Nearly everything in the basement that moves (and a lot of things that don't) are trying to finish what Isaac's mom started. Although these guys aren't among the most dangerous ones, they still try hard and will prove to still be a pain in the neck.
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Enemies That Stall the Player
A number of enemies have the very aggravating tendency to be invulnerable most of the time and only expose a weakpoint for you to hit for a few precious moments, before quickly hiding again. On top of making you waste precious time waiting for them while they happily attack or rush you with abandon, they also have Champion versions which can go from annoying to outright deadly.
- Hosts take cover and shoot triple spread bullets. Sometimes weird maneuvers must be taken for them to show their fleshy stem up. There is a Red Host variation which cannot take cover, but it shoots a quintuple spread shot while firing more often.
- Mobile Hosts have legs that allows them to move (albeit slowly) and reveal their fleshy stem much less often. Flesh Mobile Hosts behave like Red Hosts and Mobile Hosts, but have much more health than them. Meatballs have flesh covering the Host, but compensate their weakness with an ability to shoot toxic blood across the floor and a fountain of bullets; plus, they leave actual Hosts on death. variations are considered as annoying to deal with. Floating Hosts float around the room like a Boom Fly, making them even harder to hit as they coast over rocks and pits. Lastly, Hard Hosts introduced in Repentance deal damage on contact and send rocky tremors towards you instead of bullets.
- In Repentance, there is a trick with the Mom's Bracelet item that lets you lift the Host's outer skull, allowing you to slay it more easily. This trick does not work on Hard Hosts, however, as they are obviously sharp and pointy.
- Mushrooms, a variation of Hosts, can't fully take cover like Red Hosts, but have more health along with boosted defense when they take cover (to clarify, they take 25% of the damage they would've taken if not covering themselves). They also shoot in tricky Clotty/Clot shot spreads. Unlike regular Hosts, who do not deal contact damage, Mushrooms do. All of that and they wouldn't still qualify for this, but as Host variants, they can spawn from breaking skulls. Oversight or not, this means that destroying skulls with a break-on-touch ability is no longer a guaranteed safe option, which limits an easy way to acquire tarot cards, runes, black hearts, and Dry Baby/Ghost Baby. Thankfully, this has been fixed as of the fifth Booster Pack.
- Wizoobs are ghosts that spend most of their time phased out of existence, only to appear and to spray a hail of bullets in your face; said bullets of which travel at an arc, so they can go through the first obstacle they pass. It's still not too hard to dodge since the bullets' hitboxes are tiny, but Wizoobs have a boatload of health, don't stay tangible long enough for you to deal any meaningful damage, and tend to spawn in packs of six or more. No matter what items you have, they will take a disproportionately long time to kill. And besides that, they are just ugly to look at.
- Afterbirth adds in a variation: Red Ghosts, which shoot Brimstone to the mix.
- Cod Worms hide in fleshy shells that render them completely invulnerable to almost any tear attack (with the only exception being the very rare Euthanasia), and if you even graze their shells, they fire a very wide spray of bullets at you. On top of that, they take a huge time to peek out of their shell. They will take very long to get rid of, no matter how they spawn; if alone, it could take an eternity for them to peek out, but with enemies, they might as well peek their head often and you won't get too many meaningful hits. Their only saving grace is their low health.
- Did you perhaps listen to the sound of an evil laugh in the room? Congratulations, you now have to deal with Mom's Hands. The problem is, it doesn't matter how strong you are, because they take a few seconds to drop down from the ceiling. You could be strong enough to defeat Hush in a few minutes, but it would still take the same amount of time to kill the Hands because they're out of reach. If one manages to catch you, it sends you back to the start of the floor, much like a Wallmaster from The Legend of Zelda would.
- Needles, introduced in Repentance, are smaller versions of Pin that act just like it, leaping out of the ground towards your location. If they aren't Demonic Spiders, then they are in this category. At first, they don't seem that bad, but why they are on here is for the same reason as Mom's Hands (see above ^): they start out of reach, meaning that you can't defeat them instantly. Unlike Mom's Hands, they make no sound whatsoever when you enter a room with them: best case scenario you enter a seemingly empty room and figure out they're there, but usually you see a plethora of enemies and begin attacking and dodging, only to have a bunch of these things hop out after a good 5 seconds and sucker-punch you with a cheap shot. What's more, it takes them less than a second from the time they pop out of the ground to jump at you, giving you almost no time to react when you're not expecting them in the cases that they appear in rooms with other enemies in them. Considering that they each have a base HP of 10, if you still have base damage and tear rate stats by the time you first encounter them in Chapter 2, they are most likely to go back into the ground before you can finish them off. Overall, they take a long time to slay. And to make matters worse, they're everywhere in the main path.
