The Ludovico Technique

Effects

• Instead of firing tears, Isaac controls one floating tear that hovers over obstacles. This tear deals constant damage when held in place over an enemy.

Notes

• (Removed in Repentance) The Ludovico Technique is a special item.

• Ludovico tear is piercing and spectral by default.

• Ludovico tear movement speed is determined by the shot speed stat.

• Ludovico tear hits per second are determined by the tears stat.

• If the transformation Book Worm is obtained, a smaller tear freaks out between Isaac and Ludovico with a crazy high speed.

• When Death uses his The Hourglass attack, the tear is slow to respond but then moves so quickly that it is nearly impossible to use effectively.

• (Removed in Repentance) When there are no enemies in a room, the tear slowly floats towards the player.

  • The Brimstone ring still follows when the player is outside of it.

• If multiple Ludovico Techniques are acquired (via (Added in Afterbirth) Diplopia, (Added in Afterbirth †) Crooked Penny or on a victory lap), then additional smaller tears will orbit the main tear.

  • A maximum of 15 smaller tears can orbit the main tear.

• The Ludovico tear is larger than normal, but does not gain size from damage as much as normal tears.

Synergies

• 20/20 / The Inner Eye / Mutant Spider: Smaller tears orbits the main tear.
• Brimstone: Tear takes the shape of a very large laser ring. The shot speed is ignored. The Tears stat is ignored and the damage is dealt very rapidly at a rate equivalent to 1 tear delay. This ring will always be present and doesn't need charging up like normal Brimstone would.
  • Brimstone + (Added in Afterbirth) Incubus: Incubus' Brimstone laser is not affected by Ludovico Technique.
    • (Added in Repentance)Adds a smaller controllable laser ring in addition to the main one.
  • (Added in Repentance) Brimstone + Ipecac: +2 damage, beam explodes when colliding with enemies and obstacles
  • Brimstone + A Lump of Coal: The ring increases in diameter, but not the damage, the farther away it gets from Isaac.
  • Brimstone + Spoon Bender: The ring reaches out to attack enemies near it, reforming into a ring when no enemies are present.
  • Brimstone + Technology: The ring is visually identical to a normal Brimstone ring, but the 1.5x damage multiplier applies.
  • Brimstone + 20/20/ The Inner Eye/ Mutant Spider: no effect.
• (Azazel) Azazel: The same effect as with Brimstone, but the damage is halved.
  • Azazel + Brimstone: Full damage of the laser ring is regained.
• (Added in Repentance) (Tainted Azazel) Tainted Azazel: The same effect as Brimstone, dealing full damage (Tainted Azazel's default laser damage is halved unless (Added in Repentance) Hemoptysis is used first). Tainted Azazel can no longer use Hemoptysis.
• (Added in Afterbirth †) Angelic Prism: While the tear is in contact with the prism, it will fire 4 additional tears in cardinal directions at Isaac's tear rate.
• (Added in Afterbirth †) Backstabber: Much easier to inflict bleeding and double damage on most enemies.
• (Added in Repentance) Berserk!: The tear can't be controlled while berserking but it can be batted around the room until the effect ends.
  • (Tainted Samson) Tainted Samson: uses a passive form of Berserk! that works the same way.
• Bookworm: Causes an additional smaller tear to constantly appear and disappear, teleporting from Isaac's location to the main Ludovico tear in a glitchy manner.
• (Added in Afterbirth †) Compound Fracture: Turns tear into a large bone, which shoots out smaller tears when attacking/touching an enemy. Scattered tears are spectral and piercing.
• (Added in Afterbirth) Dead Eye: Damage bonus increases until it hits the max of 2x. Since the controllable tear never hits the ground or wall, the bonus cannot be lost.
• Dr. Fetus: A bomb is shot out at high speed and can be controlled, another bomb cannot be shot until the previously shot bomb has detonated.
• (Added in Repentance) Eye of the Occult: While holding a direction key, the Ludovico tear will constantly shoot out controllable tears in random directions. The air time of these tears scales with the range stat.
• (Added in Afterbirth) Fate's Reward: The familiar gains spectral and piercing tears.
• (Added in Afterbirth †) Flat Stone: The tear starts bouncing at a rate somewhat below Isaac's fire rate, each bounce dealing splash damage.
