seed, btw: 0C4B T7BW)

regardless, it seems a bad idea to give advice with no proof to a new player about something that was in a completely different game. you may be right but I've never seen any evidence of it and I've played this game a lot.

Well I was pretty sure I read it somewhere, but appearently not. I will provide a link if I find something.

[Steelz Cloud]

Originally posted by burn1none:

Originally posted by Affenkombat:

Not necesseraly. There are some spawning mechanics, that seem unknown by the fan base. For example I have a seed that will spawn a vault on the second floor but only, if you took Moms Key in the shop on the 1st floor. I'm guessing that the amounts of keys you have increase the chance of vaults to spawn, but I don't really know. (heres the seed, btw: 0C4B T7BW)

regardless, it seems a bad idea to give advice with no proof to a new player about something that was in a completely different game. you may be right but I've never seen any evidence of it and I've played this game a lot.

You called me a new player

*triggered*

[Jinn-Gon Qui]

The Nail is preferable during a boss fight. Satanic Bible is for the whole run, as you can use it after each six rooms with enemies you come across.

[Icedfate]

i always choose the Book of Satan, because black hearts.
I like to get rid of all my red containers and then use it to turn all 12 of my hearts black, even if i'm full of blue hearts, i'll keep using it until they all turn black.

that's just my preference. I'll take the nail if it's the only option but Satan always takes priority for me,

[burn1none]

Originally posted by Steelz Cloud:

Originally posted by burn1none:

regardless, it seems a bad idea to give advice with no proof to a new player about something that was in a completely different game. you may be right but I've never seen any evidence of it and I've played this game a lot.

You called me a new player

*triggered*

well... I mean it was kinda a new player question

[maDEMOman]

satanic bible cuz bookworm