Throughout its long life, The Binding of Isaac has kept one thing consistent: really difficult bosses. The games are a clear case of Easy Levels, Hard Bosses, and when the levels are hard enough as it is, you know you're in for a treat. With so many bosses in this game series, there are some that are definitely not this trope, while others are just plain annoying or tedious to fight.
Note: Final Bosses and Wake-Up Call Bosses aren't allowed unless they are overly hard by their standards. Try not to add tips or cheese strategies, especially if they are not things available on the average run. Also, all spoilers are unmarked! You Have Been Warned!
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The Binding of Isaac, Wrath of the Lamb, and Eternal Edition
Base Game
- Pestilence is mostly a pain because of room design more than anything else. The rocks and holes in the arena limit mobility, and his ipecac shots cover the floor with toxic green creep. Fortunately, his ipecac blasts will clear the rocks out eventually. Unfortunately, he is spawning grubs all over, and he has a sudden tendency to rapid fire his ipecac blasts. Once you get to his second stage, it is easy... but good luck getting to his second stage on more than a heart or two. He's even worse in Rebirth, as his ipecac blasts are faster.
- Death, the final Horseman, is able to summon Scythes that home in on you. It's limited homing, but they are big and hard to dodge. He can also slow you down with an Hourglass effect, making it harder for you to avoid his Scythes (and, if you're unlucky enough to face him alongside another boss in Boss Rush or War in Mega Satan's fight, the other boss' attacks, too). After you've damaged him enough, his mount detaches with its own health and charges endlessly, even after you've killed him. Also, he spawns Knights.
- The Headless Horseman is a Dual Boss that combines the strategies of the four Horsemen. The body shoots bombs that leave blood creep constantly, while the head shoots bullets with barely any warning and charges frequently. The charges will cover top, middle, and bottom, and not always in the same order. The head also appears as a Degraded Boss, sometimes more than one at a time. What's even worse is that this guy has potential to be the very first boss in a run. Fortunately, it drops A Pony on death, which sets your current speed to a respectable value, grants flight, and can activate a Dash Attack that deals decent damage.
- The Fallen can be difficult if encountered early in the game or when damage output is low. It attacks primarily with fast, spreading bullets fired in rapid succession and by chasing the player around, always followed by a four-way Brimstone blast. The real kicker comes when it splits into two, smaller copies upon reaching half health. The copies act independently, resulting in bullet and Brimstone hell and can quickly ruin your run if you don't take at least one of them out quickly. Rebirth thankfully nerfed The Fallen by giving it scaling HP, making it weaker on early floors.
Wrath of the Lamb
- Super Wrath was previously this. He fires homing troll bombs that pass through walls, and is tougher to kill. If you can't fly, it sucks to be you. Rebirth mercifully toned this down by making his troll bombs solid, and boss fights with him usually have indestructible blocks to stop the bombs, downgrading him to a Goddamned Boss.
- Ultra Pride is a Dual Boss. The main boss (Edmund) always does one full heart of damage without the Wafer with his stream of homing shots, and has an attack where he spontaneously creates a giant poison stream in front of him with long range. Then there's the familiar (Florian), who behaves like the Babies, meaning that he can teleport. In addition, he fires fast moving, long-range homing bullets. Also unfortunate is that, if you're going for Platinum God, you must defeat Ultra Pride at least once.
- The Blighted Ovum, Gemini's posthumous version. As with Gemini, Contusion periodically charges at the player at a faster speed. Unlike Gemini, Contusion doesn't need to catch his breath between rounds, and leaves behind a lethal blood creep trail that deals a full heart of health in damage, and sticks around for just enough time that you will likely step on it after completing a circle around the room. What about Suture? Fortunately, he's dead, so you don't have to hit him. Unfortunately, he shoots Brimstone lasers if he makes eye contact with you. The only saving grace for the Blighted Ovum is that you only need to kill Contusion, meaning he has half the health of Gemini. Rebirth also toned him down by causing his blood trail to deal only half a heart of damage. Still, if you can't kill Contusion quickly by then, and you lack flight, prepare for a painful fight.