  • Flat Stone + Ipecac: Causes a poisonous explosion when it bounces instead of plain splash damage, as per normal Ipecac. The first bounce when entering a room does not explode, allowing moving the tear with less risk of self-damage.
• (Added in Afterbirth †) (The Forgotten) The Forgotten: The tear follows the Forgotten when in its skeleton form. It can be hit with its melee attack to propel it, making it do more damage. When switching to the Soul, the tear behaves as normal.
  • The Forgotten + (Added in Afterbirth) Multidimensional Baby: The second tear acts exactly like the first and can also be hit to propel it.
  • The Forgotten + Multi-shot: Switching back from the Soul to the Forgotten will only remove the main tear, thus creating infinitely persisting tears on the screen. Repeating this process allows suspending arbitrarily high amount of tears.
• Godhead: The tear homes towards nearby enemies and gains a large damaging aura. However, the aura cannot damage an enemy that is in contact with the actual tear; barring a high tear rate, it may be better to keep the aura on the enemies instead of the tear.
• (Removed in Afterbirth †) Guppy transformation: A large number of flies is rapidly deployed whilst controlling the Ludovico tear.
• (Added in Afterbirth) Holy Light: The Ludovico tear will release holy beams on itself periodically while touching an enemy.
• (Added in Afterbirth / Removed in Repentance) Incubus: Isaac gains a controlled tear while also being able to shoot normally with Incubus. Incubus's tears gain piercing and spectral properties.
  • (Added in Repentance) Incubus creates a second smaller Ludovico Technique tear instead, which can both be controlled by Isaac. The second tear is slightly delayed/ outside of the main tear. This may cause it to not hit enemies sometimes.
  • (Added in Repentance) (Lilith) Lilith: Lilith's incubus will fire a smaller Ludovico Technique tear. For each doubled incubus caused by (Added in Afterbirth) Box of Friends, there will be an additional Ludovico Technique tear that spawns on Lilith's location.
• (Added in Afterbirth † / Removed in Repentance) Lead Pencil: The tear blinks red, but the effect is entirely cosmetic.
  • (Added in Repentance) Tear barrages are launched in cardinal directions, even when not controlling the tear. Proc rate depends on fire rate.
• (Added in Repentance) Lodestone: The single floating tear will flash grey to indicate that the magnetism might apply on hit. Like Strange Attractor, enemies tagged with magnetism will also draw the floating tear towards said enemy.
• Loki's Horns: The Ludovico tear will sometimes shoot 4 smaller tears in each cardinal direction.
• Lost Contact: Tear will block enemy tears without disappearing.
• A Lump of Coal: The tear becomes larger the further away it is from Isaac, increasing in damage.
• Mom's Eye: The Ludovico tear will sometimes shoot a smaller tear in a random direction.
• (Removed in Afterbirth †) Mom's Wig: The item causes spiders to spawn rapidly when moving the tear.
  • (Added in Repentance) Causes Spiders to rapidly spawn until the cap of 5 is reached.
• Monstro's Lung: Tear turns red and does more damage.
  • (Added in Afterbirth) Tear becomes a cluster of variously sized tears spread over a small area. The tears move at the same speed when controlled but constantly move around each other.
• Mysterious Liquid: Creep continuously oozes from underneath the tear.
• My Reflection: The shot speed multiplier causes the tear to move significantly faster, allowing it to catch up to any fast-moving enemies.
• The Parasite: Shoots out smaller tears when attacking an enemy. Scattered tears are spectral and piercing.
• (Added in Afterbirth †) Pause: The tear deals damage, even if the enemies are stopped. Moving the tear unpauses the enemies.
• Strange Attractor: Enemies, items and even most bosses will be sucked to the single floating tear, dealing constant damage while keeping Isaac well away from harm, making this combination extremely effective in almost all scenarios.
• (Added in Afterbirth) Tear Detonator: The tear explodes into six smaller tears, then reappears next to the player.
• Technology: The tear becomes a large laser ring, which visually looks like a shot fired by Tech X. Shot speed is ignored. The Tears stat is ignored and the damage is dealt very rapidly at a rate equivalent to 1 tear delay.
• Tech.5: The tear controls as usual, and Isaac fires the laser towards the tear relative to his position, rather than in the direction the player is moving the tear.

