Jacob's Ladder

Item Icon
Pickup Quote	"Electric tears"
Entity ID	5.100.494
Character Appearance
Item Pool	Battery Bum Crane Game Treasure Room Treasure Room
Quality	3
Item Tags
Collection Grid	(page 5, column 9, row 1) (page 5, column 10, row 1)

This article is about the Afterbirth † item granting electric tears. For the renamed Antibirth item granting Angel Room shops, see The Stairway.

Jacob's Ladder is a passive item added in The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth †.

Effects

• Tears fire 1-2 sparks of electricity in random directions upon hitting an obstacle or enemy.
• Tears fire 1 short-ranged spark of electricity in a random direction upon hitting an obstacle or enemy. When an arc strikes an enemy, it will strike another nearby enemy, chaining up to four times.
• Sparks deal half of the tear's damage.
  • Sparks behave like spectral and piercing lasers and will arc to hit enemies that are close enough, even striking multiple ones in a row.
  • An enemy can take damage multiple times from sparks of a single chain. If an enemy take damage from a tear, it does not take any damage from the chain which the tear causes.
  • Tears that hit the floor due to running out of range do not generate arcs.
  • If the floor is wet, such as Downpour, Dross, Flooded Caves, some rooms in Scarred Womb and after using Flush!, the arcing distance is increased.

Synergies

• Multiple battery-themed items have special synergies with the sparks:
  • Sharp Plug / Car Battery: Electricity deals 75% of Isaac's tear damage if he owns 1 of these items, to 100% if Isaac owns both.
  • 9 Volt / Watch Battery / Hairpin: Increases arcing distance of sparks.
  • The Battery / Jumper Cables / AAA Battery: Increases amount of arcs a spark can generate.
  • Old Capacitor: Allows sparks to arc on the same enemy multiple times.
• Abyss: When Isaac uses Abyss to absorb Jacob's Ladder it turns into a pale blue locust. The locust can create arcs of electricity dealing 0.1 damage per tick.
• Angelic Prism: All of the split tears will be electrified. Also, the sparks that pass through the prism will be split.
• Brimstone / Azazel / Tainted Azazel: The beam gains a light blue tint, spawning sparks at the end of the beam and near enemies hit by the beam.
• C Section: Spawns the sparks for each tick they hit.
• Lost Contact: Tears block enemy shots as normal and will then spawn the sparks where the shot was blocked.
• A Lump of Coal: Sparks deal damage based on the tear's range, increasing with distance. No extra damage is applied by the distance covered by the spark.
• Mom's Knife: The knife will occasionally generate sparks when hitting an enemy.
• Spectral tears: The tears can spawn sparks while passing through obstacles, and a tear can spawn sparks only once in this way.
• Tainted Magdalene: Hugs cause sparks to spawn.
• Tear effects: The tear effects will be applied over the sparks as well.
  • Serpent's Kiss: The poison caused by the sparks will not drop black hearts.
  • Nose Goblin / Sinus Infection: The boogers do not spawn sparks when directly hit on an enemy, but their sparks spawn the boogers for each enemy hit.
  • Euthanasia: The sparks coming off of needle shots also act as needle shots themselves, allowing entire rooms to be killed instantly.
• Tech.5 / Technology / Technology 2 / Tech X: Lasers gain a light blue tint and generate sparks.
• Trisagion: Spawns the sparks for each tick they hit.

Interactions

• Brimstone / Azazel: The beams do not spawn the sparks.
• Backstabber: The sparks cannot hit the enemies' backs for the extra damage and bleeding.
• Compound Fracture / Cricket's Body / The Parasite: Split tears can spawn the sparks.
• Dr. Fetus / Epic Fetus: The bombs do not spawn the sparks.
• Haemolacria:
  • Only the main tear can spawn the sparks.
  • Burst tears can also spawn the sparks.
• Ipecac: The sparks spawn only when they hit a wall.
• The Ludovico Technique: The Ludovico tear spawns a large number of sparks when in contact with an enemy, but not on obstacles.
• Mom's Knife: The knife does not spawn the sparks.
• Proptosis: The sparks will decrease in damage based on how much damage the tear has lost. The spark's damage also dereases by the distance covered by the spark.
• Rubber Cement: Tears will only spawn the sparks when hitting enemies.
• Spirit Sword: Both swing attacks and projectiles can spawn the sparks.
• Tech.5 / Technology / Technology 2 / Tech X: The lasers do not spawn the sparks.
• Trisagion: Only spawns the sparks when hitting obstacles.

Trivia

• This item refers to high voltage traveling arcs, which are colloquially known as Jacob's ladders. It creates a small electric arc rising between two metal rods, as the item graphic represents.
  • The name is a reference to The Book of Genesis from the Old Testament. In Genesis 28:10-19 Jacob rested on his journey and had a dream; in the dream, he saw a ladder that served as the connection between Heaven and Earth.
• This item's new effect closely resembles 120 Volt from Antibirth, which was added to the game with a different effect.
• The Stairway was originally named Jacob's Ladder in Antibirth. It was renamed when being ported to avoid a naming conflict.

Bugs

Bug!	When using The Forgotten's melee attack with both Jacob's Ladder and Haemolacria, the sparks caused by splattered tears will hurt the player. This does not apply to other tear scattering items.

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
Achievements Challenges Completion Marks Items Trinkets Characters Chapters Rooms Transformations Attributes Bosses Monsters Pickups Modes Curses Objects Seeds Effects Endings
Collection Item Pools Version History Modding Music