- Gurdy Jr. doesn't look tough, right? Think again. After summoning Pooters and/or firing eight bullets around her, she charges at you at a ridiculous speed with ridiculous accuracy. And if she misses, she might just do a little homing slide into you. After losing half health, this will be her only attack she'll do. Only bombs or slowing tears will fend off her charge attack. One of her Champion variations has two of them battle you at the same time, and they will only charge at you, only making her that much harder to defeat. Rebirth's Double Trouble mechanic can actually saddle you with four of these gals simultaneously! Thankfully, unlike her "evolved form" Gurdy, Gurdy Jr. only has decent health.
- Carrion Queen, the posthumous version of Chub, can be somewhat difficult — not because the boss herself is strong, but because she leaves behind damaging red poop that quickly regenerates if destroyed. Also, much like Scolex, only her end segment is vulnerable to attack (though getting her to swallow bombs works, too). If you don't damage her fast enough to trigger her second phase, the arena will be a minefield... not that her second phase is much better, since she starts erratically bouncing around the room at high speed and can no longer be fed bombs, making it an utter pain to take off her last sliver of health, as her rapid diagonal movement makes her weak spot incredibly hard to hit. The champion version is actually better, because she instead poops out tiny heart enemies which are easy to kill and deal damage to her on death, and she doesn't enrage at low health. She's both a blessing and a curse during the Boss Rush, in which her poop can blend into the all the bloodstains and become hard to see, but will also cause major damage to the other bosses, potentially killing some of them in a few seconds.
- The Mask of Infamy, a giant copy of the mask-heart enemies. Her AI is much better than the mooks she takes from (not that they weren't smart before), and both her mask and heart need to be killed. The mask can only be hit from behind, and has near-perfect turning reflexes, making the already annoying Cat-and-Mouse Boss harder. If you don't have a piercing attack, bomb tears, or enough bombs, expect to spend a long time fighting her.
- While Peep himself is more of a Goddamned Boss than this trope, the same isn't true for The Bloat. There are very good reasons for why he used to provide the page image. And why he has his own subreddit
where the community dedicates themselves to Love to Hate him. As the posthumous version of Peep, Bloat has the same amount of health as him, and shares most of his same strategy. However, unlike all versions of Peepnote , the eyes detach at the start, not after taking enough damage. He also shares the same attack pattern, with one notable and extremely hated exception; if the Bloat is idle and you so much as graze the area directly to the sides or in front of him, he'll fire Brimstone beams from his eyes (either two forward or one to each side). This attack is not telegraphed, and will hit you unless you've got enough speed to run past him in the split second between the trigger and firing. It's possible to get hit the same second you enter the room with this boss! The only safe place you can attack from is behind him, but this can't always be done as: his eyes can be behind him, he can leak out red creep behind him (which hurts you unless you have flight), and he sometimes changes position. His green champion version will also send out a spray of Ipecac bombs towards you whenever he jumps, and he can spawn Chargers when he creates damaging creep. It is also possible to fight him in both Necropolis and chapter 4 on the same run and, in Greed, the Boss switch might pit you with two of them. He's even worse in an Afterbirth† challenge called "April's Fool", on which every boss on every floor is The Bloat, even the final boss in the Womb! You can thank this user on Reddit for coming up with this challenge. Granted, due to the wacky mechanics of the trial, it's functionally impossible to die, but that doesn't make it any less obnoxious. Also fortunate is that this expansion introduced the Analog Stick item, which allows you to fire diagonally and mitigates some of the difficulty if you happen to get it. - Conquest, the new horseman in Wrath of the Lamb, has a charge which covers almost the entire screen, which can be impossible to dodge if you're too slow or get trapped too far from the safe area. There's little warning for his fast-moving homing bullets, and the beams he releases from the sky are impossible to dodge by your own ability (unless you have flight), you just have to hope they don't target you. His AI sometimes has a small pathfinding bug where he slowly drifts into a corner and into the wall where normal tears can't hit, while he can simply teleport off screen to do more damage to you. Combine that with his whole heart damage for everything he does and Conquest can end your game. Conquest's game plan is mostly teleporting, so rush attacks (Game Kid, Unicorn, The Chariot) are much less useful than with most bosses. To make it worse, while Conquest can usually only replace Death, due to a glitch in Wrath of the Lamb, he can also randomly replace War, who is fought two floors earlier (though thankfully this is no longer the case as of Rebirth and its expansions). And in Repentance, his sky beams attack was made easier to telegraph, but many more beams rain down on the battlefield, making the attack overall that much harder to dodge.
