Tip: Do Mega Satan unlocks for Tainted characters

[Omertoso]

Many of the things unlocked by defeating Mega Satan as Tainted characters help out a lot in subsequent runs:

- Mega chest from Tainted Isaac
- Black sack from Tainted Judas
- Horse pills from Tainted Eve
- Crane game from Tainted Samson
- Confessional from Tainted Bethany

There's also wooden chest from Tainted Lazarus and golden trinkets from Tainted Jacob, but those characters can be pretty rough to unlock anything with. The above five are simple, at least relatively.

Just saved a Jacob & Esau run by getting Mutant Spider and Tech X from a Crane game in the Womb.

EDIT: and now I got two items from a mega chest. ♥♥♥♥ yeah

[orian34]

Tainted lilith and blue baby give out free of charge bonuses too, dirty mind poops is great, as well as additional money from the coin rocks.

The devil beggar game from azazel is likely good, but I need to unlock it first.

Finally forgotten unlocks the golden battery, which begs to break the game with any decent active item

[Omertoso]

Yes. Fool's gold and charmed poop are still beneficial, even if it's just a small benefit.

I wish I could give an opinion for the hell game and golden batteries, but I've yet to encounter them in my runs. I worry about the damage from the batteries, though... Can it really be game breaking when taking that to account + it moving to a random room in the floor?

The only Mega Satan unlock that's iffy is Tainted Lost's. it's basically just an another mimic chest with no pluses. Luckily (or not?) it's behind the hardest character in the game, so it's nothing to fret over.

All the other characters give benefits, though. Very much recommended to clear Mega Satan with all of them (except Tainted Lost), but the five I listed I've found to be most useful so far.

[orian34]

Originally posted by Foreigner:

Can it really be game breaking when taking that to account + it moving to a random room in the floor?

I forgot to mention the strongest mega satan unlock: golden penny. Pennies are the most frequent pickup to drop, which means you will encounter them very frequently(I'd say around 80% at least 1 per run) and they can give out a lot, often around 7-12 penny. They're only bad for boss rush, but whatever.
Wildcard is a good gamebreaker too, thanks to stuff like diplopia or chaos card, or even alabaster box! The potential is unlimited.

For the golden battery, trust me, it is amazing. You often have leftover red hearts in levels anyway, and it can give you so much charges from a bit. It also needs to go through shields, so holy mantle means you broke the game.

Even something as simple as car battery+any health generation becomes infinite and increasing

[Narga95]

I mean it's still all RNG in the end for most of these things, they don't help that much.

• Mega chests: only found 3 so far, managed to open only one since they required more than 5 keys and it was just useless drops like some pennies and bombs that didn't help at all.
  
• Horse pills: yeah...speed down...luck down...wohoo....
  
• Crane game: encountered 6 so far, mostly garbage active items. BUT in one of them there was the dice that you unlock with tainted Isaac, and there was a blood bank in the same room so...yeah free brimstone. Pretty great but giving 30 pennies for one item isn't a fair trade most of the time, probably the better one so far but too rng.
  
• Confessionals: only good with old bandage/gimpy and some heart containers, the best thing about it it's that it can remove broken hearts but items that give them aren't that great and I won't use them if there isn't a confessional in the same floor (so basically never). Not bad but not great.
  
• Golden batteries: when I found one I never had an active item, or a good active item. Didn't do much except wasting me a bomb since I once found it in a secret room.
  
• Hell game: giving 12 heart containers for some keys and bombs? yeah no, never got the payout out of it, devil beggars are better and they suck so much in repentance.

In the end the only one I think it's a good unlock it's the crane game, it replaces the slot machines that nobody uses and they either do nothing, let you waste some money (like slot machines), or give you good items, so nothing negative and sometimes they can carry you.
Confessionals close second.
The ones I haven't mentioned I still haven't unlocked them.

[HeraldOfOpera]

Originally posted by Foreigner:

Yes. Fool's gold and charmed poop are still beneficial, even if it's just a small benefit.