- Pasties are much more merciful, having the same base HP as Needles and only appearing in two different maps: the Flooded Caves and Ashpit. However, they still stall the player like the standard Needles, and they launch four bullets in the ordinal directions each time they jump out of the ground, so be careful!
- One Tooth and Fat Bats are both literal and metaphorical examples of this. One Tooths usually spawn in groups, then suddenly rush at you if they're too close, and are quite quick at closing in the distance. However, they're not too bulky. Meanwhile, Fat Bats come with a boatload of health, have unpredictable bullet attacks with no tell, and try to avoid your shots, but they're slow and don't shoot very often (and when they do, it's relatively simple to dodge). Both variants are not exactly dangerous so much as tedious to fight.
- Some types of Flies can be this, especially the bulkier or bigger ones.
- Boom Flies hover across the room while bouncing on the walls; if destroyed, they explode. Although the attack isn't too damaging, the fact they constantly move and can sometimes close in on you makes them not enjoyable. Drowned Boom Flies are even worse, since they can spawn Drowned Chargers (yet another goddamned bat) on death. On the other hand, Red Boom Flies divide into six bullets launched in an asterisk if they die, which can hit you from afar unlike the other two types.
- Lvl 2 Flies circle around you in an attempt to block your shots while firing at other enemies, all the while trying to deal contact damage with you. Full Flies, their cousin variant, also divide into bullets in an asterisk pattern. Both are just as annoying to deal with.
- Ring Flies aren't too annoying by themselves, but become more so when they spawn in large groups. They form a big ring and constantly spin at you in a way that would make Patra blush, closing in the distance and leaving you with little room to escape. Piercing tears make short work of them, but good luck if you don't have that.
- Dart Flies (the ones that look like corn pieces) are notable for being among the weaker versions of flies, but it's their pattern that makes them a hassle. They try to imitate your movements while closing in the distance, and they're smart to boot. Dukeys, small versions of The Duke of Flies, spawn these as well while bouncing across the room, plus they're a bit durable, so getting rid of them and the Dart Flies they spawn will likely take a while.
- Swarm Flies (the yellow-flashing ones) spawn in big groups and are fast while having the same health as a regular fly. Plus, they tend to spawn in small rooms and in more than one group. Like Ring Flies, with piercing tears or bombs, getting rid of them is a breeze, but without them? You'll likely take damage once or twice before killing all of them.
- Lastly, the Swarmer. It's a head surrounded by flies that spits more and more of them (specifically Pooters) as it takes damage. And when you finally destroy it, a Boom Fly and many more flies appear from its ashes, and you'll have to deal with all of them too. To make matters worse, a specific Swarmer even appears in a 2x2 room where there is nothing more than a huge pit that you can't traverse unless you have flight.
- For newer players, Round Worms will be this. Although they're typically found in the first two chapters, they can still be pretty bothersome to face. They pop from the floor, look for where you at, and if you're not behind a wall and on their sight, shoot a bullet at you. Fortunately, their health is a bit on the low side, so killing them is easy, but how fast you will do so depends on where they will spawn.
- As for its many variations... Nightcrawlers are purple variations with a rotating shot. This attack is easy to avoid, but their health is much higher. Tube Worms are blue variations that have slightly more health and shoot a fountain of bullets while tracking your next location, with excellent aim. Roundy is a fatter variation that creates rock waves when it appears, and fires an ipecac shot at you instead of a regular bullet. Lastly, Ulcers are Dart Fly spawners that otherwise have the Round Worm's same pattern, but it's the enemies they spawn what makes them a pain.
- Clotties move around haphazardly and fire bullets in all four cardinal directions at once, which forces you to put yourself in their line of fire to hit them every time unless you have items that can shoot in the ordinal directions. They also do so at completely random intervals, so it's not guaranteed that you'll have enough time to try to hit them. To make matters worse, as of Repentance, upon contact with a lit fireplace, they turn into Grilled Clotties, which, like Flaming Hoppers, gives them more health and allows them to squirm around faster and shoot almost twice as quickly, making them even more of an annoyance.
