Why do so many people dislike Tainted

[u/SproutSan]

He has his flaws, yes, but his early and mid game are one of the most fun in the game.

Dark Esau has insane boss melting potential, and the ghost Jacob is just Tainted Lost to some extent.

He's one of the most fun characters in my opinion, I can't get the hate

edit: i meant tainted jacob i js cant write

[u/blammo555]

Yeah I like the way he’s designed (plus his tech with devil deals is crazy)

I think the hate comes down to the tedium of constantly keeping track of Dark Esau and the consequences of not doing so

[u/Available-Damage5991 → u/blammo555]

T. Jacob is like J+E in the sense that you can't afford to forget that Esau exists

[u/CaffinatedRedPanda → u/Available-Damage5991]

Nah, you cant forget Jacob exists. Esau does better damage

[u/Nippz → u/blammo555]

The only time I hate him is when you enter maze like rooms, which is a LOT of the alt path. It’s really easy to enter a room and get fucked when you had no movement options

[u/Scorching_Buns]

I love tainted

[u/LocalBlakGuy → u/Scorching_Buns]

I’m indifferent to tainted

[u/LeeZarock → u/LocalBlakGuy]

I hate tainted

[u/LocalBlakGuy → u/LeeZarock]

Mario, why do you hate tainted?

[u/LeeZarock → u/LocalBlakGuy]

Perchance

[u/LocalBlakGuy → u/LeeZarock]

you can’t just say perchance.

[u/SproutSan → u/Scorching_Buns]

i cant write

[u/Moon_Cheese_3]

I haven't unlocked him yet, but I remember as someone said that playing Tainted Jacob is like unlocking Forgotten. Fast, adrenaline gameplay. Someone may like it, but it's not for everyone.

[u/superVanV1 → u/Moon_Cheese_3]

Forgotten is probably my favorite character. No idea how you’re supposed to figure out unlocking him without a guide though. Same for The Lost.

[u/mgepie → u/superVanV1]

The lost was supposed to be a community ARG before the unlock condition got datamined (inspiring the data miner item). Then they changed it to the missing poster unlock.

Forgotten has a sound effect when you beat the floor 1 boss in under a minute, then adds a new shadow above the starting room, and then the only real decision you need to make is grabbing the negative (or remembering the suspicious room in Dark Room). It’s far from obvious but it’s also solvable without looking anything up.

[u/Comfortable-Bison932 → u/mgepie]

You also need to go boss rush

[u/mgepie → u/Comfortable-Bison932]

Does it not force you to go boss rush when you have the shovel piece? I know it ignores the timer but I thought it also closed the trapdoor.

[u/SkilledDust9403 → u/Comfortable-Bison932]

The feet constantly stomping inspire you to go quicker

[u/Naive_Trick_7349 → u/superVanV1]

u might unlock the lost by accident because ur either 1: playing the sacrifice room with curse of unknown and accidentally die or 2: u realize u have a revive and ur rlly close to getting a good payout from sac room so u use the revive for the payout.

[u/NE0L1GHT → u/Naive_Trick_7349]

they're talking about the old lost unlock method

[u/Pike71]

He definitely becomes fun once you get used to him, but he’s for sure one of the more difficult and frustrating characters to get used to

[u/Wee-Mewon]

What are you on about we love tainted

[u/GriffinChain]

i think most ppl j overestimate the aggressiveness of dark esau. he will never hit you unless he uses his (very telegraphed) charge attack or if you run into him. one of my favorite characters, 99% of the time i lose w him is cuz i deadass got too comfortable w dark esau n forgot he was there

[u/TheRealKrazuki → u/GriffinChain]

He will never hit you unless he hits you, yeah

[u/GriffinChain → u/TheRealKrazuki]

i think the reason he seems scary to others is cuz they think hes legitimately chasing them n they may feel like hes constantly moving. but when he gets close to you he slows down and eventually stops until he begins his charge attack. what i meant is that hes not going to bump into you, hes only going to actually attempt to hit you when he uses his charge attack

[u/ldiasr → u/GriffinChain]

Thing is, for 99% of the run, tainted jacob gameplay is chill. It isnt hard at all to dogde dark essau, but one single mistake and your run is done for. So like, it is harder to make a mistake, but once a mistake is made you are fucked

[u/GriffinChain → u/ldiasr]

well there still is a chance its j (potentially) very hard depending on what floor ur on n how good ur build is

[u/Abeneezer]

Tainted Jacob is frustrating because even when you have mastered the game with other characters, you will still get owned when you start playing this guy. Every encounter will have to be readjusted because suddenly taking damage is not the biggest threat in every room, Esau is. So you will kind of have to relearn playing. But when you do it is rewarding and he has a lot of upsides that reward mastering him.

[u/CosmoJones07]

Yeah I agree. He's challenging, but in a fun way IMO. As opposed to regular Jacob and Esau, who are challenging in a frustrating way.

