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Brief, three-minute comments on the buffs Repentance+ gave to the Apollyons. An apology is long overdue.

Apollyon. Oh, how I have slandered ye:

T. Apollyon? Thanks, but I prefer to drink lead paint. He’s bone-dry.

https://brologue.net/2024/04/09/isaac-mods-that-rock/

I really have a knack for persuading myself, don’t I? These two had all the sauce of plasterboard and cinnamon powder combined; I said there’s more fun to be found in watching paint dry:

https://brologue.net/2024/04/14/fabulously-fiendish-seymour/

But in Repentance+, both Void and Abyss saw major buffs that turned both Apollyons into less of a slog to play. They’re interesting now. I haven’t been totally enamoured by how they play, but they’re not boring as shit anymore.

They alright. They not subtle or nuanced, but they alright:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4231LFc2g7M&t=1m44s

Beyond constantly Voiding passive items and getting stat boosts you don’t want, the new 4-room charge Void has gargantuan new potential to break runs — if you pull enough active items. In Greedier, for example, on every floor, you should be able to squeeze in one more (12 waves / 4-room charge = 3 uses).

Contrary to what you’d expect, using Void to get the effects of 6 or 12-room charge items at a discount isn’t the best part about the buff. Hear me out. Go to PlatinumGod and search for “recharge time: 6 rooms”:

Yes, I wouldn’t say no to a 4-room Satanic Bible, either:

https://bindingofisaacrebirth.wiki.gg/wiki/Satanic_Bible

But HEAR ME OUT. What about all the 4-room charge items that, prior to Repentance+, you would Void at a net loss?

Seeing these, didn’t it make you feel like shit? That was my problem: even if I can stack these effects, a 6-room charge Mom’s Box or Sprinkler or Teleport 2.0 just doesn’t feel like I’ve got a bang for my buck. If the run didn’t get off to a start, I’d think, “I really could be playing Isaac right now.”

The new Void, IMO, is pretty much on par with the D6 as an acceptable side-grade. You’ll get those runs where Void doesn’t boost the stats you want, or a drought of active items, just as much as those runs where D6 rerolls an OK passive into IBS, or Clicker, etc.. You’ll get those runs where D6 just hands you the run with a roll into something like Godhead; you’ll get runs where your Void stack starts to snowball and either give you enough resources to end the run, or overwhelm most bosses (thank you libraries).

Now, about Abyss. Someone at HQ must’ve thought that Abyss – giving you what is essentially free DPS and little more – was fucking boring. Which is why, when Repentance+ dropped, they added T. Apollyon to the game for real. We got a whole EULA-length list of locust synergies:

https://bindingofisaacrebirth.wiki.gg/wiki/Abyss#Special_Locusts

Prior to this, special locusts were few and far between, and all normal locusts would deal Isaac’s tear damage. Now, should you choose to forgo a quality 3 or 4 item, the locust you get will have a 1.5x or 2x multiplier1, sometimes on top of an added effect.

The locust synergies will keep you experimenting for sure. Would your current build benefit more from taking Polyphemus, or do you not have enough items such that Abyssing it would give you more damage? Either way, that feeling of gradually gaining power feels more tangible than it did in Repentance. One locust didn’t used to feel like much of a difference at all.

Now that there’s online co-op, you could also consider T. Apollyon to be a support character, of sorts. At worst, your party should let you freely Abyss bad items that no-one else can use, so you at least get some utility out of them. As of writing, I haven’t actually tried him in online co-op, so I’ll edit in a couple paragraphs once I do.

All in all:

  1. Q2 items have a 1x multiplier; Q1 items, 0.75x; and Q0, 0.5x. Suffice it to say, however, that at worst, a 0.5x multiplier is still free DPS. ↩︎

TTLY…

CC

(BoI) Repentance+ Made the Apollyons Interesting is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.