J&E mother delirium

[GhoGli]

I was struck by the fact that there are more players who have killed Delirium with Jacob and Esau than players who have killed Mother, why is this? delirium seems to me infinitely more horrible to face than mother

[LycorisIceCream]

Probably because of the knife piece puzzles needed to reach Mother, Mother as a boss is less hard then Delirium but the path to reach her is tedious thanks to needing to lost-ify for the first knife piece and deal with the itemless chase sequence for the second knife piece

[squat_instructor]

I think it's because Delirium route is simply more items given you can full clear Chest and Void + with Mother route you gotta go through Cathedral & Corpse which are probably the most difficult stages and worse than the Mother fight itself (especially with J&E)

[burn1none]

Well realistically you may get a Delerium portal while doing a bunch of check marks whereas you have to go a very specific route to get the key pieces

[The Noise]

Wait hang on a moment, how is that even possible

You have to beat Mother to unlock Jacob and Esau in the first place.

what

[JellyPuff]

While you can abuse double-items on the alt-path, it is still generally much more difficult. Many room-layouts there are just bs, when you play as J&E, especially with faster enemies/bullets on hard.

And getting all the way to Deli gives you plenty more opportunities to become strong enough, that J&E's gimmick becomes trivial or even a plus (e.g. dumping tears-ups, if capped or non-stacking DMG multipliers on the other guy).

Originally posted by Sundowner:

Wait hang on a moment, how is that even possible
You have to beat Mother to unlock Jacob and Esau in the first place.

OP's comparing the achievements for "Kill Mother as J&E" and "Kill Delirium as J&E", not the one for killing Mother for the first time.

[AlluMan96]

Part of it might be convenience, honestly. At the end of the day, Chest and Dark Room are still the most common end-points to reach in any given Isaac run and Delirium can be engaged at many opportunities during that route. If your run is good anyway and the Delirium portal shows up, it's sort of a "Why Not?" situation. Even for those that aren't specifically going to be doing 100%, sometimes you just get a broken run and you wanna style on the game by doing Delirium, just to put that cherry on top and while it is more difficult with J&E, it is not impossible to happen.

On the flipside, Other Mother is tied to the alt route, which not only demands a generally harder run on the whole, but also railroads you to only playing that route. You don't just passively get the opportunity to fight her like with Delirium, this is a commitment you're going out of your way to achieve. This pretty much means that no one except those specifically looking to 100% the game will even attempt the challenge most likely unless they really are a fan of J&E.

All in all, it's just inconvenient and off the road most traveled, which I think limits how much people end up going for it.

[hci7t5r98t97yp0uo0gi8d56]

Originally posted by GhoGli:

I was struck by the fact that there are more players who have killed Delirium with Jacob and Esau than players who have killed Mother, why is this? delirium seems to me infinitely more horrible to face than mother

People seem to forget or want to forget that you can unlock achievemnts with debug console directly or just give yourself op item. Rerolling first treasure room on floor to get planetarium is an option too. Overpowered mods, wanting to unlock everything from start like players with new steam accounts or just losing hundreds runs until you win cause broken items. I usually do an achievemnt in 1-3 runs even on "hard" ("hard" so those I practicually don't like, don't feel good playing) characters which is very good. You need to know how to utilize every room and every obstacle do it maxium. Know how game mechanics work, seed generation, stats and synergies. Without that you are in big disatvantage.

[eltiolavara9 (Neutral)]

you can do delirium after the chest, that's pretty much it
a bunch of people probably just got an op run as them during the chest and the void portal spawned