Eternal Edition
- The original game's Eternal Edition makes even the easiest bosses much harder than any normal boss fought in Rebirth or pre-Eternal, especially since it introduces the brand new concept of Regenerating Health. For starters, the Eternal version of Mom's Heart/It Lives (which is normally an Anticlimax Boss) will constantly chase the player and slowly regenerate health, while retaining the ability to spawn enemies and the occasional Degraded Boss.
- You know the mod means business when it makes Gemini challenging. Eternal Gemini comes with two Sutures attached to the larger twin (or in this case, triplet) Contusion, and they constantly shoot three-bullet sprays at you, forcing you to keep dodging while their larger sibling catches his breath. Furthermore, Contusion can now break rocks, making him harder to kite (again, while dodging fire from the two Sutures), and the smaller triplets will detach before Contusion goes down to harass you even more. Finally, all three have high health that regenerates as long as Contusion is alive.
- Eternal Headless Horseman, because the original wasn't hard enough. The biggest difference is the behavior of the head, as it now trails creep. While charging. If you don't somehow have flight, the charging head can easily corral you into a narrow area and leave you a sitting duck for the body's explosive shots.
- Among the more common ways to make enemies more challenging in the Eternal Edition are to make them split into smaller versions on death and to make them shoot more. Eternal Fallen is pretty much the embodiment of both. He retains The Fallen's usual bullet spray attack, but now he fires it multiple times in rapid succession and each individual spray comes out faster, giving you way more stuff to dodge. Furthermore, he splits into three mini-Fallens instead of two, and they still spew ungodly amounts of bullets at you, often while one of them is charging.
Rebirth, Afterbirth, and Afterbirth†
Rebirth
- The Haunt. Initially, he's completely invincible and relies on his three smaller ghosts to assist him. This first phase is especially frustrating as the Haunt's minions will home in on you and shoot at you at almost point-blank range. While killing the first little ghost can be somewhat easy, unless you have good damage the remaining two will tag-team you and shoot you in the face, not giving you time to dodge. Once they're killed, there isn't time for rest as the Haunt himself starts his attacks, clinging to the wall and revealing his skeletal face. The Haunt is actually very fast once he starts attacking, making it difficult to lead your shots to him. Not only does he have an untelegraphed bullet spread attack, but he can also fire a Brimstone laser vertically across the screen with barely a second of warning. And if you think you can just run off to the side of the Haunt to dodge this, think again. Doing this causes him to charge you for a full heart of damage. And the worst part? He's a Cellar/Burning Basement boss, meaning he can potentially be the first boss encountered in a run. Some fans have come to the conclusion that he's even harder than the Widow, the previous infamous Cellar boss. And woe be to you if you encounter the pink champion version which fires slanted, bouncing Brimstone, forcing you to stay up close and potentially get hit by bullets. While other bosses like the Bloat and the Matriarch were nerfed in some updates and DLCs, the Haunt was not nerfed in any way. As a matter of fact, not many of the Rebirth bosses, if any, were nerfed at all, including some of the ones listed below.
- The Adversary (the posthumous version of the Dark One), mainly because he fires a Brimstone laser that homes in on you. Unless you run behind him, this will hit you. This becomes incredibly problematic if there happens to be two of them in one room, as it gives you almost no room to dodge one Adversary's laser while avoiding the other's own attacks. If he manages to wander into one of the corners, get ready to take a hit, because there’s nowhere to hide!
