Ranking the BEST RUNES in The Binding of Isaac

Comments · 90

• TU

  @turtier · 2 years ago (edited) · pinned

  Timestamps (and extra thoughts / clarifications below)<br><br>Hagalaz - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=67">1:07</a><br>Jera - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=146">2:26</a><br>Ehwaz - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=320">5:20</a><br>Dagaz - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=421">7:01</a><br>Ansuz - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=648">10:48</a><br>Perthro - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=974">16:14</a><br>Berkano - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=1074">17:54</a><br>Algiz - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=1118">18:38</a><br>Blank Rune - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=1255">20:55</a><br>Black Rune - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=1459">24:19</a><br>Soul of Isaac - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=1545">25:45</a><br>Soul of Magdalene - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=1597">26:37</a><br>Soul of Cain - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=1720">28:40</a><br>Soul of Judas - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=1890">31:30</a><br>Soul of ??? - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=2004">33:24</a><br>Soul of Eve - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=2065">34:25</a><br>Soul of Samson - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=2242">37:22</a><br>Soul of Azazel - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=2393">39:53</a><br>Soul of Lazarus - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=2617">43:37</a><br>Soul of Eden - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=2853">47:33</a><br>Soul of the Lost - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=3525">58:45</a><br>Soul of Lilith - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=3749">1:02:29</a><br>Soul of the Keeper - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=3927">1:05:27</a><br>Soul of Apollyon - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=4173">1:09:33</a><br>Soul of the Forgotten - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=4225">1:10:25</a><br>Soul of Bethany - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=4325">1:12:05</a><br>Soul of Jacob and Esau - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=4547">1:15:47</a><br>Final Discussion - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdNOBeMsios&amp;t=4883">1:21:23</a><br><br>I want to do chaos / soul of eden math at some point, because I&apos;m honestly unsure of the rates that chaos items will be drawing from a pool better than the regular treasure room pool.<br><br>If you think about it, in theory a reroll is worse than gaining an extra item. So something like ehwaz or soul of lilith outright giving you an item should be better than perthro? But that&apos;s not true because of the property that rerolls follow the item pool you are in. So if we ignore the broken heart, a reverse lovers is objectively better than perthro, since they both let you see an extra item of a high quality room (eg angel room), but lovers lets you take both. Something like ehwaz gives a free treasure room item on top of the current angel room item, but perthro is better since I&apos;d rather just see an extra angel item, even if I can only take 1. Soul of Eden will most likely generate a treasure room item, but you only get to take 1, while ehwaz would let you take the current item AND a new treasure room item. This is why I think soul of eden is more fitting in huge tier compared to insane tier. Perthro lets me guarantee that I&apos;ll see more devil / angel / secret items. Soul of Eden gives me a CHANCE if I highroll, so I&apos;ll acknowledge that and say its better than ehwaz, but it almost doesn&apos;t even feel like a reroll to me because it loses the ability to guarantee what item pool you get which is such an important and abusable aspect imo. Also I think there&apos;s a higher chance to highroll with soul of lilith than the chance to highroll with soul of eden, and lilith doesn&apos;t sacrifice the original item for that either, and is even more instant use than eden is.<br><br>EDIT - I still agree with all of that for the case of rerolling 1-2 items with eden, 1 item in particular feels very underwhelming. But me and Manner discussed in dms and he left a comment on this video and I replied with my own thoughts. Ultimately the tier difference for me came down a lot to how perthro can create angel room and secret room items using key pieces / beggars / chests etc, and I didn&apos;t think soul of eden had enough similar scenarios. But libraries is a big one that both of us somehow missed! There&apos;s a few other smaller things that altogether give soul of eden a decent chance to pull some of the insane impossible things that perthro can do, so I agree that the gap is a lot closer than I initially thought and where it landed on the list is perfect IMO.