- Mega Clotties are worse. In addition to taking more hits, they send big bullets in an asterisk pattern, create toxic blood puddles, and spawn Clotties. When defeated, they spawn two additional Clotties. Since they don't attack often, chances are you'll take them out; it's the Clotties they spawn that makes them annoying.
- The Dross stage introduced in Repentance presents Cloggies, their even more annoying cousin. Instead of flying in a straight pattern, their bullets’ pattern is instead curved, making dodging even more of a pain in the butt.
- Hives, a variant of Mulligans, are enemies that spawn flies as they're being chased. While dealing with normal flies and/or Mulligans is a breeze, Hives' tendency to spawn flies can be annoying if your damage/fire rate is low. And like Mulligans, Hives will spawn flies upon death (including Pooters).
- Drowned Hives barely graze the Demonic Spiders territory. Instead of flies, they spawn Drowned Chargers from their mouths; at a slightly slower rate yes, but the fact they spawn even more goddamned bats is frustrating to begin with.
- Speaking of them, Chargers. Little buggers that, like their name implies, charges at you like a Rope to bite you. What makes all three variations really annoying is the fact they're fast, surprisingly durable, and tend to spawn in groups (though in lower numbers compared to other enemies like Swarm Flies). It doesn't help that a certain boss, Fistula — which, mind you, is a first floor boss — spawns these things on each piece's death.
- They also have two variants. Drowned Chargers are slightly more durable and also split in four diagonal bullets on death, making for a devious combination with its charge: if you can't kill it before it reaches you, you take damage from the charge, but if you instinctively sidestep and the Drowned Charger dies, you walk right into a bullet. Dank Chargers are MUCH more durable and spawn puddles of slowing tar when they walk, and if they see you, will charge at you very quickly with little time to dodge.
- Globins are red-fleshed enemies that appear in groups of three to six, chase you slowly across the room to corner you, and when defeated, turn into a pile of flesh that you also have to destroy if you don't want them to revive (with lower health, but still). Gazing Globins, the ones with eyes, are not only slightly faster, enough to where they can easily catch up to players without speed upgrades, but they also move away from you while reforming, usually behind other nearby Globins or enemies that can tank the hits for them, almost ensuring at least one revive if you don't have piercing shots. Dank Globins are the same as normal Globins, but black-colored, and will spawn a spider to make killing the pile of flesh harder. They're generally not hard to deal with as they're so predictable the strategy basically boils down to running away shooting until they die, but they are maddening when encountered in a large 4x4 room. There are so many of them, who keep clumping into a big group and deflecting shots away from their half-defeated flesh-pile buddies, that you'll be stuck in that room for a very long time whittling them down as you run in circles. The 4x4 setup is so bad to deal with, and listening to the constant monotonous growling noises is like Chinese water torture, that if you encounter this room early on your best bet is to reset your run.
- Wall Creeps are small spiders that fire three bullets in a straight line. The speed at which they travel the walls is often what causes them to be annoying. Blind Creeps are even more so, as they move slow but unpredictably so, and the three bullets they fire spread instead of lining up.
- Red Fireplaces, while not an 'enemy' in the traditional sense, are still annoying, as they randomly fire bullets at you if you stand in front of them long enough. This can be really aggravating when you're already dealing with other hazards like enemies or spikes, forcing you to waste a couple seconds extinguishing them. Before the Repentance update, they were even worse, as they had absolutely no tell as to when they'd fire at you; now, they at least play a small bouncing animation beforehand. Purple Fireplaces are even worse, as they shoot homing tears at you and can only be extinguished by explosions or rock blasts. Thankfully, they're much rarer.
- Sacks are variants of Boils, which, instead of red, appear as white lumps made of cobweb. Like Boils, they slowly regenerate when they're not taking damage, and shrink when they do. That alone doesn't make them qualify for this, but they can spawn spiders when full, and often appear with them, making killing each spider harder.
- The Walking Boil, Gut and Sack enemies. Walking Boils spit fountains of bullets at random intervals, Walking Guts spit ipecac shots, and Walking Sacks spawn spiders. Unlike their normal variant in the Boil, they do not shrink when they take damage., making them more threatening.
- Babies are enemies that teleport across the room while shooting. They're not that threatening, but the real annoyance comes from their cousin, the Angelic Baby. Instead of a single shot, they fire a triple spread shot on intervals. And like normal Babies, Angelic Babies retain their squeaky sound when they fire. Wrinkly Babies combine the triple shot of an Angelic Baby while also quickly dashing at the player if they approach, making them much more aggressive.