- The Cage, which is pretty much an oversized Vis. For starters, he's the posthumous version of Mega Fatty, an already spongy boss, and as a result has the highest health of any standard boss in the game at 800 HP, higher than that of any boss including Mom (with the exceptions of the other final bosses). As for his choices of combat, he possesses a rolling attack that is similar to Gurdy Jr's charge but without the ability to slow the boss with knockback; only slowing tears can impede it. The real show-stopper, however, is his jump attack that sends out waves of stone that curve completely randomly and are impossible to predict. And yes, there's the chance of seeing two of them in one room in the final levels. Afterbirth introduces a pink champion version of two Cages, which can result in a Double Trouble room having four Cages simultaneously.
- Most of the final bosses are pretty hard, but fair once you get the hang of them, largely due to the items you might have. As Azazel, though? They can become BRUTAL. Most of them are largely thanks to Bullet Hell making his close range a big problem, with big mentions going to Mom's Heart/It Lives, Isaac, ???, Mega Satan, Hush, and Delirium; of the final two, the former even has ??? as a placeholder boss before its battle, and a boatload of health and damage resistance that ensures it will take a long while, while the latter dies more quickly due to lack of damage resistance, but its attacks become faster as it loses health. As for Satan, The Fallen at the start of his fight is grueling to ward off, and makes it hard to get to the true battle with Satan without suffering much damage; Satan himself is no slouch either, as although his first phase isn't too terrible, the second phase pits you with Kamikaze Leeches and his stomp attacks.
Afterbirth
- Rag Man, especially when encountered as your first boss. He's a first floor boss with a surprising amount of health for his small size and tends to walk away from the player, making him hard to actually hit. While his only direct attack is a line of homing bullets with short range, every so often, he'll detach his head and roll it. If you don't destroy the head, which isn't easy because it can take loads of punishment, it spawns a Ragling, a Trite variant that shoots rotating bullets. And if he's not killed quickly, he can summon up to three of them. But that's not all; Raglings spawned by Rag Man are unique in that they leave behind bandages when you kill them. If enough bandages accumulate and his health is below a third, Rag Man can instantly resurrect two or three Raglings, healing himself in the process. All these factors can make the fight difficult. It's even worse in Greed Mode, where you might end up fighting two simultaneously on the first floor. Afterbirth† finally nerfed him for good measure, reducing his healthnote and thus making the fight much less unfair. Unlike other bosses, however, if you find him in later floors, he becomes much more manageable.
- The Stain, the undead form of Polycephalus. Like the original, it spends most of its time underground, popping up only to attack. While this is predictable most of the time, if you don't get it to pop up before it disappears, then you have no idea where on the field it will show up. This means it can easily get in your face to use its Combat Tentacles attack, which is very fast and has virtually no tell aside from the Stain appearing in front of you. That is, if it doesn't go for just popping up directly underneath you for unavoidable contact damage. All of this is before we talk about its strongest attack: if it pops up as a single face, it unleashes a Bullet Hell attack with a volume comparable to Mom's Heart. Finally, Greed Mode can pit you against two Stains simultaneously, or, if you're really unlucky, three. Watch out if they all use their Bullet Hell attack at the same time. The fact it's a chapter 2 boss only adds insult to injury.
- In general, any boss that spawns in a closet roomnote . Anyone with Brimstone attacks can be nearly impossible to dodge, and spinning Brimstone beams (like The Forsaken and Krampus) can be literally impossible to dodge. Even Breather Bosses like Pin and Famine can be much harder with such a tiny space to maneuver around them. And Lord have mercy if you happen to fight one of the bosses from this page... Thankfully, Repentance prevented all closet layouts for boss fights from spawning.