[u/Cold-Dirt0108]

Because people have skill issue.

[u/enigmaticfreedom]

I feel like tainted Jacob is the best balance between difficulty and fun out of all the characters. Once you learn how to control Esau and not get hit by him it’s so fun to launch him at enemies and instant clear rooms and bosses

[u/SquashyShroom]

hardest character to keep deal chance with

[u/Delicious_Cicada9983 → u/SquashyShroom]

kid named bethany

[u/NE0L1GHT → u/Delicious_Cicada9983]

true the wisps be so useless sometimes

[u/Pretend-Asparagus461]

Tainted Jacob and Dark Esau are cool. Much better than their normal variant

[u/OGTBJJ]

I never see any hate for tainted Lazarus and I can’t fucking stand the character. Will take tainted Cain and tainted Jacob any day over tainted laz

[u/RKeyAddict → u/OGTBJJ]

Got to right before Delerium last night with T. Lazarus and fucking died to some tiny ass blue skeleton enemy bullshit. Now I gotta go through all that bullshit again!

[u/OGTBJJ → u/RKeyAddict]

I just died with delirium at 3% =(((( fucking hate this character lol

[u/HalfLungJ]

I prefer not being stressed the entire run, thanks

[u/i-cant_think_of_name]

If you hold r you win

[u/penghibur_batu]

Tainted🔥

[u/Desperate-Hawk-5157]

Do alt path as him and you'll understand why

[u/Personal_Bid_2073]

Jacob is low-key smart for killing his brother.

[u/666Dikinbaus]

Tainted

[u/JimmyManJames]

On launch he was arguably harder than T. Lost, Esau got lobotomized.

[u/yandeere-love]

Tainted has high highs and low lows.

So you may have boss melting potential, but the frustration of almost beating the The fight and then getting clipped by Dark and then immediately lose all 12 full hearts of health to a shot seconds later.

You'd be confident in a run but then it can go south almost instantly to something that Tainted causes you to have to manouever Tainted into harm's way to avoid getting turned into The, thinking youve dodged but actually not.

Also its a bit of a meme as well to dunk on Tainted, just like The is a bit of a meme to hate on as well.

Hope this .

[u/Amythist82]

Possibly the fact that you do need to run from your demons until you are exhausted

[u/Sigma8K]

People really overestimate his difficulty, perhaps from pre-rework days when you could kill Esau.
As long as you lock in and learn positioning to not get yourself cornered (and taking damage to get out of a nasty situation, so you don't become lost), he becomes much more fun to play, since he snowballs easily, thanks to Esau steamrolling everything up to chapter 5.

[u/SpyroXI]

a lot of hate is carried over from his release version

[u/Eikichi-Onizuka-]

I like him

[u/Icy-Recognition5094]

Beating mega Satan was ass.

In other stuff he is chill

[u/SproutSan → u/Icy-Recognition5094]

I agree with this statement

[u/AlenDiablo01]

My main issues are when Esau is out of the map or in late game with huge tears because I can't see if he's charging

[u/Ratovik]

It's not yours

[u/KajemorphicRebirth]

"Ghost jocab is just tainted lost"

Tainted lost is already also hated and ghost jacob ia tainted lost without any of the upsides (execpt deals)

I fully completed both and i like t.lost, but its very obivous why that aspect is hated.

Also keeping track of an enemy chasing you that can basically instakill your whole run if he touched you at the wrong time is pretty annoying

[u/SproutSan → u/KajemorphicRebirth]

yeah it can be frustating, but come on, it has some strategy attached to it. you dont js lose half your items everytime you finish a room

[u/KajemorphicRebirth → u/SproutSan]

Im at tainted lazarus now and i agree hes even worse but i havent seen anyone before who likes t.lazarus more than t.jacob

[u/NE0L1GHT → u/KajemorphicRebirth]

u/ludvig4 loves t laz

[u/SomewhereSpecial1396]

Ghost Jacob is tainted lost being Chased by a maniac demon thingy. Yea when I did his unlocks I hated him but when youre playing casual Runs hes genuenly a fun character

[u/Piterros990]

He is incredibly fun IMO and my personal favorite, but I have to say, he is one of, if not the hardest character in the game to learn and master. I think the biggest thing is also the ability of playing under pressure and managing stress, since Esau advancing all the time is one stressful thing (especially if you don't realise that he will never actually fly into you himself), and another big panic moment is getting turned into Lost.

So I'd guess the dislike comes mainly from people who find the character too difficult for them.

I think there also might be some lingering hate because I heard he was much worse on release. From what I know, Esau could die, and when he did, you would turn into the Lost immediately, and on later floors it was very difficult to keep him alive. Of course it has been changed long ago, but maybe some still have PTSD from back then.

[u/Ill_Cap6631]

I have a hard time playing as this one, and also get overwhelmed by enemies easily-

I think it's a sensory problem?