Hosts are monsters appearing in The Binding of Isaac. They're immobile skulls that reveal a fleshy stem when they rise up. They are commonly found in The Caves, and less commonly in The Depths, The Womb, and Sheol.
Behavior[]
Hosts stay immobile at a single spot, unable to be damaged. They only rise up for a short amount of time when Isaac gets in front of them. After rising up, they fire 3 blood shots with considerable range and then fall down again. You can however, move the hosts via your tears, though it takes a rather long time and is tedious.
Hosts only take damage when they rise up. Attacking them when they are lowered down will prevent them from rising up again for a short period of time.
There are only a few ways to damage a Host in its invulnerable form; Knocking it into Spikes (which kills them instantly), activating and using Dead Bird, having a Meat Boy at level 3, and shooting them with Ethereal Tears. Using Bombs and high damage attacks (such as Brimstone) on a lowered host only causes the skull to wrinkle and smirk at you. Tear effects such as Poison do trigger while it is invulnerable, but will not damage them unless they rise up.
They only rise up when they have orthogonal line-of-sight on the player. Therefore, staying diagonal to them or behind obstacles can be used as a tactic to avoid getting shot. Furthermore, if the player remains on that orthogonal vector, the host will not rise back up until the player approaches along a different vector. For example, moving to a host's left side will make it rise up and shoot; if the player still stays on the left, the host will not move, sometimes even after moving to a diagonal safe zone. It's only once the player moves to the host's up or down line-of-sight direction that it will rise up again.
Eternal Champion Behavior[]
Eternal Host acts similarly to a normal one, but much trickier. If Isaac shoots it while it's invulnerable, the tears will be reflected back and hurt Isaac. It also tries to trick Isaac into shooting it by immediately rising up and then go down yet releasing 8-way bullets. It also gains 2 extra shots when using its 3-blood-shots attack.
Notes[]
- From The Depths and Necropolis chapters, they can be spawned after exploding the skulls with bombs. Upon leaving and re-entering the room where they are, the Hosts disappear.
Trivia[]
- Hosts are from another game made by Edmund McMillen, called HOST.
- The Hosts' skulls are used in the Shell Game.
- From the original game, the Host's face when getting hit by the bomb appears to be smirking.
- There are two types of Hosts, being both regular Hosts and Red Hosts.
| Monsters | ||
|---|---|---|
| Fly variants |  Black Fly •  Attack Fly •  Moter • ( :  Eternal Fly)
| |
| Gaper variants |  Gaper •  Frowning Gaper •  Mr. Maw • (:  Gurgle)
| |
| Mulligan variants |  Mulligan •  Mulligoon •  Hive • (:  Mulliboom)
| |
| Horf variants |  Horf •  Maw •  Red Maw • (:  Psychic Maw)
| |
| Vis variants |  Vis • (:  Double Vis •  Chubber)
| |
| Maggot variants |  Maggot •  Charger •  Spitty
| |
| Hopper variants |  Hopper •  Flaming Hopper •  Leaper
| |
| Boil variants |  Boil • (:  Gut •  Sack)
| |
| Clot variants |  Clotty •  Clot •  I. Blob
| |
| Leech variants |  Leech •  Kamikaze Leech • (:  Holy Leech)
| |
| Spider variants | :  Spider •  Big Spider •  Trite
| |
| Pooter variants |  Pooter • (:  Fat Fly)
| |
| Boomfly variants |  Boom Fly •  Red Boom Fly
| |
| Pacer variants |  Pacer •  Gusher
| |
| Sucker variants |  Sucker • (:  Spit)
| |
| Globin variants |  Globin •  Gazing Globin
| |
| Knight variants |  Knight •  Selfless Knight
| |
| Eye variants |  Eye •  Bloodshot Eye
| |
| Host variants |  Host •  Red Host
| |
| Baby variants |  Baby • (:  Angelic Baby)
| |
| Eye variants | Eye • Bloodshot Eye
| |
| Poky variants |  Poky • (:  Slide)
| |
| Brain variants |  Brain •  Membrain
| |
| Gut variants |  Guts • (:  Mama Guts)
| |
| Dople variants |  Dople •  Evil Twin
| |
| Grimace variants |  Stone Grimace • (:  Vomit Grimace)
| |
| Keeper variants | :  Keeper •  Hanger
| |
| Standalone variants |  Para-Bite •  Fred •  Lump •  Embryo • Peep Eye • (:  Swarmer •  Mask + Heart •  B. Licker)
| |