- If you thought the True Final Boss fight against Mega Satan in Rebirth was brutal, you're far from the worst. Enter Hush. Reach Mom's Heart or It Lives and beat them in under 30 minutes to get access to its lair, a place called ???. Before the fight, the room gives you two item rooms (with two item options to choose from on each room), four golden chests, and a shop. Needless to say, you will need them. You'll first face Hush as a glorified ???, but defeating it is not the end of it, as it reveals its true form. With five phases to the true form's battle, loads and loads of Bullet Hell attacks that make bosses from Touhou Project blush (and one of which wraps around the room's boundaries), the ability to spawn loads and loads of enemies to block your shots unless you have a piercing attack, the ability to merge with the floor to completely avoid your attacks, and the second-highest HP pool at 6666 HP on top of damage resistance that scales with your current damage, you're in for the actual longest fight in the game, no matter your item build. It's easy to get hit by its attacks as it is, so you also better hope you came into its battle packing tons of health... unless you're playing as The Lost or The Keeper, in which case... good luck, you'll need it. Granted, you can skip this boss fight in Repentance by using IV - The Emperor?, you fight Monstro instead of Hush, and beating him will count as beating Hush.
Afterbirth†
- Rag Mega! Because Rag Man wasn't enough! He bounces around the room like Husk, but can periodically become invincible by wrapping himself in bandages, similar to a Host. He also has three purple orbitals surrounding him that can't be destroyed, making it even harder to hit him. As he loses a certain amount of health, he will start dispersing his orbitals, one by one, which will then follow the player (while actually making him easier to hit); if your speed is low, they will constantly harass you. Additionally, like Rag Man, Rag Mega can spawn Raglings to assist him, but thankfully, instead of reviving them on the spot, he summons several pillars of purple light that, while they can damage you, aren't guaranteed to home in on and revive any dead Ragling they come in contact with. All of this makes Rag Mega as dangerous as his inferior form, despite having pitiful healthnote compared to him. Granted, Repentance buffed bombs to make them deal 100 HP, which means that if you've got some to spare you can simply defeat him in one go.
- Damage resistance, although a controversial mechanic as a whole due to how it works, is generally accepted because the only bosses that have it in Afterbirth are "superbosses". Afterbirth† breaks this rule with Big Horn, a Catacombs Damage-Sponge Boss who will usually take the same amount of time to kill no matter where you fight him. The only way to deal decent damage is via Feed It a Bomb, but it's hard to pull off. His other tricks include tossing many varieties of bombs (all of which deal a full heart of damage), trying to corner you with slapping hands, and summoning a weakened Little Horn. An update quickly reduced his health note and gave his attacks a little more delay, whereas one released a month later (most importantly) removed his damage resistance. His Little Horn summon also got reworked in Repentance so that you no longer have to fight it alongside Big Horn. Nevertheless, despite these changes, he can still be quite painful to fight.
- The Sisters Vis, an alternate form of The Cage that can appear in chapters 3 and 4. Where to begin? Dual Boss? Check. High health (between both sistersnote )? Check. Summons smaller Vis enemies? Check. Rolls around the arena (with the added bonus of one of them occasionally Turning Red and moving faster than usual)? Check. Surviving sister Turns Red if you kill one of them? Check. Gigantic Brimstone laser that can ocasionally wave back and forth with an enormous amount of coverage if only one of them fires it? Dear God check. Their health even used to be higher, before updates considerably nerfed itnote . As an added bonus, in Greedier mode, you may find yourself fighting eight of them simultaneously! Good luck, you're gonna need it!
- This expansion introduced a black champion version of Brownie that spawns Drowned Chargers instead of Corn Dips. Unless you're very powerful already, the amount of enemies and Brownie's Bullet Hell will quickly become overwhelming. Champion Brownie was nerfed in a post-release patch to only spawn normal Chargers, but remains formidable thanks to the sheer quantity of Chargers produced.