Interactions

• ???'s Only Friend / Robo-Baby 2.0: The tear and familiar(s) travel together, as they are controlled in the same way. Because the familiars' travel speeds are not affected by Isaac's shot speed, they only travel in the same spot when Isaac has exactly the amount of shot speed to sync them up.
• (Added in Repentance) Almond Milk The tear will rapidly teleport in a small area around it, making it difficult to aim.
• Anti-Gravity: Only tear delay down applies.
• (Added in Repentance) Bird's Eye: Isaac will occasionally shoot a flame towards the Ludovico tear.
• Blood Clot / Chemical Peel: The tear steadily cycles between red and "normal," dealing more damage when red.
• (Removed in Repentance) Chocolate Milk: The tear can't be charged, but reduces Isaac's tear delay by 20%.
• The Common Cold: The tear pulses green, poisoning enemies.
• Cricket's Body: Only tear delay down applies.
• Cursed Eye: Overridden by The Ludovico Technique.
• Epic Fetus: Overrides The Ludovico Technique.
• (Added in Afterbirth) Explosivo: Tear will alternate between "normal" and black. If it touches an enemy, it will stick to it, grow in size, then explode. The tear can not damage anything or be controlled when stuck to an enemy.
  • (Added in Afterbirth † / Removed in Repentance) The tear will grow very quickly when stuck to an enemy and pop without dealing damage, instead of the normal Explosivo delay and explosion.
    • (Added in Repentance) The Ludovico Tear will not get stuck on an enemy, instead a duplicate Tear gets stuck on the enemy, grows and explodes.
• Fire Mind: Tears retain the ability to ignite enemies and explode. Tears respawn at Isaac's location after exploding.
  • (Added in Afterbirth †) Tears do not explode on contact with an enemy.
• (Added in Afterbirth †) Ghost Pepper / Red Candle: Fires created from Ghost Pepper will destroy the tear and cause it to respawn on Isaac.
  • (Added in Repentance) Fires spawned by both items do not interact with the Ludovico tear. However Ghost Pepper will spawn fires quickly when the Tear is moved.
• (Added in Afterbirth †) Haemolacria: Overrides The Ludovico Technique.
• Homing tears: The Ludovico tear will slowly move towards an enemy. This can make it harder to control towards a different enemy or for enemies that hide underground.
• Ipecac: Overridden by The Ludovico Technique. (No damage increase or explosion.)
  • (Added in Afterbirth † / Removed in Repentance) +4 damage bonus, no explosion.
    • (Added in Repentance) +2 damage, no explosion
• Mom's Knife: The tear becomes a controllable knife that deals double Isaac's damage. Effective shot speed is lowered. Tears stat is ignored and the damage is dealt at a rate equivalent to 4 tear delay.
  • Mom's Knife + (Added in Afterbirth †) Flat Stone: Flat Stone is overridden completely.
  • Mom's Knife + Monstro's Lung: Monstro's Lung is overridden completely.
  • Mom's Knife + Brimstone: Brimstone is overridden completely.
  • Mom's Knife + Technology: Technology is overridden completely.
• (Added in Afterbirth) Multidimensional Baby: No effect.
  • (Added in Afterbirth † / Removed in Repentance) An additional Ludovico tear is spawned when it passes through Multidimensional Baby, at the start of every room, and persists like the Ludovico tear itself. However, it cannot be controlled; it instead slowly follows Isaac.
    • (Added in Repentance) An additional Ludovico tear is spawned when it passes through Multidimensional Baby, at the start of every room, and persists like the Ludovico tear itself. It cannot be controlled and it will not follow Isaac, as this function was removed from The Ludovico Technique in Repentance. Instead it stays completely still where it spawned. Subsequent passes through the baby have no effect.
• Notched Axe: The Ludovico tear cannot be moved while Notched Axe is held up.
  • (Added in Repentance) With the Repentance rework, this remains unchanged. However, the tear can be moved by swings, without any special effect happening to it.
• Proptosis: The closer the tear floats to Isaac, the larger it is. The farther away, the smaller.
• (Added in Afterbirth) Pupula Duplex: Decreases the tear size by taking the form of a Pupula Duplex tear; however, it travels faster.
• (Added in Afterbirth †) Sinus Infection / (Added in Afterbirth †)(Nose Goblin) Nose Goblin: The tear can occasionally stick to an enemy. If the enemy does not die quickly, the tear pops and a new one spawns.
  • (Added in Repentance) Like Explosivo, no longer sticks the Original Tear to the enemy, instead places a replacement booger, which deals the same damage.
• (Added in Afterbirth †) Sulfuric Acid: The Ludovico tear occasionally becomes acidic and can destroy objects.
• (Tainted Lilith) Tainted Lilith: (Added in Repentance) Gello shoots a smaller Ludovico tear which disappears if he retreats back into Lilith.
• (Added in Afterbirth) Tech X: Overrides The Ludovico Technique.
• Technology 2: The tear controls as usual, and Isaac fires the laser towards the tear relative to his position, rather than in the direction the player is moving the tear. Technology 2's damage penalty still applies. The laser becomes spectral.
  • Technology 2 + (Added in Afterbirth †) Analog Stick: Laser is fired directly at the tear while it is being moved, instead of being limited to cardinal directions.
• (Added in Afterbirth †) Technology Zero: No effect without additional items. Extra tears orbiting the main one or familiar tears will generate arcs to the controlled tear.
• Tiny Planet: Tear orbits around Isaac, however, the orbit can be grown or shrunken, sped up or slowed down by using the firing keys.
• (Added in Afterbirth) Tractor Beam: Only tears and shot speed bonuses apply.
• Trinity Shield: The controls of the tear and the shield overlap, making it impossible to consistently control both.
• (Added in Afterbirth) The Wiz: A smaller Ludovico tear will spawn and revolve around the main one. Also, the Ludovico tear moves diagonally, up is up-right, down is down-left, left is left-up, right is right-down. This can be counteracted by holding the keys or d-pad in its associated path (up-right to make it go up and so forth with the other keys).