A Genuine Guide On How To Play Tainted Jacob

This Is A Guide On How To Play As The New Repentance Character, 'Jacob', Also Known As The Deserter In His Achievement Name.

How To Unlock

Imma Be Quick With This, Cause This Might Be The Longest Part Of The Guide (Idk Tho)

1) Defeat Hush 3 Times To Unlock The Alt Path. You Have Very Likely Already Done This If You Have Played A Pre-Repentance Version Of The Game (Provided That Version Had The Afterbirth DLC).
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1777212268234768542/B6D5274B435193596817FF34B354683C7146BAB5/?imw=256&&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false
(A Secret Exit, The Achievement You Get From Completing This Step.|)

2) Defeat Mother, The Final Boss Of The Alt. Path. This Unlocks Both The New 'Home' Floor And Our Character(s?) Of Choice, Jacob & Esau.
2.1) To Defeat Mother, You Must First Reach Her. To Do This, First Pick Up The Knife Pieces.
2.1.1) In Downpour/Dross 2, You Must Find A White Fire, A Mirror And Your Treasure Room. Touch The White Fire (Do Not Panic, Turning You Into The Lost Is The Intended Use Of This Fire), Go Through The Mirror And Navigate Towards The Treasure Room. This Will Contain Knife Piece 1.
2.1.2) In Mines/Ashpit 2, Find 3 Yellow Buttons And A Mine Cart. Press All 3 Buttons, And Enter The Abandoned Mines. Follow The Path, Pick Up Knife Piece 2 AND RUN. You Will Be Pursued By Mother's Shadow, An Invincible Enemy With Very Similar Behaviors To Another Special Enemy, But We'll Touch On That In A Bit. Once You Escape, Move Onward To The Mausoleum.
2.2) Enter Mausoleum 2, And Defeat Mom. Then Stab The Fleshy Door That Appears With Your Newly Assembled Knife (Mom's Knife Doesn't Work For Gameplay Purposes) And Defeat Mom's Heart. Now, The Womb Entrance Is Replaced With An Entrance To The Corpse.
2.3) Defeat Mother In Corpse 2, And Unlock Jacob & Esau And 'A Special Door'.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1777212268234791693/C18AC0F25308E54A7539C3E8AFC0F74772BA1449/?imw=256&&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false
(Jacob & Esau's Achievement Icon.)
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1777212268234790614/310AE68210F17C848896CC2D5AF7C8A2E941BA02/?imw=256&&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false
(A Strange Door's Achievement Icon.)


3) Reach Depths 2 As Jacob & Esau. Now You Will Have To Find A Skull With An 'x' Mark, Like A Tinted Rock. Bomb It And Receive An '0 - The Fool' Card. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.
4) Defeat Mom And Pick Up A Picture Item. Then Use The '0 - The Fool' Card To Teleport Out. Now You Have To Place The Picture Into The Strange Door, And Descend To A Special Version Of The Mausoleum/Gehenna 2.
5) Navigate To The 'Boss' Room Of This Floor And Pick Up Dad's Note. This Will Begin The Ascent, A Grueling Trek Through All The Floors You've Gone Through, Similar To The Backasswards Challenge. Reach The Starting Room Of Basement 1 And Ascend Into 'Home'.
6) Navigate To Mom's Room, But Do NOT Sleep In The Bed Yet. Instead, Open The Box To Unlock (And Pick Up) The Red Key.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1777212268234784217/355A83D5A358224DFEFF84E894B87ADA16DD958A/?imw=256&&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false
(The Red Key's Achievement Icon.)

Use It To Open A Room At The Side Of The Corridor Outside Of Mom's Bedroom And Awaken 'Jacob', The Deserter.
(I Would Show The Deserter Achievement Here, But I Can't Get It To Upload.)

NOTE: If You Have Already Unlocked The Red Key, It Likely Will Not Spawn Again In Mom's Box. Instead, You Must Either Find It Through Luck OR You Can Drop A Trinket In Any Boss Or Treasure Room (Including The One In Mausoleum/Gehenna 2) And It Will Turn Into A Cracked Key, A 1 Time Use Red Key.

Learning The Basics

Before We Get Into The Meaty Parts Of Tainted Jacob, First We Must Address How He Starts. This One Won't Be As Long, I Promise.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1777212268234805868/323294C3F034F807E291EA5252A3289C5EF7FFAA/?imw=256&&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false
Here Is A Snippit From The Wiki Showing Jacob's Base Stats. I Just Can't Be Bothered Typing It All Out, And It Looks Cleaner Anyway.

He Also Starts With An Active Item Called 'Anima Sola' In (But Not Taking Up) His Pill/Card Slot. It Cannot Be Dropped, But It Can Be Unlocked By Defeating Delirium As This Character. It Chains Up The Nearest Enemy, But There Is A Certain Enemy That Has Priority, But Hold Your Horses, There's Still A Little Bit More To Go Yet.

This Item Will Not Deal Damage, However All Enemies Trapped Within It Will Take Damage From Tears And Such. It Is Also Worth Noting That The Chain Does Not Take Damage, But Rather Disappears After A Few Seconds (Or If The Enemy Trapped Inside Dies).