I wish I could give an opinion for the hell game and golden batteries, but I've yet to encounter them in my runs. I worry about the damage from the batteries, though... Can it really be game breaking when taking that to account + it moving to a random room in the floor?

The only Mega Satan unlock that's iffy is Tainted Lost's. it's basically just an another mimic chest with no pluses. Luckily (or not?) it's behind the hardest character in the game, so it's nothing to fret over.

All the other characters give benefits, though. Very much recommended to clear Mega Satan with all of them (except Tainted Lost), but the five I listed I've found to be most useful so far.

I've seen people dodge the thrown chest successfully. So yeah, another sticky nickel situation where the gameplay is objectively worse once you unlock them but not quite as bad as that.

[orian34]

Originally posted by HeraldOfOpera:

I've seen people dodge the thrown chest successfully. So yeah, another sticky nickel situation where the gameplay is objectively worse once you unlock them but not quite as bad as that.

IN a way it can be useful for unreachable chests, and since the poltergeist will continue to pick up rocks, it can give out more stuff, so it's not a straight downgrade

[orian34]

Originally posted by Narga95:

the best thing about it it's that it can remove broken hearts but items that give them aren't that great and I won't use them if there isn't a confessional in the same floor (so basically never). Not bad but not great.

Magic skin is insanely good

[Narga95]

Originally posted by orian34:

Originally posted by Narga95:

the best thing about it it's that it can remove broken hearts but items that give them aren't that great and I won't use them if there isn't a confessional in the same floor (so basically never). Not bad but not great.

Magic skin is insanely good

I don't know, didn't experiment much with it.
Since in repentance it's both harder to get a good amount of health and good items, it's way more probable that you would just find some bad items while losing some heart cointainers.
Too much of a risky item to actually use in my book, it would be only safe to use if you had some good items, but if you have some good items why risk it?
You can always say that you can use it exclusively in angel and devil rooms, but then you get stuff like guardian angel or brother bobby.

[orian34]

Originally posted by Narga95:

Originally posted by orian34:

Magic skin is insanely good

I don't know, didn't experiment much with it.
Since in repentance it's both harder to get a good amount of health and good items, it's way more probable that you would just find some bad items while losing some heart cointainers.
Too much of a risky item to actually use in my book, it would be only safe to use if you had some good items, but if you have some good items why risk it?
You can always say that you can use it exclusively in angel and devil rooms, but then you get stuff like guardian angel or brother bobby.

You get 1 item per heart (or 2 soul hearts), the value is amazing, and I used it 5 times in a run and was unkillable after that. Secret rooms and angel deals are amazing.

PS: guardian angel is a great item, wym

[Narga95]

Originally posted by orian34:

Originally posted by Narga95:

I don't know, didn't experiment much with it.
Since in repentance it's both harder to get a good amount of health and good items, it's way more probable that you would just find some bad items while losing some heart cointainers.
Too much of a risky item to actually use in my book, it would be only safe to use if you had some good items, but if you have some good items why risk it?
You can always say that you can use it exclusively in angel and devil rooms, but then you get stuff like guardian angel or brother bobby.

You get 1 item per heart (or 2 soul hearts), the value is amazing, and I used it 5 times in a run and was unkillable after that. Secret rooms and angel deals are amazing.

PS: guardian angel is a great item, wym

Getting an item for an heart or two souls hearts is basically like getting a blind devil deal item, which can be great or suck, so RNG dependant. If you're lucky you will obviously get good items and just oneshot everything, but if you aren't? High risk high rewards items aren't my playstyle if they're RNG since the outcome can be bad and taking some more hits can be the difference between winning or losing against a telefragging delirium.

Guardian angel is not bad, but it's not worth an heart.

[K1]

my mega chest cost 3 keys & had 2 item pedistals in it, so they can be very nice.

[Omertoso]

Using high risk high reward strategies, items and what not really depends on your current situation. If you're already rolling through everything, there's no sense in uhhh hell games or whatever. But sometimes you get those runs where you aren't getting enough from the easiest places - that is, treasure rooms, shops, boss rooms, the usual. If you're aiming for a tough end-boss like Delirium you're unsure if you can defeat, all the more reason to consider these alternative sources to strengthen your character.

