Lazarus

What you start with

The mechanics that actually govern this character.

• 3 red heart containers, range 4.5, luck -1, and one unidentified pill.
• Once per floor in Repentance (it was once per run pre-Repentance) he revives on the spot as Lazarus Risen, losing exactly 1 red heart container, never dropping below 1, and gaining a permanent +0.5 damage on both forms.
• Lazarus Risen has a 1.40x damage multiplier, 1.25 speed, higher range and luck, and carries Anemic. He counts as Lazarus for every achievement, unlock and completion mark.
• With the Backasswards challenge cleared he starts with Anemic (+1.5 range in Repentance) and Lazarus Risen's creep trail is permanently on.

How to play them

• Dying is a resource. Each death is a permanent +0.5 damage and swaps you into the 1.40x form for the rest of that floor.
• The Repentance cost is only one container per death, not all but one, so dying on Basement with 3 containers still leaves you at 2. This makes deliberate deaths far cheaper than they were pre-Repentance.
• He wants containers back, so Angel Rooms beat Devil Rooms: deals cost the exact resource his revival consumes.
• His revival sits 3rd in the revival order in Repentance, behind Soul of Lazarus and 1up!, so any other extra lives are consumed before it.
• Range 4.5 and luck -1 are his real weaknesses. Take Anemic, Mom's Heels or Mom's Underwear early, and grab every luck up on offer.
• Plan boss fights around which form you are in: the stat gap between base Lazarus and Lazarus Risen is large enough to be worth timing a death before a hard boss.

Items to hunt for

Strong on this character specifically, not just strong.

• Prayer Card: repeated Eternal Hearts and red heart containers, which directly refund what each revival costs him.
• Birthright: each death grants +7.2 damage that decays over one minute, and it retriggers on every subsequent death.
• Damocles: much safer on him than on anyone else. It only threatens to fall after non-self damage, and he starts with a built-in extra life to absorb the sword.
• Plan C: the guaranteed self-kill is far more affordable when you have an inherent per-floor revival behind it.
• Suicide King card: a guaranteed death, which on Lazarus converts into +0.5 permanent damage and a form swap.
• Lost Cork trinket: widens Anemic's creep trail, which is real sustained damage on a permanently-Anemic Lazarus Risen.
• Any luck up (Latch Key, Lucky Foot, Perfection) to dig out of his -1 base luck, which quietly ruins luck-scaling tear items.

Traps to refuse

Picks that are neutral or good elsewhere and bad here.

• Range downs such as Number One, and items that need long range to work at all such as A Lump of Coal, on a 4.5 base range character.
• Early Devil deals: every container you sell is a container the next revival also takes.
• Treating the revival as a safety net in Chapter 4 and beyond, where all damage is one full heart and reviving leaves you very thin.
• The old trick of donating your last heart to a Devil Beggar and respawning to activate it three times is pre-Repentance only. It does not work on 1.7.9.

Cheese and techniques

Verified against 1.7.9 on console — anything patched, PC-only or Repentance+ only is called out rather than listed.

• The revival is once per floor, so bank the hardest fight on a floor for right after you have already used it, or take the fight on a fresh floor with the revival still available.
• Lazarus Risen counts as Lazarus for every mark and unlock, so a mid-run death costs nothing on the completion note. The only thing Lazarus Risen cannot do is unlock Bethany.
• Suicide King plus a floor transition is a repeatable +0.5 permanent damage engine, one stack per floor.
• Lazarus' Rags in Repentance gives him 2 lives on top of his own ability; the first death on a floor uses his inherent revival, and travelling to the next floor does not reset the item's life count.
• In The Beast fight, respawn items revive you immediately without restarting the fight, so his inherent revival is a genuine second attempt at the boss rather than a reset.

Getting the marks

• You never have to play death-averse for completion purposes, because Lazarus Risen earns every Lazarus mark.
• Mother and The Beast are more forgiving for him than for most characters, since a death inside the Beast fight respawns him in place rather than ending the run.
• The Ascent is a chain of separate short floors, so his once-per-floor revival should refresh across it, effectively giving several lives on the way to The Beast (unverified: the per-floor rule is confirmed, its application to Ascent floors is inferred).