Dark Esau

So, You Might Have Noticed The Lack Of Esau In All This. That's Because He Has Gone On Strike And Become A Demonic Force Attempting To Strike You Down. Let Me Explain.

Dark Esau Is The Only Character-Specific Enemy In The Entire Game, And Spawns After A Little While Every Floor. And Yes, He Is The Enemy I Have Been Eluding To Throughout This Guide. He Behaves Like A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Speed Train, Charging At You At Any Given Opportunity.

To Make Matters Worse, He Doesn't Just Kill You, He Turns You Into A Special Tainted Jacob Version Of The Lost, Which Starts Without The Holy Mantle (Unless You Picked It Up Earlier In The Run). He Has ALL Of The Lost's Weaknesses And His Strengths. One More Hit From ANYTHING And You Are DEAD. But Not All Is Bad, For You See...

There Is An Upside.

Learning To Control The Demon

You See, There Is One Thing That Will HELP You Rather Than Kill You. And That Is That Dark Esau Deals Contact Damage... To Enemies.

And I Shall Teach You How To Control It. Manipulate It, And Cheese The ♥♥♥♥ Outta That Trainwreck Of A Feature.

To Start, Your Main Damage Output Throughout The Early Game Should Mainly Consist Of Dark Esau's Charges. He Deals A Truckload Of Damage, And You Can Capitalise On That By Letting Esau Attack. He Takes Priority With The Anima Sola Chains, And Will Always Charge After Breaking Free. Using Anima Sola For A Second Time While He Is Chained Will Not Require Charge, And Will Release Him Early.

Second, Don't Panic. Dark Esau Will Never Touch You Unless You Walk Into Him Get Hit By His Charge. Simple Enough.

And Third, Do NOT Be Afraid To Turn Into The Lost If It Makes You Feel Comfortable, With The Whole Flight Thing & All.

And That's It. Simpler Than You Thought, Huh? Well, There Really Isn't Much To It. He's Less Complex Than You Think.

How To Cheese

So, Say You Really Just Want Esau In A Jar, Or You Just Want Anima Sola Without That Demonic Little ♥♥♥♥ Chasing You Around Like A Chihuahua On Cocaine, And That's Understandable. Here Are Some Cheese Methods.

Meat Cleaver (Courtesy Of @mountain pog)
If You Get Meat Cleaver, You Pretty Much Win. Cleave Dark Esau To Stop It From Turning You Into A Ghost (If You Defeat It). It Will Still Turn You Into A Ghost If You Touch Him. He Will Still Respawn On The Next Floor.

Glowing Hourglass (As Worded By @mountain pog)
First, chip Dark Esau down, and while then he is in the middle of his death animation (as in, right before he dies), move to another room. Once he dies and you turn into the Lost, use the hourglass. If you did it right then you will get all your hp back but Dark Esau will be gone and you can go through the floor without him. He does reappear again though on the next floor

The Eraser
This One Might Require Some Research, But If You Chip Esau Down To >16 HP, Use The Eraser On Him. It Deals 15 Damage, So You Can Stop Him From Appearing. For The Entire Run.

This Also Works On Bosses, Too.

[Colbx]

tainted jacob is decent, but can still die early. why do ppl think tainted jacob is so hard?

[Cat Lad]

@mountain pog
Will Add, Thanks!

@AstrumVirdis
Will Add As Well, Just Forgot Lol

@Crozh / @Hmler
Will Also Add, So Many Things I Either Didn't Know Or Forgot

[pixeline]

kanaya guide kanaya guide

[JReesW]

Nice guide. Capitalising every word does make it harder to read however

[MNTNPG]

You should also mention there are multiple ways to cheese Tainted Jacob if you're a pussy like me and im going to list two here

1: Meat Cleaver
Using Meat Cleaver on dark esau will make him split into two smaller dark esaus which behave the same, however when you kill them you don't turn into the Lost, so you can go through the rest of the floor without having to worry about him, he does reappear on the next floor though

2: Glowing Hourglass
First, chip Dark Esau down, and while then he is in the middle of his death animation (as in, right before he dies), move to another room. Once he dies and you turn into the Lost, use the hourglass. If you did it right then you will get all your hp back but Dark Esau will be gone and you can go through the floor without him. He does reappear again though on the next floor


That's some of the ways you can cheese him, hopefully my comment wasnt too long lol

[onedez]

To elaborate on the second tip on "Learning To Control The Demon": When Dark Esau approaches you, he isn't trying to touch you, he's trying to stand close to you. You should only worry about bumping into Dark Esau when you are moving or he is charging.

[Eros]

If he charges at you without using anima sola he doesn't go directly at you, but rather does it diagonally, horizontally and vertically. (check it if you want, I'm not 100% sure since I haven't played that load of shit for a while).

[AstrumViridis]

You should mention that using Anima Sola while Dark Esau is chained releases him and makes him directly charge at you.

[Cat Lad]

@JeansBoi I Didn't Know That. I'll Add It To The Guide.

[Jeans]

Good thing to note is that you can steal devil deals as lost Jacob, the same way original lost can.