  17

• BO

  @Boxsoup · 2 years ago

  As a bad player Dagaz is a godsent sometimes

  32

• JU

  @June-The-Month · 2 years ago

  A funny second buff two hagalaz would be letting it instantly kill stone enemies, like the bomb blasters, stonies, etc<br>Dagaz would be a lot nicer if it removed 1 broken heart considering it’s like like a confessional which also removes curses and grants soul hearts<br>Personally I rank mapping a lot higher than most people since planning is super important

  24

• BE

  @benro6564 · 2 years ago

  I think a boss difficulty tier list could be a good idea. Alternatively ranking how good or bad every floor and variant is

  10

• SC

  @scor-chii1671 · 2 years ago

  As someone who fully dedicates to alt floors except Corpse, saving Ansuz for womb one doesn&apos;t mean much to me since doing at least Mausoleum means your first womb floor is Womb II.<br><br>Also yes I carry Dagaz in order to not have to deal with curses. Curse of the Blind harms your run a lot more than you give it credit for.<br><br>The amount of times I&apos;ve had Dagaz save me from picking up Soy Milk or Libra at unoptimal times or allowed me to see my deal items is way too good to pass (twice now I&apos;ve got to safely pick up Q4 deal items because of Dagaz).<br><br>I consider Black Candle to be a very high tier shop item JUST BECAUSE you never have to worry about curses so the fact that Dagaz is curse protection puts it high in my book

  3

• LA

  @latermanner · 2 years ago

  After going over the minmax potential of soul of eden I actually think it is much nicer than it may seem, being able to reroll an ENTIRE LIBRARY into completely random pools is very likely to pay out with rly good stuff, even randomizing skatole and iv bag in arcade in one use is super strong. ANNNNND Chaos rando is insane for there&apos;s options which is a fairly common item. ALSO ALSO you use it immediately reather than needing to save it for a devil/angel room. After all of this, I unironically think eden is higher than perthro, but only barely. The consistency of the perthro key piece reroll is very strong, just has much lower highs than eden which can always give death certificate, c section, brimm etc.

  8

• AP

  @applekhi3962 · 2 years ago

  Ima be honest even though u get very little views do know I love your tier lists

  23

• KR

  @KristenStuffs · 2 years ago

  Legit while watching this on my beast Keeper run I got soul of lilith which gave me twisted pair and conjoined

  7

• SA

  @santiagovidelaleiva · 2 years ago

  The thing about jera is that all of us save jera for the ultimate payoff but using jera in some certain consumables (like a couple of golden chest &quot;not in chest&quot; or soul hearts) that you really need can be some much better than the +1 good item gain from a reroll. But still, reroll runes and jera are both insane. And same with lilith.<br><br>Soul of bethany is nice but not huge. Just a bad room with explosive enemies or a specific boss destroys your wisps in a second. The soul can last you two floors or two rooms. You dont notice much this when playing with bethany because you can go just wild with book of virtues.<br><br>Also, yeah, soul of jacob and esau is the ultimate nuke. But i think it was completely bugged at the start of repentance and i also think it can still crash your game. Its kinda silly, im still afraid of using it but it does its work really well when i do use it.<br><br>And finally, i think azazel is better than eve but they are definitetly in the right spot, between transitions of many bosses the birds kinda just go away sometimes wich feels really bad. On the other hand, the azazel thing can kinda just clear the annoying rooms in the chest or dark room instead of using it in a boss. <br><br>This is proably the most equal two items can be in any tier list really. The birds are funny tho, so thats a really big point in favor of eve.

  4

• CA

  @CarmsCelestia · 2 years ago

  &quot;It&apos;s only half a heart, who cares?&quot; - Signed people who never played Tainted Keeper or Tainted Lost that both can enter Curse Rooms with this rune risk free

  1

• GA

  @GanglyQueen · 1 year ago

  My buff for Hagalaz has always been to just be a one room Mama Mega. Kill everything in the room, blow everything up, open secret rooms, open boss rush and hush, we good. Especially with the Mega Bean buff making it a Mama Mega blast and Toxic Shock every 3 rooms (I gurantee it&apos;ll be nerfed to 6 rooms or smthn again before too long), there&apos;s no reason for Hagalaz to suck so bad.

  1

• SL

  @slaimty · 2 years ago

  Back when the dark arts damage up affected all characters, you could use soul of judas to shred Hush or Mother. By cutting trough the bullets it&apos;s a long lasting 20+ damage boost if you use it on the right attack. If they actually give the damage effect back to only the soul it would be the perfect buff.