Are you a happy, cheerful person?

Someone who rarely gets down, always ready to face a new day with a smile and eyes only the requisite amount of moist

Then turn away, because we are gonna talk about how to get you to tear up. Tear way way up

First, I’m gonna just spit out the formula stuff, which is great if you are interested and what not.

Tear delay = [16 – 6*sqrt{Total Tears*1.3 + 1}]

Fantastic, looks smart. Do you need to remember this and any previous mathematical trauma? Absolutely not. There are two takeaways: there is a stat called Total Tears, and another called Tear Delay which is dependent on it

Now which is the one which directly affects the fire rate of your tears? Tear Delay, which to be specific causes Isaac to fire exactly 30/(Tear Delay + 1) tears per second. Again, who gives a shit. Lower the tear delay, more tears you fire.

What you can and should remember, are the hard caps for both these stats. Without any items that directly affect tear delay, the minimum tear delay you can reach is 5. And the minimum tear delay you can reach overall is 1. Or by its other moniker, Soy Milk fire rate

So how do we get to this very high fire rate? Believe it or not, there are a lot of ways the game allows you to obtain tears up and even tear delay downs. Four to be specific:

Items Pills Trinkets Death’s List boosts

Now we will get pills out of the way really quick because its simple, tears up pills give you a tears up, till a minimum tear delay of 5, as expected. Tears down pills increase your tear delay, hopefully you never have to take more than one. Similarly Death’s List is fairly simple, you have a chance upon clearing the room in a certain way of getting a stat boost, tears up being one of them, again till a minimum of 5

Now trinkets, or to be specific just five of them: Cancer, Cracked Crown, Dim/Light Bulb and Wiggle Worm. Wiggle Worm is a 0.3 tears up, and will bring your tear delay down at most to 5. The Bulbs work based on the charge on your active item and are similarly capped. The other two are the real G’s. G for Great tear delay downs

Cancer is a -2 Tear Delay down. It is good at base tear delay but amazing when you hit the cap of 5 or below because it breaks it

is a -2 Tear Delay down. It is good at base tear delay but amazing when you hit the cap of 5 or below because it breaks it Cracked Crown is by far the best trinket in the game and I cannot be convinced otherwise. In addition to being an awesome stat booster that stacks with other stat ups, it gives a flat -1 Tear Delay down, again breaking the cap similar to Cancer

Now these trinkets are pretty amazing, but they can me made even more amazing. First, by stacking their tear delay downs, by either holding them both at the same time or by smelting them into Isaac. But they can be made amazing-er, and remarkably so, by the use of Mom’s Box. This is an active item, found in the Shop pool. It has a four room charge and spawns a random trinket when used. It also grants +1 luck. And on top of it all, it doubles the effect of nearly all trinkets, especially when pertinent to stat ups. What does this mean? Cancer goes from a -2 Tear Delay down to a whopping -4 Tear Delay Down. To put that into perspective, if you are at the tears cap of 5 and not a single other tear delay down, this combo will single handedly bring you down to a Tear Delay of 1. Similarly Cracked Crown now becomes Cancer, with a -2 Tear Delay Down (also drastically boosts the other stat ups). Worth noting that Mom’s Box will also boost the Tears up from the Wiggle Worm and the Bulbs, but wont break the cap of 5

Onto items. Now there are a lot of items that grant tears up, Sad Onion, The Pact, Analog Stick etc just to name a few. The only ones worth noting are Number one, which gives a significant tears up but also kills your range, and Dark Prince’s Crown, which is an above average Tears Up but conditional at exactly one filled red heart container. Brittle Bones is another odd one, giving a tears up every time you shatter a bone heart, but it caps at 5 as well

Among items that grant Tear Delay Downs, we have the following ones which are fairly simple barring a few side effects: Mom’s Perfume, Guillotine, Capricorn, Pisces, Cricket Body. The others are more interesting in their delay down and other effects:

Soy Milk

Anti-Gravity : -2 Tear Delay Down, but changes the way your tears are released. I try to avoid taking it if I have to, especially if I have Brimstone, but it has its uses in setting traps

: -2 Tear Delay Down, but changes the way your tears are released. I try to avoid taking it if I have to, especially if I have Brimstone, but it has its uses in setting traps Purity : A personal favourite, if slightly unreliable. It greatly boosts one stat until you take damage in a room, and resets when you enter the next room but boosts a random stat (could be the same one). When you have a blue aura, it gives a whopping -4 Tear Delay all by itself. However it is tough to retain it given the intensity of the game

: A personal favourite, if slightly unreliable. It greatly boosts one stat until you take damage in a room, and resets when you enter the next room but boosts a random stat (could be the same one). When you have a blue aura, it gives a whopping -4 Tear Delay all by itself. However it is tough to retain it given the intensity of the game Epiphora : When you keep firing tears in one direction, the tear delay keeps going down, peaking at exactly half of what it started at. One of those items which is a welcome boost if it happens, but generally tough to maintain against mobile enemies

: When you keep firing tears in one direction, the tear delay keeps going down, peaking at exactly half of what it started at. One of those items which is a welcome boost if it happens, but generally tough to maintain against mobile enemies Milk : An odd one. If you take damage, it spills and apparently crying over that actually pretty useful! Gives a -2 tear delay down. A hidden interaction not many people notice is with Box of Friends and Milk. When used, it automatically grants a tear delay down of -2 without taking any damage

: An odd one. If you take damage, it spills and apparently crying over that actually pretty useful! Gives a -2 tear delay down. A not many people notice is with Box of Friends and Milk. When used, it automatically grants a tear delay down of -2 without taking any damage Chocolate Milk: a very weird one. When firing normal tears it appears to be a tears down, but thats not the whole story as you can tap fire at incredibly fast rates. However whenever you have a charge based tear effect, such as Brimstone or Monstro’s Lung, or Ludovico Technique, it surprisingly grants a -1 Tear Delay Down

Now as for items with negative effect on tears, its a lot simpler. Some merely grant a Tears Down such as Death’s Touch, Sacred Heart, Godhead or sometimes Experimental Treatment. Generally the upside of these items counteracts the tears down and they do not restrict you from reaching the tears cap of 5

Others however grant a Tear Delay Up, which is more crippling. They never come without their benefits of course. Either they add a lot more tears in a shotgun like burst, like Brimstone, Monstro’s Lung or Triple/Quad shot. Else they make a single tear massively powerful, like Eve’s Mascara, Polyphemus, Ipecac or Dr Fetus. These can still have their cap be broken with additional tear delay downs. Worth noting that some of these these Delay Ups don’t stack. For example, Mutant Spider + Inner Eye will fire seven tears for the same tear delay cost of any one of them

So that was a long, long read about Tears and needless to say, I am brought to tears by the detail in which I have discussed them. There are a few tricks I haven’t quite given away, such as a special one to go even further than a tear delay of 1. Stay tuned to find out how