It helps too much, even looks like it's cheating, but this ins't cheating, this is too good for be a cheat
👌👌👍👍👍

Actually made Jacob fun to play

helpful as heck

It works great with Birthright. I love this mod.

Updated mod.
Adjusted target range since after last update Esau dashes for shorter distances.
Removed everything related to displaying Esau health since it's not relevant now.
Also you can enable\disable Anima Sola and regular dash helpers separately from Mod Config Menu now.
From what i tested everything works with Birthright or multiple Esaus(like in Red Redemption challenge).

does this work anymore?

Dark Esau was changed in a recent update to be invulnerable. Does this mod still work? I know the healthbar is unnecessary, but does the healthbar script break the game now since Esau doesn't die anymore?

@Hamsterygood yes it does. Both Esaus will have their own targets.

Out of curiosity, does this work with Tainted Jacob's new Birthright effect?

I haven't tested it thoroughly, but everything seems to work fine. Doesn't crash for me at least)
One thing I noticed is that Esau dash distance is reduced a bit and now he doesn't reach the marker consistently. It is not critical, just annoying.
Also this time I have a solid reason to return to the game so fix should land soon.

Will this still work with new Dark Esau mechanics? I don't see why it wouldn't, but better safe than sorry

by any chance can someone make this same mod but for the apparition (mothers shadow, when you get knife piece 2)

add a config for the helper when dashing and the helper when anima sola is being used

could you replace the line which shows where he is gonna strike with a glow which appears from ultra war's giga bomb?

i think having it so that it shows the esau's hp bar while hes held by anima sola would be a fair way to balance it

I tried to investigate the issue with Spider Mod but with no success. I'm manually rendering the health bar, so it shouldn't interfere with the Spider Mod. Moreover, if I start a new launch with the mods disabled and receive the Spider Mod via the console, Esau's health does not appear until I exit back to the menu and continue the run. So maybe the problem is not only in the mod, but also in the game itself. Currently, if you have problems with Spider Mod, try going to the main menu and back. Later I will add a check to disable rendering of the health bar if the player already has a Spider Mod item.

This mod makes Spider Mod's HP bar glitch out and not show correctly once dark esau spawns in and charges

There is a bug with spidermod that causes Dark Esau's hp bar to not be shown if its not enabled in the config

@Yo_Cnizo if you have Mod Config Menu you should see option to enable health bar there. If you don't have Mod Config Menu you can edit mod data manually - go to game folder in steam -> data -> dark esau helper and change {"enableHealthBar":false} to {"enableHealthBar":true} in corresponding save*.dat file

So--- how can i Display a healthbar for Dark Esau? Where is the option?

@AgentCucco thanks for spotting out and detailed explanation. I was able to reproduce crash using the console spawn. Issue that caused a crash for me was the way i checked if Esua is dashing: npcData[DASH_ATTACKING_FRAME] + ESAU_REGULAR_DASH_FRAME_COUNT >= currentFrameCount. On game start it could be 0 + 70 >= 0, resulting in crash when trying to draw a target afterwards. Hope that fix will work for you too)

One idea is, on 'configureEsauData' you are trying to get the AngleDegrees of TargetPosition without checking if TargetPosition exists, Vectors are prone to just instantly crashing the game when used improperly like here.

My guess is that the game normally spawns Dark Esau with a tag or parent that automatically sets a TargetPosition for them, when playing as Tainted Jacob, but manually spawning Dark Esau through the console or lua won't give him these values.

Just replacing the 'if npc.Variant ~= 0 then' to `if npc.Variant ~= 0 or not npc.TargetPosition then return end` should in theory solve the crashes(?

Okay I just tested with Better Dark Esau disabled and as Tainted Jacob, and the game still crashed with this mod enabled, idk why.

Well, the mod crashed whenever I spawned dark esau as (at least) Isaac, however I did not test with Tainted Jacob. I also have the better Dark Esau mod enabled, for some reason.

I disabled this one and the crashes stopped, so I didn't test further, let me keep messing around.

@AgentCucco does it happens 100% of the time? I ran through some quick tests - regular runs\red redemption(with multiple esaus) and everything worked fine. Could you please provide some details cause I wasn't able to reproduce crash?

I think this mod is pretty cool, but I also think it shouldn't crash whenever dark esau spawns, lol.

@_Javc thanks for the report, I messed up with the order of functions in the last update. It should be fixed now

it throws this error when Esau is chained
"PostNPCRender" failed: /dark esau helper_2496789708/main.lua:165: attempt to call a nil value (global 'flickerSprite')

Added option to enable health bar for Dark Esau. I think that this feature is a bit out of scope of this mod, so currently it's disabled by default.

I was thinking about making this mod myself, good thing I checked the listing first. I hope this gets added to the base game.

This is really usefull and dosen't feel like cheating, i would love to see esau hp somehow.
Then im gonna need something for tainted lazarus lol

Can you add an HP bar to Esau like with the spider buddy item?

Nice!!!! Thank you so much :D!!!

Yes, as of now it should be fully compatible with Better Dark Esau.

Is this mod compatible with Better Dark Esau? I figured it was but I thought I'd ask

amazing. you made the character more bearable without actually changing any fundamental mechanics of his. thank you oh so very much

wow this is good

Duuude. I was trying to find a mod that might make this character easier without actually changing any behaviors, and this is it! It even looks nice!

something that makes the game more fun? be careful Eddie might take this down

GREAT EXPERIENCE, thanks a lot

@Sera486 There you go : https://pastebin.com/tuUzF2ja .

The whole code for main.lua is there. You may notice that I've changed a few things here and there in your original code (namely, intermediate functions to factor code a bit, and global variables to identify tables fields, always safer than repeating a raw string in my opinion).

The idea is straightforward, while Esau is in the StateSuicide state compute a position based on the (Esau, Jacob) vector, and when he leaves this state I go back to your old code. While Esau is in the StateSuicide state, I use the computeEsauEndPosition to find the position at which the marked target will appear and then use your original code to draw the sprite on the ground (game frames are used to make the line change color).

Comments at the top of the pastebin for code explanation and remarks. Also, a small credit in your main.lua would be much appreciated :)

WHOA THIS IS AWESOME

@Sylmir that's a really great idea! It would be nice if you could share your code)

I came up with that idea the very same day you uploaded the mod to Steam, although I had no clue how to find the marked sprite and render it on screen. Thanks a lot !

In case you are interested, I changed the mod (locally) a bit so that there is a line that appears for the whole duration of Anima Sola and follows the position of Jacob, flashing gradually more red, faster and faster as the effect of Anima Sola wears off. I used that extensively in Greed(ier) Mode, it makes life so much easier when you don't have to keep an eye on Esau in order to find where he is going to dash if you release Anima Sola early, or just move too far away and Esau ends up offscreen. I can send you the code if you think its worth adding :)

This is an awesome idae that i'll try out!
And i'm very avert of changing characters this way, cause i don't want to cheat

this is a great change that i think will make the character feel fair without feeling cheaty

helpful (very)

Wow, this seems pretty coools, will be checking out