- Knights and their Floating variants have a rock-solid front end that shrugs off almost all attacks. Its weak point is the exposed brain on its back, but it's hard to hit, since they have unpredictable movement patterns. Some even turn to charge you. There are fortunately many ways to deal with them, as any piercing attack will chew through their health, but past a certain point, piercing attacks might be practically required to survive.
- Doples are fleshy red monsters that copy Isaac's movements and tear fire rate, while firing at the opposite side he is firing at. They can be bothersome if your speed, range and or shot speed aren't high, since they will be firing at about the same rate as you do. On the other hand, Evil Twins, their demonic counterpart, are slightly easier to deal with despite having flight, since they fire slower and thus, you can trick them into firing to other side, then pelting them with shots, and repeat.
- Leeches are flying versions of Chargers with a better range of vision and higher speed. By the point you reach them (around Chapters 3 or 4), they aren't THAT bad of an enemy, but like Chargers, it's their number what makes them arguably a pain to deal with. Worse if you find the Kamikaze and Holy variations of them, which instead are Demonic Spiders in their own right.
- Lumps are probably the most annoying enemy you'll find in the Womb. They phase in and out of the floor, detect if you're behind a wall or not, and shoot a triple spread shot. They're painful to deal with due to the fact they pop out of the floor for very short intervals while having a surprising amount of health. Even worse if they're in groups, as you'll be focusing your fire in one, miss the mark, go for the nearest one, and so on, so forth. And dear Dogma if you find one or more of these in a 2x2 room, as more often than not, they will be offscreen and will most likely submerge before you can find them, and if you do find them, they will dig yet again.
- Parabites are worms that hide on the floor and pop out on another place in the room, going around walls and chasing you. They're practically Globins but with the added trait of phasing in and out of the room like a Round Worm, although you only need to defeat them once. They appear in The Womb, too, which is what makes them especially bothersome. Furthermore, they'll almost never spawn alone.
- Suckers are mosquito-like fly variations that, on death, fire bullets on the cardinal directions. They are not particularly bothersome... unless you face their demonic variation, the Soul Sucker. It's a fat mosquito with an enormous grey sack that, on death, creates a vortex of Brimstone that fires in four directions. Finding a group of them and killing one can lead to a chain reaction of Brimstone beams, leaving very little space in the room to hide. Although, you could use this to your advantage to kill enemies or a boss...
- Gurgles are enemies very similar to Gapers. They chase you around the room at slow speeds, but it's their surprisingly high health what makes them unpleasant. Plus, they fire ipecac shots at you, so if you get cornered, there's a big chance they will damage you.
- Swingers rotate in circles like a mace. The problem doesn't come from dealing with them, since they move very slowly and the stem that connects the head and the base does not deal damage; the real problem comes from whatever enemy that spawns when one of its two parts are destroyed first. If their flesh base is destroyed, they turn into a Maw, which isn't too bad... but if you destroy the head first, they turn into a Globin, which will take much longer to kill.
- Squirts, big time. They're based on Zols in that they create smaller mooks on death (Dips for the normal version and Clotties for the Dank version), but the similarities end there. Squirts are rather bulky, but after a delay, they will charge at you at blinding speed; the definition of a Lightning Bruiser.
- Bonies aren't terribly dangerous or tough, but their bone throw attack is the problem: it has absolutely no tell, and they will use it almost without fail if they're lined up with you, making it likely that one of them will hit. They're also some of the few enemies that Azazel has trouble dealing with, as his short range is pretty much an invitation for a point-blank bone to the face.
- Rotties are a Skinny variant that can spawn one on death, so be sure to keep your wits on them to not take a bone to the face.
- Brains are small creatures that move at their leisure, but leave a very long-lasting creep of toxic blood that, not unlike other enemies, will deal damage to you. They're easy to kill, but the biggest problem comes when you're in The Womb, where their creep has a huge chance of blending in with the red floor. Poison Minds are similar but leave a much easier to spot toxic green creep, and move diagonally instead of horizontally or vertically.
- MemBrains spawn two Brains on death, but thankfully they're much easier to deal with despite their high health and large bullets, which are infrequent.
