Tips for Jacob+Esau?

[CMDR Shven]

I have almost 600 hours in this game and I consider myself pretty damn good at it but holy crap these two are just ruining me. Even bosses I can reliably beat without damage with any other character cost me 4+ hits, and bosses like Hush and Delirium that can't be instantly taken down with OP builds are proving impossible for me when they flood the screen. I just can't seem to work around having two separate hitboxes. Even when I just tried Hush and had both Red and Blue flame equipped and burned out a lot of the shots I still got tagged too often and died.

[orian34]

hold r and try to get good starts, stack damage on esau, libraries help a lot

[Sad Pug]

Give health ups to Esau, 4 hearts will be enough for him to get you through, rest you can stack him up on soul hearts.
If you will get health regen item, you're in good place. Stopwatch/broken modem also make it more managable.

[orian34]

Originally posted by Sad Pug:

Stopwatch/broken modem also make it more managable.

Important point if you're aiming for delirium, do NOT take any watch/slowdown effect for the fight, because it will destroy you. Broken modem is amazing though

[Dutczar]

Get some active items since they can effectively get them charged twice as fast. Holding R for a library is probably the easiest way, and can give 4 passively helping ones (Book of Sin, Revelation, Satanic Bible, and if used with blood donation machines/devil beggars Book of Shadows)

If you have a lot of spare bombs, they can put two for one and kill bosses easier.

Alt floors for double items, I guess. In practice, it's not that much since one of them is random, it's harder to plan who gets it, and it's only one extra item per floor. Angel Rooms do often give you multiple choices too however.

[BeTaFleXx]

All items on one char (expect maybe defensive items on the other)
Dont forget, when there is a choice pedestal, you can take both items at the same time, one for each char.

[CMDR Shven]

Ok so not to completely change the subject of my own topic, but I'm now on Delirium with these two and I have an apparently glitched dead cat which is allowing me to retry the fight endlessly, albeit with a single heart on both characters, and I'm genuinely wondering how this fight is meant to be won with the Lost. I've beaten Delirium with most of the characters already (I just got Afterbirth+ at the same time as Repentance so I'm experiencing both as new) but this is insane. I've lost count of the number of times he has warped off screen and then immediately killed me because he transformed into a boss with a brimstone attack and I couldn't see it coming, or he just teleports directly into me. Or one particular projectile among the entire screen of 20+ projectiles decides to be an explosive shot and the splash damage kills me. It's easy enough to brush off those moments when you've got 6+ hearts but if you're playing as a character who dies in a single hit. . . I'm able to replay it over and over and I'm still getting killed unfairly, I can't imagine trying to do entire 30 minute runs with the Lost and getting to Delirium only to be killed within 5 seconds because he cheats.

Good general advice so far though about Jacob and Esau though, thanks guys. I dumped everything on Esau and beat Hush this same run.

[Dutczar]

Originally posted by CMDR Shven:

Ok so not to completely change the subject of my own topic, but I'm now on Delirium with these two and I have an apparently glitched dead cat which is allowing me to retry the fight endlessly, albeit with a single heart on both characters, and I'm genuinely wondering how this fight is meant to be won with the Lost. I've beaten Delirium with most of the characters already (I just got Afterbirth+ at the same time as Repentance so I'm experiencing both as new) but this is insane. I've lost count of the number of times he has warped off screen and then immediately killed me because he transformed into a boss with a brimstone attack and I couldn't see it coming, or he just teleports directly into me. Or one particular projectile among the entire screen of 20+ projectiles decides to be an explosive shot and the splash damage kills me. It's easy enough to brush off those moments when you've got 6+ hearts but if you're playing as a character who dies in a single hit. . . I'm able to replay it over and over and I'm still getting killed unfairly, I can't imagine trying to do entire 30 minute runs with the Lost and getting to Delirium only to be killed within 5 seconds because he cheats.

Good general advice so far though about Jacob and Esau though, thanks guys. I dumped everything on Esau and beat Hush this same run.

You get lucky and get a broken build or combo, like how you deal with some of the other ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ this game throws at you, especially with some of the new, spoilery Repentance content.

The Ol' Reliable I used for some AB+ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like Ultra Greedier, Delirium or Keeper was Tarot Cloth + Algiz, which on runs with at least decent damage was enough to get you a free boss kill. Tarot Cloth used to work with runes, in this case giving you 60 seconds of invincibility, and was somewhat common being in the Shop and the relatively small Curse room pool. Alternatively Blank Card worked too, or grabbing two Algiz runes with Starter Deck.

If you had enough damage, even just an Algiz would do fine, with the exception of maybe Hush and his armor. For him however, I'm drowsy was almost a win because it butchered the range of his bullet hell.

This has since been nerfed in many ways, but Book of Shadows + 4.5 Volt exists, which is debatably even more busted and easier to come by (a library item, which is a pool with 15 items, often multiple choice, and which you can reset for floor 1, and a shop/charge beggar item, with around 1/8 chance in the latter)

This only really works for bosses however and you can still die on the way there. In fact, for the two new final bosses in Repentance, I think the lead-ups to the bosses are harder than the bosses themselves.

[Dark Bison]

For Delirium stack a ton of health and I mean a ton because it will be a huge pain-fighting him with J&E. He's doable with low damage however not much you can do to avoid a lot of his attacks. Also, alternate facing characters so you don't juice one character of health too fast.

https://youtu.be/73XIOswDgzo
my fight using J&E on Deli, took forever.

[orian34]

Yes, I'm drowsy is usually enough for all bosses... except delirium, because F that boss, and yes with the lost it's nonsense bull

[fix007]

Originally posted by orian34:

Originally posted by Sad Pug:

Stopwatch/broken modem also make it more managable.

Important point if you're aiming for delirium, do NOT take any watch/slowdown effect for the fight, because it will destroy you. Broken modem is amazing though

Hmm, that's not the case for me. I managed to kill Delirium pretty easily with broken stopwatch and its slowdown effect.