- Thought that bosses like The Bloat, The Adversary, The Cage, or Sisters Vis were painful? The Forgotten update adds The Matriarch, an unholy mix between Fistula, Chub, and the Chubber and Fistuloid enemies that's even sturdiernote , and who can appear on any environment of the Womb (but as of Repentance, appears most commonly in the Scarred Womb). The Matriarch shoots Chargers in the eight cardinal directions, spawns Fistuloids that surround her, and shoots a jumbo tear that leaves a puddle of toxic blood creep. As she takes damage, she sheds small Fistulas and Fistuloids which shoot Chargers like Chubber does. At medium health, she starts summoning an enormous wave of Fistuloids that immediately shoot their Chargers at you. When "killed", the Chub sheds her Fistula armor completely, spawning even more Chargers, Fistulas, and Fistuloids. Lastly, unlike the normal version of Chub, this one defies the Feed It a Bomb strategy by spitting it back at you; only The Forgotten can avoid this attack by swinging the bomb back at her with his bone. It's virtually impossible to avoid getting hit simply because the Matriarch is big enough, her spawns are numerous enough, and her attacks are quick enough, that there is just nowhere in the room you can hide. Therefore, to many, this boss became the new Bloat for the final days of Afterbirth†, being considered even harder than the non-tankiest final bosses in the game, and unlike bosses like Sisters Vis and Big Horn, was never nerfed — it took until Repentance where this hellspawn was finally nerfed, causing her to take 30 HP of damage when she summons a Fistuloid, making the Fistuloids that orbit her attack less aggressively, and shedding less pieces of Fistula armor whenever her health is reduced a certain amount — nevertheless, she remains a potentially very dangerous boss.
- Delirium. Yes, he's the True Final Boss, but good Lord, the difficulty is driven up to eleven. In addition to having an absolutely titanic amount of HP (10,000, the highest HP of any enemy tied with The Beast), his attacks are hard to dodge as they are; they have very convoluted and tight patterns of bullets fired with barely any downtime, some of which can be ipecac shots. No matter what Delirium transforms into, though, expect to be annoyed by his propensity to teleport around the room at random (often right beside you) and the fact that he gets faster as his health gets lower. Even so, the amount and type of bosses that you encounter, combined with the build you amassed before the fight, are what will make Delirium either a boss whose forms are only a nuisance while dealing with its bullet patterns, or a true nightmare of a boss that you'll have to outlast. It doesn't help that the level you find Delirium in, The Void, has enemies of all types that will cause you to hope you can hold onto your life, and bosses that Delirium can transform into during the fight... yes, that includes all and each of the other bosses on this page (up to Afterbirth†)note . It gets to the point where most consider it even harder than The Beast, Repentance's True Final Boss.
Repentance
Regular path
- Baby Plum is very Bullet Hell-ish for a Basement boss, and has a decent amount of HP too. Her attack where she spits out projectiles while bouncing around the walls can be hard to dodge due to the disorganized nature of the projectiles, some of which even do a whole heart of damage. She also takes increased knockback during this attack, making her ricocheting even more unpredictable.
- Bumbino's attacks are aplenty and fairly unpredictable, not helped by the arena you will be pitted in. The room will always be full of rocks, which will do nothing to protect you, as he will always break them out of his way. His dash attack covers an excellent range and is also very fast, and makes rocks rain all over the battlefield, so even if he leaves himself open afterwards, you will not have much time to get some counterhits. His swipe attacks also cause you to lose coins, which he will take for himself and will not be replenished when he's defeated — he prioritizes getting the coins before attacking you, too. He can also throw a bomb at you, much like he can do so when he's a familiar. Finally, all of his attacks deal one full heart of damage, so if you're not careful, you're going to lose lots of health to this boss. Additionally, this is only in Chapter 2, and he can appear in all of its environments.
- The Pile, who is curiously the "undead" version of Stain (meaning it's an even "undeader" version of Polycephalus), but who manages to be even more dangerous and aggressive than Polycephalus or Stain. It can summon lines of spikes to sting you, burrow underground at high speeds to quickly emerge and pelt you with bone shots three times, and charge at you at pretty much the same speed that Dangle and Gurdy Jr. would, but making bones rain behind itself similarly to Bumbino. It can also summon Bonies, which will prove to be just the right distraction in the battle. On top of all this? The Pile has a pretty respectable HP poolnote , not huge but just high enough to make it just as dangerous as bosses like The Cage in combination with its attacks. It mainly appears in chapter 3's Necropolis, but it can also appear in the Ashpit in the alternate path.
