Quick question regarding Dark Bum and deals with the devil

[CGoody564]

Let's say I'm at 3 red heart containers with Isaac. After defeating the first boss and gaining access to a devil room, one of the options is to purchase the Dark Bum (gives soul hearts, or spiders for every 1 and 1/2 red hearts he picks up) for a single heart container.

Is it worth it? Is the Dark Bum a decent thing to have, or should I hold on to that single heart container so I still have 3? I can't decide what would be better.

[January 2035]

Dark bum's pretty much always worth getting! Especially when you have few heart containers.

[GreenieM237]

I always take the dark bum,you pay a red heart and you get a lot of soul hearts--worth it

[CGoody564]

Thanks for the input. It seemed dumb at first to waste a red heart to only get temporary ones, but I didn't think about the fact that you can get more soul hearts, even if they cost 1.5 red ones.

[January 2035]

They're not really any more temporary than regular hearts, they're just hearts that don't need containers.

You're basically swapping dependency on heart containers for a slightly slower rate of getting hearts (with extra benefits like devil deals being more-worth taking and challenge rooms being easier to enter and dark bum can fly to gather hearts)

[Huiléole (FR)]

Not only you can pickup more hearts with him (supposed you don't have 8+ hearts containers), but also you don't need to waste time in blood machines and you can take devil deals without trouble as red heart containers are less important when you have dark bum.
The only bad side is when you have a lot of red heart containers, as there is a 12 hearts cap in Rebirth and when you get trouble at low health (1.5 hearts better than only 1, so you will have to run to the hearts before he pick them up).