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Malcufious
10-06-2011, 12:46 PM
I've been trying multiple runs with Magdaline, and yet I've never beaten the game with 'her', because I simply can't damage enemies fast enough before her speed lets her down and she gets killed via contact damage, or can't kill a tough enemy before it kills me.

In each playthrough with the character, I have yet to find more than one single damage boost for the Tears. No chocolate milk, no Pentagram, no Belial book, nor damage-boosting pills, anything I seem to find is either increasing tears, or their range. Any passives or activated items are questionably useful (Lemon Mishap, Teleport!, Battery etc).

If the boss isn't one of the Horseman, it's a heart container item such as the <3 or Breakfast, increasing Magdaline's life. It allowed me to take a liberty with Baphomet and get a Lucky Foot in one instance, but this didn't help much, I got pennies, bombs and keys sure, but yet no actual damage-boosting anything. The merchants have been useless in playthroughs with Maggy as well. Such as giving me Soul Hearts or keys and bombs when there was plenty already in my inventory, or a Map when I already had XRay specs to find the secrets.
Beggar Children take a good 20 Pennies before giving me anything, and it's much more cost effective for me to just blow them up, as well as the Arcade junk as it'll be a source of hearts and such.

So I'm asking, is Magdaline supposed to be low-speed and low-damage, with lots of life to survive, or is this simply the game going out of the way to spite me? It feels like spite, as I eventually got to the last level, only to die one room before the boss because of the sheer number of everything ever.

I've played through with Isaac, Judas and Cain, and it was a whole lot easier, Cain in particular...Who I'm using now instead of Magdaline, as getting repeated runs with lack of damage to keep up with the increase in colored alternates and later bosses is quite a problem. I just died to Monstro II in The Depths 1 because of it.

anticitizen101
10-06-2011, 12:56 PM
My Maggy runs have usually been low-damage, yes, but the game isn't really trying to spite you. I've had a couple of high damage runs with her.

However, due to the high health, you can make devil deals :) (which is what I did)

Still not gonna touch Magdalene ever again.

Malcufious
10-06-2011, 12:58 PM
My Maggy runs have usually been low-damage, yes, but the game isn't really trying to spite you. I've had a couple of high damage runs with her.

However, due to the high health, you can make devil deals :) (which is what I did)

Still not gonna touch Magdalene ever again.

Well, is the item that you unlock for clearing the game with her even worth it? The Achievements don't really mean anything to me, so if it's not that good I dont think I'll bother with Maggy again.
Maybe it's something to do with the fact it's my 5th playthrough currently...enemies seem harder now.

I can't wait to get the 10th playthrough and get the weird blue ??? version of Isaac

anticitizen101
10-06-2011, 01:03 PM
Yes, The Relic is pretty badass. It's a passive pick-up, a cross that follows you around (not an active item). You get 1 soul heart for every 4 rooms. It saved my bacon during two playthroughs.

Malcufious
10-06-2011, 01:05 PM
Yes, The Relic is pretty badass. It's a passive pick-up, a cross that follows you around (not an active item). You get 1 soul heart for every 4 rooms. It saved my bacon during two playthroughs.

Hmmm. I'll give it a few more tries...Normally doesn't seem to matter to me with Cain, I sometimes get two damage ups per level.

anticitizen101
10-06-2011, 01:33 PM
Hmmm. I'll give it a few more tries...Normally doesn't seem to matter to me with Cain, I sometimes get two damage ups per level.

The relic will certainly help you if you come across it while playing with "???".

My recommendation: finish a playthrough with Maggy before the game gets any harder.

Malcufious
10-06-2011, 04:20 PM
The relic will certainly help you if you come across it while playing with "???".

My recommendation: finish a playthrough with Maggy before the game gets any harder.

Good news, I just cleared my 6th with Maggie.
I got lucky, got 2 Meat Cubes, and Halo of Flies. I only took damage from contact, managed to grind Mom's Heart down.
Been using Cain since...seems the damage increase items become rarer and rarer.

bullexcrements
10-07-2011, 05:24 AM
Setup for Maggie (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/401/maggiey.jpg/)

Well, here's my setup for beating the game with Maggie - Book of Revelations, Battery, Meat Boy, 2 damage up items, ladder, 3 pretty flies.

That's all you need. Playing as Maggie you have to keep balance between health and damage. For me the key of beating the game was combo: Book of Revelations + Battery. In my previous runs I was focusing mainly on damage powerups, and as it turned out it was bad decision, because when I was in Womb 2 I was da.mn strong, but also almost dead, because lack of heart drops in that level.

So overall - sacrifice some of your offensive power and buy health regenerating item and you'll be ok :P

Well, that's my 'tactical' advice. You can always count on shovel + battery and dig directly to the Mom's Heart, which is rather easy to beat even if your attack suckz

gazonokosil
10-07-2011, 05:30 AM
I finished the game playing with Magdalene in first try...

tophat704
10-07-2011, 05:41 AM
Sounds like you just had bad luck. And you should mitigate her extra hearts by trading them to the devil :D

Pit-O-Matic
10-07-2011, 05:50 AM
I usually always get to the Womb 2 with Maggy.
If you ask me, "she" has the best starting stats of all and her low speed stat is a good thing to me, because I can't control the others when they took too many speed ups.

Her huge HP gives you more option if you find a devil door, too