- The entire fight against The Beast is awesome in and out of itself, from the Boss Bonanza with the Ultra Harbingers to The Beast herself (and even Dogma before the fight). But before you get to the Mother of Harlots, you'll have to duke it out with Ultra War and Ultra Death, which are the hardest Ultra Harbingers by far (whereas Ultra Famine and Ultra Pestilence are annoying at best).
- Ultra War makes use of very special explosive attacks, launching bombs that explode in a constant, cardinal cross pattern and shoot projectiles in all directions, making dodging the next bomb harder. Once he does this three times, he surfs the lava below and raises giant lava balls (like the ones that raise from Ultra Pestilence's ipecac bombs). Of the two, the first attack is the most dangerous. Once you've whittled his HP to half, he Turns Red and chases you for a killer bear hug, followed by long and numerous streams of fire if he misses (some of which will not be put out by your tears), and after doing this twice, he hugs a bomb that will make him bounce across the entire screen and then into the lava to raise many more lava balls. If you're The Lost and you let War perform this final attack, pray it doesn't hit you, because it's very easy to get tagged by it. It's ironic how the original War was a Breather Boss while Ultra War is much more dangerous.
- Ultra Death has no second phase like the other three Horsemen, but his summons are numerous. Between three waves of 11 Death Scythes that soak up many hits, followed by near-indestructible, Ultra Death Heads that fill the screen completely, seeing your health drop rapidly isn't unheard of. And after that, Death will destroy the Death Heads to black the screen out and slash and hack at you with his scythe. The only tell you'll have is his grunt and his red, Terminator-esque eye amidst the black mist, and you will need very fast reflexes to keep dodging.
Alternate path
The alternate path is notable for having a very wide array of either annoying or dangerous bosses, which speaks well to how hard the game has become ever since its release. These are the standout examples, though:- Colostomia. Not only winning the most disgusting boss in Repentance yet, she's also one of the hardest. Along with being a fairly tanky bossnote (even tankier than the Basement's Dangle), all of her attacks are dangerous. She slides around really fast, leaving explosive gas clouds which react to bomb explosions. She also fires out butt bombs that detonate these same gas clouds, and the explosions have varying range to their size. Unless you pay attention to the gas the charge leaves behind, you won't have a tell at all. When low on health, Colostomia will shed her "armor" and change her scheme, starting to spew out the bombs while jumping around and leaving gas clouds and brown creep that, unlike other types of the same creep, hurts you. And here's the worst part: this is only in chapter 1! Thank goodness she only appears in, fittingly enough, Dross.
- Hornfel, from the Mines. This bugger tends to use hit and run methods to kill you. And they are nearly all explosive (with one exception, though that comes after he pelts bombs like a maniac) so unless you have great reflexes and speed, or defensive items like the Wafer, or something that makes you immune to explosives like Host Hat, you're going to lose a ton of hearts (or runs) from him. Also, remember his attack where he sends dummies of himself in Antibirth? It was buffed to include three now. All with bombs if you hit one by mistake. Prepare to rage, especially if you are playing any version of the Lost!
- Singe is also pretty dangerous for similar reasons as Hornfel, except the fight is overall much more cramped, since the room is surrounded with indestructible, spiked boulders that Singe's explosive farts launch at ridiculously high speeds. The boulders travel in nearly random directions, which can easily result in cheap hits, not even considering how Singe is almost always chasing you at high speeds and spamming explosions. Singe himself can also create gas clouds that are ignited by his exploding farts, which further increase the reach of his attacks while also sending the rocks all over the arena. It's a borderline pinball machine, and certain characters such as The Lost have no room for cheap damage.
- The Heretic is an advanced form of The Haunt and The Forsaken, and he lives up to the reputation of the former and then some. He starts the fight sending five flunkies with homing bullets at you — potentially annoying, but not difficult. But when they go down, The Heretic himself starts attacking, and pain ensues. He can charge at you repeatedly from alternating sides of the room for a full heart of damage, and to make things worse, he will home in on you slightly and can fake you out on the last charge. In addition, he can rain homing explosive tears at you from above, and possesses a Brimstone attack that bounces between the fireplaces in his boss room and will likely take up most of the room. It's not uncommon for players to leave the fight with five or six hearts less than they had when they entered. Thankfully, Repentance at least made his explosive tear attack easier to dodge since the tears leave target markers on the ground.
