Hardest tainted characters?

[Eprico]

I'd go with Lazarus, Jacob and Lost, but which is the worst?

[Miles (Tails) Prower]

Lazarus indeed.

[WitchAmy]

Lazarus, Jacob are hard but it's because they're unfinished

Lost is difficult but I like him. He's fair enough for a challenge character

[kone]

Lazarus, Lost, Jacob

Lazarus only because it's hard to enjoy playing him when morale is so low playing with Caves builds past Womb. NO upsides.

Lost and Jacob have unique advantages and fun past the challenge.

[fromage_enrage]

I haven't tried Lazarus yet. Yikes. Sounds like a lot of fun.

[Marceloid]

Was Tainted Lazarus for me by far, they doubled down on the challenging parts of Jacob & Esau (Item Sharing, seperated Health, insta-Death if one half dies) and put them into this nice compact package, while taking away the few positives they had (e.g. more DPS when shooting as Duo)

Better pray that you get items that work indepently, as it is really difficult to gain some solid stats on both, just barely made it out of Boss Rush w/ Brim <-> Blue Candle, which is probably pretty optimal

[Amble]

Tainted Jacob tends to just become a bad OG Rebirth Lost on later floors, due to the inevitability of Esau dying. Which makes him worse than Tainted Lost and The Lost and thus easily my choice for hardest character.

Tainted Lazarus is hard and slow but can still be won easily if the game graces you with great RNG, whereas characters like Tainted Lost and Tainted Jacob are always in danger of dying at the drop of a hair and will usually require you to no hit the lengthy final bosses which makes them much harder than Lazarus imo.

[SoldierDelta]

Tainted Jacob and Laz are the only two I consider to be bad. Laz is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awful.
Every other one is creative or challenging fun. Hell, Tainted Lost is actually really fun, albeit challenging as ♥♥♥♥.

[Origi]

Tainted Jacob

[Eprico]

Originally posted by SoldierDelta:

Tainted Jacob and Laz are the only two I consider to be bad. Laz is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awful.
Every other one is creative or challenging fun. Hell, Tainted Lost is actually really fun, albeit challenging as ♥♥♥♥.

I feel like they're both the worst for different reasons. Jacob is very mechanically challenging and mentally exhausting to play whilst Lazarus is just a constant slow boring drag to get through.

[Elsuya]

Originally posted by Blind, the Bound Demon:

Lazarus, Jacob are hard but it's because they're unfinished :dip:

Lost is difficult but I like him. He's fair enough for a challenge character

How are they unfinished if I may ask?

[Narga95]

Tainted lazarus is balanced, but horribly coded. Most items don't exactly work like intended, greed mode has some issues with him switching that makes him lose active items in the same room, and the last fight before ultra greed doesn't make him switch since it doesn't count as a room. So I would say it's not him.

So now remain tainted lost and tainted jacob.

Tainted lost doesn't work like intended right now, and the mantle nerf sucks so much. Finding items like yuck heart, or beans, and not a single good items in most runs it's possible, and even if you have skills a random brimstone attack will just kill both the mantle and you. I completed everything except mega satan (for horrible luck, 3 times I lost against the wave with super greed, lust, pride, and gluttony even with psy fly) and delirium, and I never never ever found one of the items that scale with luck like the ones that create flames, it's insane. Once they fix him it shouls be eh.

Tainted jacob now it's just either use glitch or find dead cat/mantle and stuff.
He's probably the ones which playstyle it's the worst. So him.

[WitchAmy]

Originally posted by Elsuya:

Originally posted by Blind, the Bound Demon:

Lazarus, Jacob are hard but it's because they're unfinished

Lost is difficult but I like him. He's fair enough for a challenge character

How are they unfinished if I may ask?

Tainted Lazarus was confirmed by Kilburn on Isaac Discord, that he's unfinished.

And Jacob just feels like it needs a lot of improvements and balance

[Mewo]

Lazarus, Jacob and Lost feel horrible to play, those 3 are the last ones I need to finish and I'm sitting on a -19 streak right now

[alex]

Laz, Jacob, and Eden for me.

[Violeta]

Tainted jacob. If only he worked like how he does in red redemption. They could even nerf his red key to only have 1/3rd as much charge as the challenge version has.