When life gives you lemons

[CaptainBear.Ψ]

Jesus Christ this challenge is impossible. No treasure rooms = no damage ups. No damage ups = 1 hour to kill mom. 1 hour to kill mom = dead. In all seriousness, I've tried countless times but all times I have not found a single damage up resulting in taking a really long time to kill some bosses. And I mean REALLY long time. Especially mom. I managed to get mom down to 1/4 of her health but that took 8 minutes (seriously) and by then, she whittled me down until I was a pulp. How do you even beat mom without any damage ups.

[kendal]

Just bad RNG, because you could still get some DMG + Tears Up froms bosses and Devil/Angel Rooms. I think i did beat this one on my first try. It's not hard as Family Guy and Cat Ate Your Tongue.

[CaptainBear.Ψ]

Yeah. I guess it just takes a little time for luck to show up in your favour. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to wait

[AutumnLeaf]

Devil deals are your friend, and you can always find the Small Rock by blowing up tinted rocks. If you're finding absolutely nothing, then you're just unlucky.

[CaptainBear.Ψ]

It's just that I've tried this challenge around 4 times and I have rarely gotten a damage up. The most damage up items I've gotten is 1 so far

[OttersR'Us]

The main draw of this challenge is that you start with an extraordinary setup for breaking activated items.

I remember getting Guppy's Head fairly early from a curse room on the 2nd or 3rd floor, and Krampus's Head on the 4th floor devil room. Along with The Battery from the shop, the last two floor bosses went down in no time.

Edit:
Obviously, 'find a good spacebar item' isn't really a strategy.
Failing that, I found grabbing the Candle or Red Candle solved several challenges for me when my tear stats were stagnant.

[Bansheebutt]

I found this to be one of the easier challenges honestly.

As long as you've got good hp, Nun's Habit + LM can deal pretty significant damage.
(You probably want to save that lemon party pill for mom btw)

[Solo Death]

You haven't done beans yet have you? You'll know hell when you do that one.

It just takes getting a lucky draw, and getting a decent first devil deal can be quite important. Eventually you'll either beat it through skill, or you'll get lucky and get the knife in a devil deal or something if you really can't beat it.

[Agi]

one word,brimstone.

[RocketPotatoL62]

i never seen someone mention when life gives you lemons be difficult,usualy people think of it as easy, with contrast of challenges like suicide king or solar system

[CaptainBear.Ψ]

Thnx guys. I got lucky just now :D. Yeah, I've attempted the beans challenge and holy moly what is that. You can only use bombs and the bean itself. NOW I see the contrast but still, I'm curious how you do that as well. BTW what does the red candle do and do you need to unlock it or is it an item that's been there since the beginning?

[Kaibun]

That's one of the easier ones, seriously, you just aren't doing it properly. You don't even have to keep Lemon Mishap.

Now Family Man and Suicide King, those are the true meaning of the word 'challenge'.

[Solo Death]

Am i the only one in the world who had no problem with family man? Everyone says it's one of the hardest challenge, and i did it on my first try. Imo beans and solar system are a THOUSAND times harder.

[CaptainBear.Ψ]

Don't you have to get to Isaac for Family Man and Mom's heart for solar system? Which in turn, solar system should be easier than family man right? Or is it the other way round?

[Solo Death]

Originally posted by CaptainBear.Ψ:

Don't you have to get to Isaac for Family Man and Mom's heart for solar system? Which in turn, solar system should be easier than family man right? Or is it the other way round?

That's right but they're ENTIRELY different challenges. Family man uses familiars that shoot tears as well as rotten baby, which if you get hive mind is basically a carry if you know how to dodge at all, where as solar system you have flying through transcendence, halo of flies, and the 2 attack flies. With family man you can attack in basically the same way as a normal run if you want, and have decent damage because of BFF. Solar system you have flying, and lord of the flies, but that's kinda it. Exploding enemies can just end you if you're not careful, enemies that spawn enemies can be a problem because you need to be really close, and Peep is a jerk in this challenge because his eyes can spawn on you.

In Solar System damage ups do nothing for you, where as in family man they help your rotten baby's fly out, and that makes quite a large difference if you get any damage ups at all tbh. Solar system makes a huge amount of items just completely useless as a result, unless you find guppy's head. Imo these things add up to make solar system more difficult.

[OttersR'Us]

Red Candle is a spacebar item you get from the shop if you've had at least 400 coins in your donation machine at once. Every 4 seconds, you can launch a flame out that deals damage to enemies it passes through.
If the flame does its full damage to an enemy, it hits about as hard as 35 tears from starting Isaac. This will clear enemies on the early floors with ease, and generally enough to carry you to Mom's Heart/It Lives on its own.

Since the damage from Red Candle and Candle never scale, and you can't shoot tears at the same time you're making flames, you'll rarely rely on them on real runs unless you're extraordinarily unlucky about damage and tear ups.