The Good Stuff
In this list, I will go over the ten best items in The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. These items often change a game session from bad to good or OK to extraordinary. This list is in alphabetical order. I am not going to try to list items by number.
Also, this list only includes passive items. I will make a separate list of active items.
I will assume you are playing the game with all DLC, including Repentance. If not, some of these items might not be in your game version.
Also, remember this game has over 700 items. The items I like are based on my play style. I know people will disagree with my picks. That is fine. You can make your own top ten list or something.
Candy Heart and Soul Locket
I know these are two different items. But they both do about the same thing, and I like them for the same reasons.
Candy Heart is found in Treasure Rooms. Soul Locket is found in Angel Rooms.
Both items give you tiny stats-up increases when picking up heart containers. Red hearts for Candy Heart and soul and black hearts for Soul Locket. Soul Locket gives slightly better stats than Candy Heart.
Being able to power up your character by healing is amazing. You will gain huge stats if you can find a way to get heart containers often. Try to pick up or create as many heart containers as you can!
You have to pick up the hearts for this to work. So, items that directly add health don’t give stats.
Capricorn
Capricorn increases most of your stats. It also increases your max tear delay. This change allows you to get faster tears than ordinarily possible with items.
Overall, items like this seem boring. But I love them. I like seeing all the numbers get better at once. They fix any odd changes that can happen to stats. Some specific items alter stats in weird ways. Also, if you are playing as Eden with an odd start, items like this help normalize your oddly disturbed stats.
Cricket’s Head
You find Cricket’s Head in Golden Chests and Treasure Rooms.
Crickets Head is an excellent item for the bonus damage it gives. The item multiplies your damage by 1.5. This extra damage is impressive. It can turn what feels like weak fun into something good. The more damage you have when you find the item, the stronger the effect.
Unlike some other good items, there are no negatives to this item. I wish more items were this good.
Magic Mushroom
You find Magic Mushroom in Treasure Rooms and the Boss item pool.
Magic Mushroom is a great item that makes your stats better overall. It increases most of your stats. The item also gives you a 1.5 attack increase. See Cricket’s Head above.
Magic Mushroom is a fantastic item. It changes runs even better than Cricket’s Head. The item does have downsides, though.
First, you can’t get the multiplier of Cricket’s Head and Magic Mushroom. But if you find both items, you still get the stats from Magic Mushroom.
Also, Magic Mushroom increases your size once. But this is not annoying, as finding items or pills that make you smaller is easy.
Holy Mantle
Holy Mantle is found in Angel Rooms and Treasure Rooms.
You avoid taking damage once every room. The shield you gain recharges from leaving and entering rooms. You can get the shield from the same room if you keep returning to it.
At first, Holy Mantle might not seem that useful. Holy Mantle will only help so much in boss fights, as you can only take one more hit.
The value of the item is from standard rooms. There are so many things this item helps with. Holy Mantle provides more than just clearing rooms without taking damage once.
- You can enter and leave Curse Rooms without taking damage.
- You can walk over spikes to get items without taking damage.
- You can open spiked chests without taking damage.
- Does a room have annoying obstacles? Just run past everything very fast.
Sacred Heart
You find Sacred Heart in Angel Rooms.
Sacred Heart is one of the best items in the game. You do not have to unlock the item, either. It does not get much better than this.
The item has a flat increase in damage by one. But what makes this item good is the 2.3 damage multiplier. This damage multiplier is even better than Magic Mushroom and Cricket’s Head!
The damage multiplier alone would make this one of the best items in the game. But this item has even more. Sacred Heart fully heals your health and gives you one red heart container. It also gives you homing tears; this item even gives your bombs a homing effect.
The item makes your shot speed slower and tears slightly slower. But these decreases are nothing compared to what you get.
Sacred Heart is such a good item, and it makes me consider if my default strategy, always taking Devil Deals, is the right thing to do.
Sinus Infection
You find Sinus Infection in Treasure Rooms.
While multiple items give poison damage, I like Sinus Infection the most. At first, some people might be confused. Sinus Infection seems weak, or some might say “mid”. Right?
The secret to this item is how the game calculates damage. Each booger deals damage independently.
You won’t notice anything from this item when fighting most bosses in the game. This item is best against certain bosses. Let me explain.
The most challenging bosses in the game have a special armor that stops you from doing a lot of damage to them at once. However, items like this bypass the armor by attacking them many times at once for a tiny amount of damage. Even the special armor can’t prevent many weak attacks from dealing damage simultaneously.
Of course, you will need more than this to win against the more demanding boss fights with armor. But it does help a lot.
The only downside is that if the enemies jump. So, fighting bosses like Ultra Greed still are hard since boogers fall off.
SMB Super Fan
You find SMB Super Fan in Treasure Rooms. SMB Super Fan increases most of your stats, and you gain a full red heart container.
SMB Super Fan does not do a lot. But for being an item in the Treasure Room item pool, it is nice to see.
Sausage
Sausage is found in secret rooms.
Sausage increases most of your stats. That sounds familiar, right? But the item does a bit more than that. The item also slightly increases the chance of finding Devil Room/Angel rooms and Planetariums.
The only negative is that there are very powerful items in Secret Rooms. Sausage may not be the best find here. But I still like the item.
The Halo
You find The Halo in Treasure Rooms, Angel Rooms, and the Boss item pool.
The Halo slightly increases most of your stats and gives you a full red heart container.
Look, I get it. Some people don’t like items like this. But considering how some items in the game don’t help much, I would prefer to stick with the boring and safe items. So, items that increase stats overall are good to
me.
My only complaint is that this is probably not the best item to find in an Angel Room.
Other Good items
Even though this is a top ten list I feel like listing some other items as well.
- 2Spooky: Enemies run away from you and gain the fear effect if they get too close. This is a good defensive item.
- Abaddon: While the health loss is risky, the tear effect and extra damage are very good. A good Devil Room item on a lot of characters.
- A Lump of Coal: Your damage increases based on shot range.
- Blanket: The extra defense during boss fights helps a lot.
- Dead Dove/Spirit of the Night: Flight and spectral tears is a great combination.
- Death’s Touch: The damage-up and piercing shots are nice. It also makes your shots very big.
- Godhead: An item that gives you amazing tears. The item is very hard to unlock, though. Thats why I did not add it to the main list.
- Holy Light: Holy tears are a great source of extra damage.
- Stopwatch: The slowdown will make hard bosses much easier. Broken Modem also works well for the same reasons.
- Tech.5/Technology Zero/Jacobs Ladder: The extra damage is very helpful. These items all give your tears extra zaps.