After that decision, it comes down to your current resources. Do you have pennies for crane games or beggars? Do you have health for devil beggars or confessionals? Do you have health and time for hell game? Keys for mega chests? Can you get any of these from the current floor?

Yes, you may lose resources and time if your luck (not the stat) is bad enough, but you may also benefit greatly. Generally, in my runs, even if I get something bad from a horse pill it won't make the whole run crash and burn (even less so for crane games or whatever else); there are still multitudes of ways to deal with the new situation. And unlocking these new nifty things heightens the chance of coming back from a stroke of bad luck.

And it's a great feeling when you've put all the work to heighten the chances for defeating an end-boss and you succeed. Sure, I got that Mutant Spider + Tech X combo in my Jacob & Esau run, but it still wasn't a walk in the park. But damn if doing that + a lot more and ending up with a Mega Satan + Delirium win didn't feel good.

[Narga95]

Originally posted by Foreigner:

Using high risk high reward strategies, items and what not really depends on your current situation. If you're already rolling through everything, there's no sense in uhhh hell games or whatever. But sometimes you get those runs where you aren't getting enough from the easiest places - that is, treasure rooms, shops, boss rooms, the usual. If you're aiming for a tough end-boss like Delirium you're unsure if you can defeat, all the more reason to consider these alternative sources to strengthen your character.

After that decision, it comes down to your current resources. Do you have pennies for crane games or beggars? Do you have health for devil beggars or confessionals? Do you have health and time for hell game? Keys for mega chests? Can you get any of these from the current floor?

Yes, you may lose resources and time if your luck (not the stat) is bad enough, but you may also benefit greatly. Generally, in my runs, even if I get something bad from a horse pill it won't make the whole run crash and burn (even less so for crane games or whatever else); there are still multitudes of ways to deal with the new situation. And unlocking these new nifty things heightens the chance of coming back from a stroke of bad luck.

And it's a great feeling when you've put all the work to heighten the chances for defeating an end-boss and you succeed. Sure, I got that Mutant Spider + Tech X combo in my Jacob & Esau run, but it still wasn't a walk in the park. But damn if doing that + a lot more and ending up with a Mega Satan + Delirium win didn't feel good.

Sure, every choice depends on your current situation, but I already said when I would choose to use magic skin so I guess that was implicit. The alternative sources of strenght when your situation is dire is more probable that they will not help you enough anyway, since both in a good run or a bad run you still have the same chances to find items that aren't that helpful.

Yeah it's obvious that it comes all to resources...but if you have enough pennies for a crane game that has D7 would you spend it there? Would you use your health for devil beggars and confessionals when devil beggars and confessionals ask for 10 heart containers for one item that can be loki's horn, or to break giving 2 keys and 2 pennies?
Do you have health to give to a devil beggar for 6 more bombs, keys, and pennies? Keys for a mega chest to get the keys back just with some bombs and pennies?
They're still going to help you one run every 10 you try.

If you think horse pills never ruined your run you never got health down or speed down from them, and let me tell you, having less than 0.80 speed or 1 health with bad stats can make you easily lose a run.

The better feeling is to just make good safe decision and winning fights like delirium with skills, not doing 9 runs with risky choices and winning one because you got lucky with those choices. If you want to just win you should ditch every possible risk unless it won't destroy your run, it's obvious that if you have old bandage and a lot of heart containers you can do a hell game, or if you have 99 coins you can do the crane games, and if you have PHD horse pills are good...but that's situational and otherwise you're just asking for troubles.

[Catpuppy]

I've gotten so many good items out of Crane Games it's actually insane.

[orian34]

Originally posted by Catpuppy:

I've gotten so many good items out of Crane Games it's actually insane.

Yes, it has tech x, spindown dice, slow bite, stopwatch and more. It's amazing.

Also, the confessional's main use is to obtain soul hearts