- The Visage. Whereas the Mask of Infamy is, as noted above, hard but has a singular pattern, its "undead(?)" counterpart came back very strong and much more unpredictable. You first need to break the chain holding the heart and the mask, the latter of which can still attack you while chained to the heart. Once broken, however, prepare for pain. The heart and mask can perform various Combination Attacks with the other (including Brimstone beams), by using the chain's remnants to pull the mask in and potentially hit you if you're in the way. Additionally, the armored heart's chain hookshot attack has barely any windup and moves incredibly fast. If this happens during a Tainted Lost run, your run is compromised. Once you deplete enough health from the heart, it will Shed Armor, Gain Speed, and start firing energy balls that hover towards the mask and empower it when they touch it, causing it to fire more lasers. If you fail to destroy the energy balls, the heart can also absorb them to heal itself and fire rings of fire and more lasers. Fortunately, the mask itself can be deactivated quickly with enough damage (and bombs will do the trick in one go), and killing the heart kills the mask by default, but deactivating the mask will also cause the heart to weaponize the chain on you for some of its attacks, and the energy balls the heart coughs up can also revive the mask if you fail to destroy them. Overall, a fun boss? Yes, usually. But a hard one? Absolutely. It doesn't help the floor you will encounter The Visage in is Gehenna.
- The alternate path's Mom is much more deadly than her Depths counterpart. Her monster summons include Psychic Horfs, Raglings, and Cursed Globins, which are much more deadly than the Depths could ever be. If you face her in the alternate floor, Gehenna, you'll also have to contend with that floor's Demonic Spiders too. Her "safe" eye will now fire twin Brimstone lasers if you are in sight. And finally, her stomp has a chance to instead be three quick stomps, with the third one leaving rows of explosions in four directions that can't be blocked by Host Hat or Pyromaniac, because why not? The good thing is that she will never use her hand attack, and that she can't stomp the ground thrice if she's firing her Brimstone, and vice versa. However, if there was a time to use the Bible, then now would be the time.
- The Scourge is the King Mook to the Whipper and Cultist families. Sounds painful enough? Because it is! While its green multi-projectile attack is a fairer one to dodge (even if it spawns Small Maggots), it also makes tons of use of its tendrils to lash at you and the walls. It has three variations to this attack: lashing one at you and dragging it at the wall to fire projectiles and maggots, firing one at you and another at the wall then rotate them while firing rings of projectiles, or embedding both at the wall while indulging in Bullet Hell. And no, you can't leave the area you are in if it corners you; the tendrils are solid, so you will have to survive the projectile storm. And lastly, it hovers to the center of the room while sucking you and streams of shots in, often changing the directions of the streams, meaning that you'll have to backtrack to not get cornered. Also? The Scourge has a colossal amount of HPnote , so you will stay a very long while either trying to outlast this hellspawn, or die trying.
- Mother, the renamed Witness, is far more of a threat than in Antibirth. For one thing, you don't have much room to work with compared to Antibirth, making dodging her attacks far more difficult. She also doesn't have a health bar and has a crapload of health too. And the attacks themselves include summoning a crapload of gapers that take up tons of space in the already small room walking up to her and her hitting towards you. The worst one, though, has to be when she pukes out a Fistula and smacks it around with bullets (and if you live, then the pieces of it) going everywhere. And that's just phase 1. Phase 2 begins after shooting a laser out of nowhere and then coming out to fight you the same way she did in Antibirth. She doesn't move around much, but she's also blocking off a good part of the room. Her attacks include jumping up and charging before crashing down in the center sending shockwaves and her sucking bullets up to them spit out at you. Have fun with the Tainted characters, especially The Lost and Jacob!
