Lachryphagy

**Lachryphagy** is an unlockable passive item added in *The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth † (Booster Pack #4)*.

## Effects

* Isaac's tears decelerate as they travel. Upon stopping or hitting an obstacle, they burst into 8 tears 5 to 8 tears, depending on tear size, in all directions.
	+ Hitting an enemy will not cause them to burst.
* Tears can be fired into other tears to feed them, increasing their damage and the damage of the burst tears.
	+ If one tear is fed 5 other tears, it will immediately burst.
	+ The tears will have their damage added together, with the first consumed tear giving additional damage.
	+ Tears in the burst will deal half the damage the main tear would have.
	+ This also applies to Familiar tears.
* Tear bursting can also happen from sheer shot size. With sufficiently high damage or several tear-size increasing items, the tears will burst almost immediately after firing.

## Notes

* Certain items that cause tears to split and feed each other, when combined, can cause the resulting tear to become so large that the game will crash. Use caution when using Lachryphagy with splitting tears.

## Synergies

* /  / : Tears tend to clump together soon after firing for high damage shots. It may take more than 5 tears in total to cause a burst.
* : Akeldama tears can feed and be fed by the Lachryphagy tears. Fed Akeldama tears will gain increased damage but will not burst, and will cap at 5 tears fed each.
* / : Wisps' tears can feed the Lachryphagy tears.
* : Brimstone's range is now limited, but comically large Lachryphagy tears will form at the end of the beam.
* : Bone tears split into a random spread of fractured tears and bone tears.
* / : Fed tears split into 12 tears.
* Firing into the floating tear won't reset the multiplier as long as that tear doesn't hit a wall. The burst tears will never reset the multiplier.
* : Needle shots will allow the tears to burst at least twice.
* : Tear burst retains Eye of Belial's effect, greatly increasing the effectiveness of the tear burst due to the piercing, spectral, and increased tear damage. By proxy, piercing, spectral, and continuum tears all improve the value of Lachyphagy.
* : can compound tears with Lachryphagy.
* : Tears look like Haemolacria. They can be fed and will burst into 8 tears that have Haemolacria's burst effect upon hitting obstacles or enemies.
	+ **Haemolacria** +  /  / : The tears behave like Lachryphagy tears. On hitting enemies, they always burst into respective Lachryphagy-synergized lasers (if available), but on hitting a wall or an obstacle, slower-moving shots burst into normal shots and faster ones into lasers.
* : Tears continually grow in size without being fed other tears, but they will still only deal bonus damage based strictly on how far they travel. Burst tears will still grow in size and damage as they travel.
* / : The tears clump together soon after firing, causing potentially up to 20x tear damage on a direct hit on an enemy.
* : Causes tears to float back towards Isaac and clump together with any tears they come along.
* : The fluctuating hitboxes of the tears causes them to clump together at a faster rate.
* : The beam's range is now limited, but Lachryphagy tears will form at the end of it.
* : Boogers will always burst into more boogers, though some of the boogers may incorrectly appear to be normal tears. When a booger sticks to an enemy, it will burst into 8 boogers which have a high chance of sticking again to the same enemy.
* : Technology's range is now limited, but piercing Lachryphagy tears will form at the end of the beam.
* : Significantly shortens the range of the laser. A Lachryphagy tear spawns at the end of the laser every tick, rapidly feeding off of each other and bursting when standing still.
* : All split tears will travel along the beam.
* : Trisagion tears will fade faster, but will constantly spit out more Lachryphagy tears while they are active.

## Interactions

* : Lachryphagy does not affect regular Brimstone beams, but tears from other sources such as  or  will burst into 8 Brimstone beams. Lachryphagy affects Chocolate Milk + Brimstone.
* : Counts as a tear and will be wasted if thrown into another tear.
* : Overrides Lachryphagy.
* : Overrides Lachryphagy.
* : Overridden by Lachryphagy.
* : Lachryphagy tears will burst into ipecac shots and explode. The Ipecac tear burst will travel like a normal tear instead of an arc. Due to tear slowdown effect it becomes hard to hit enemies without standing in the explosion radius.
* : Overrides Lachryphagy.
* : No effect.
* : Tears behave erratically, with freshly fired tears usually behaving like Lachryphagy and burst tears like Pop!.
* /  / : Tears are slowed/sped up along with enemies.
* : Overrides Lachryphagy.
* : Overrides Lachryphagy.
* : Tears will split but cannot be grown by feeding tears.

## Trivia

* Lachryphagy is based on this Steam Workshop item by KittyK47, originally known as Hungry Tears.
* The name of this item is a reference to the behavior of insects, drinking tears of other creatures.
* Isaac's appearance may be a reference to the Corinthian from Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman"

## Gallery

* Lachryphagy's appearance in the original Steam Workshop mod.
* Lachryphagy tear growth, as they're being fed.