A Simple Guide to the Guy Named Samson

Move over "glass cannon" Judas! Samson's in town!

Introduction

To begin lets go over what Samson starts with

Health: 3 Red Hearts
Damage: 2
Tears: 1
Shotspeed: 2
Range: 4
Speed: 2
Luck: 1

Pickup Item: None
Item: Bloody Lust

Bloodly Lust

BloodLust is an on hit effect. Meaning when ever you take damage your damage goes up. This item is the reason Samson is disliked, because to get it's use YOU MUST TAKE DAMAGE, which in turn pretty much "removes" devil rooms. Why removes is in quotes I'll talk about latter in the guide in the items section.

Random Tip Bob: Don't forget about the stat screen, with no dmg ups bloody lust maxes out at one less tally mark than full under damage.

Item- Imfamy

This mask acts like a shield thats slapped on Samson's face. In combination with blood lust from some testing, it apears that when the mask blocks a shot dmg doesn't go up, but the next time you take damage it seems like you damage goes up for the blocked shot and the one you just took (needs more testing to be confirmed) If this is the case 2-3 hearts of rage build up could be done with 1/2-1 heart of heath.

Item- Samson's Chain

Sorry for the small picture ;-; only one I could find

Samson's Chain is your reward for completing the boss rush challenge (to acess the bossrush challenge you must defeat Mom under 20 minutes.)

Samson's Chain acts as a shield, when you stand behind the ball, it will act like a shield to tear/blood shots. You can also use it to break rocks (tinted rocks included), poop and monster's faces.

Random Tip Bob: If you see a small x on ANY ROCK (womb rock, basement rock, depths rock, etc) you better go blow it up for some sweet goodies.

Item- Almost every health pick up

This is true for any character, but go out of your way with Samson. Sense in the late game levels you take lots damage from almost everything and your already going to be damaged from using blood lust.


The Only health pick up I would not get is the Bucket of Lard because of the low hp your going to be running at and there are better defensive items that don't slow you down (as much)

Item- Goat's Head

The Goat head is an item that forces devil rooms/angel rooms to spawn. Removing the need to not take damage

-A Devil room will always spawn after every boss fight, excluding the first floor.

-Goat Head can also force an angel room to spawn, but as taking a deal with the devil prevents deals with the angel, Goat Head has to be found in another way for it to work this way.

-Even if taken after a boss is killed, Goat Head will force a devil room to spawn on that floor
Gives the player a half of a heart every 13 grubs stepped on.

- facts taken from bindingofissacrebirth.gamepedia.com

Strategy

So the items I listed granted higher hp or defense (other than the goat head). This ties into the basic strategy quite simple.

Take damage--> heal up (optional) --> Block more shots --> Destory everything

also if you see a spiky door room go in it (unless of course it's going to kill you) it

1) builds rage
2) can get rare/devil room items

But for a normal room you play a lot like Issac. Just keep doging shoots and blowing up flies. The big choice though for Samson is, should I intentionaly get hit to deal more damage against the boss/evil dudes or should I save that 1/2-1 heart of health for taking a hit later (and building the rage then)

I personally usually go with the first and I must say, maxed out rage destorys almost everything you can shoot.

some notable bosses made super easy with this unholy amount of damage.

Gurdy- You almost can't miss it. Just kill the pimple things (that spil blood shots) then nuke Gurdy down.

Mom- Removes the threat of the minions when your rage is nearly maxed out, due to the amount of damage.

The BossRush room- I personaly love using samson in the boss rush room (kill mom in less than 20 minutes) because all the bosses drop tons of hp and you can just keep on raging, bonus speed if you have tri-shot or quad-shot (mutant spider)

Thanks!

Thank you for reading my guide :D

if I made a mistake please leave a comment stating what I missed.

[bradybrewer]

You didn't say that with pyromaniac blowing up yourself effects blood lust even if pyromaiac heals you with every explosion

[bradybrewer]

i am the best with sam. I can't really play well with any other character. Even azazel

[MorpheusKS]

btw what i forgot to mention is that bucket of lard actually doesnt slow u anymore so its still a safe pickup ;D

[MorpheusKS]

hey buddy dont mock me please english isnt my native language and speaking is way easier than writing imo XDD

[Yobbo]

wow morph, much grammar, many english ;)

[Engi]

MorpheusKS- I didn't even know that item existed *faceplam*

[MorpheusKS]

to be honest samson is the most forgiving character in BOI:R which means even if u take dmg ur dmg goes up and u dont need to worry to much. but what the creator of the guide(which is outdatet imo) didnt realised is, that an IV-BAG is pretty good on samson due to the fact that u get the dmg bonus of bloodylust. which means ur capped with soul hearts/black hearts and eg u have 5 redhearts geting down to half a heart means u get the whole dmg bonus for the floor in the first room, take additionally redhearts dont let dark bum get them and repeat on each floor for much profit =)

[Basketball]

samson's my favorite! thank you!

[Yobbo]

i acctualy find sampson to be a good character too. also when reading the BOI:R wiki, i was looking at the luck stat so see everything that stat affects (i went there to see if high luck made blood banks pay out sooner with a blood bag.) the wiki said that all luck ups are worth +1 luck (luck up pill, lucky toe, luck foot) now in game taking a luck up pill will not increace a tally but every 2nd will. So i assume that each tally is worth 2 stat ups. not acctualy sure if its the same with other tally stats though. so yeah, nice guide.