- Crispy is a fiery variant of a Skinny that only appears in Burning Basement. They constantly take damage due to the fact they're burning, but as their health decreases, their speed increases. Despite their average health, it's not uncommon to find them in groups, where getting cornered and taking damage is very likely.
- Tumors are enemies that fire in an asterisk pattern while slowly floating. They're not too bad, but the real annoyance comes from Psy Tumors, which fire homing bullets, causing you to shoot from a distance, lest you get pelted with one of them. They also shoot more frequently as they take damage, meaning that failing to focus down Tumors one at a time in rooms full of them can quickly lead to impromptu Bullet Hell.
- Camillo Jr. grazes demonic spider territory by the fact they fire Technology lasers at your direction, with impressive accuracy to boot; not unlike an Eye. Fortunately, the fact they float slowly and don't frequently spawn in rooms with pits makes them annoying at best.
- Flesh Death's Heads are red heads that aren't invincible like the regular, white version would, but disappear if all enemies are killed like them. The fact they can be destroyed can cause you to focus your fire on them when you could kill other enemies, which would do the same. It doesn't help that they divide into an asterisk spread shot on death.
- Afterbirth+ introduces Ministros, the baby version of Monstro. Unlike who they take from, they're rather frail. However, they constantly move like a Trite (although without necessarily homing into you)and fire a small but surprisingly accurate fountain of bullets. Their hitboxes don't match how small the bullets are, so you'll likely get hit by them when you thought you'd be safe.
- Stone Shooters, statues that shoot in a given direction, tend to spawn in rooms where avoiding damage is hard. Often, you'll have to press buttons to turn them off, but they're in hard-to-reach places full of spikes and what not. Constant Stone Shooters are even more annoying, because they shoot bullets in four directions, alternating between cardinal and ordinal; besides, the rooms are designed so that you'll get hit at least once.
- On the other hand, Gaping Maws are statues that pull Isaac towards them... and that's it. The problem is the rooms they spawn in, because they tend to have spikes. Broken versions of them have a slightly stronger pull, but take breaks every four seconds, making them less of a nuisance.
- For that matter, most of the stone statues that shoot projectiles are annoying for one reason: if they spawn in rooms with enemies, and there's no button to press there, they will keep shooting even after the enemies are killed (even if there were no enemies there to begin with).
- Stonies cannot hurt Isaac, but what they can do is block your shots at other enemies, which gets annoying very quickly. Especially since Stonies are Invincible Minor Minions and will only die when every other enemy in the room has died. It didn't take long for Edmund to Nerf them by causing them to have to stop and catch their breath every five seconds, which downgraded them from Demonic Spiders.
- By the time you reach Chapter 6: Headless Horseman Heads. Their size, speed, and health make them take a while to kill (unless you're ridiculously overpowered), they fire three-way bullets, and they often spawn in groups of two or three, or are accompanied by either Demonic or Holy Leeches. By this point in the game they aren't really that dangerous, but they're certainly annoying to fight through.
- Bulbs, added in Repentance, are another enemy in the Fly family. They're not all that dangerous, though they can be difficult to hit due to how they like to jerk and shunt themselves in random directions. So why are they in this page? It's for one infuriating reason - they'll sap your active item charges if they touch you. While they don't cause any health damage, they can and will drain your active item completely if they make contact. This either makes it a small speedbump or an infuriating denial of your active item's abilities, especially if it's one of the more powerful ones like the D6 or Doctor's Remote. These assholes essentially force you to dance around to try and kill them before they steal your charges. They even pop up in Treasure Rooms! The only saving grace is that if you play as Bethany, any soul heart charges she has won't get stolen, they just take the regular charges.
- The Bishops. They only have one easy attack but you won't see that because they will be shielding a monster from your attacks. To make matters worse is that they spawn in groups to shield as many monsters as they can. They also appear in the Cathedral. You know.. Where those Holy Mulligans or Angelic Babies are quite common.
- Fissures are a Downpour-exclusive enemy that leap out of pits and bounce around the room until they land in another pit. The good news is you don't have to kill them to clear the room, but the bad news is they won't stop spawning until you do, meaning you'll have to keep dodging them as they get in the way of the enemies you're actually trying to kill, and while the path they take is often just a straight line into a pit, it's easy to knock them off course, causing them to bounce around the room erratically while knocking into other Fissures to make them do the same. As a cherry on top, unlike most enemies of their ilk they are NOT subject to No Ontological Inertia, as any of them that were left alive will stay alive even after the doors have opened.
