Part 5

Learn strategies for defeating Envy, Gluttony, and Greed, the mini-bosses found randomly in The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.

The Mini-Bosses in The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth are randomly found throughout the dungeon. You never know when you'll fall upon these rooms, and when you do, a very brief message of '[Character Name] Vs. [Mini-Boss Name]' appears, and then you're fighting! The names may seem a bit odd, but they are actually the Seven Deadly Sins. They are generally fairly easy to fight but still shouldn't be underestimated. Battles generally last around a half a minute to a minute. As names of each boss are given in-game, descriptions aren't needed for you to identify the enemy but will be included simply for reference.

Envy

This happy chap begins the battle simply floating around the room, bouncing off walls and obstacles. Once he takes enough damage, he splits in two. This division is smaller and has less health. When one of these halves are destroyed, they instead split into two smaller parts that can be split once again into two more parts. This means that it's possible to have 8 small Envys floating around the room at once. Obviously, this would be a disadvantage, as you would have to take more caution to dodge all of these parts, so it's best to keep the amount of Envys floating around on-screen to a minimum. This means when one is destroyed, always destroy the smallest on-screen division. If you stick to that rule, no more than 4 will be floating around the room at any one time. They are all fairly slow-moving, however, so it's relatively simple to dodge even four. You shouldn't have too much trouble; just dodge and kill them. Remember - always destroy the smallest head that's on the screen. If there are two of the same size, pick whichever's easiest.

Gluttony

This fat little beast can catch you unawares. As soon as you move into the room, he's already firing a beam at you, so be ready. Gluttony is really just a Vis (see general enemy section) with a head on top that can shoot out blood drops. Just as Vis' are, Gluttony is most vulnerable when he's charging and shooting his beam shot. This is when Gluttony is completely immobile, and you can simply run out of the range of the beam and get some easy damage on him. The beam can only fire directly North, South, East, or West, so it's quite easy to dodge. It is in fact better to lure him in by purposely walking into range of the beam and get him to charge it up while you run back out of range and get some damage on him than trying to dodge and allowing him to shoot out 8 drops of blood in all directions, but even that's a fairly easy attack to dodge, but more difficult than the beam. So lure him into immobilizing himself to use his beam and kill him that way.

Greed

Greed is a unique mini-boss as it's almost exclusively found as a replacement to shops or secret rooms. It's meant to be a 'punishment' for your greediness by trying to get money/buy more items.

Greed has two attacks. It can shoot three projectiles in a single cardinal direction, which means that if you're diagonally positioned relative to Greed, it cannot damage you. Greed's other attack is the spawning of two Hoppers to Greed's left and right sides. These should be dealt with immediately, otherwise, they have a small chance of catching you out with their random movement and damaging you.

Greed moves horizontally only, which makes the battle much, much easier for you. All you have to do is move left and right so that you're diagonally positioned in relation to him so that his projectile shot cannot damage you and deal with Hoppers as they spawn. Other than that, just attack Greed, and the battle will be over with quickly. Seriously, if you take *any* damage in this battle, I'd be surprised. It's the easiest of all mini-bosses.

On death, Greed drops a number of coins (mainly pennies, but sometimes nickels). Additionally, if you take damage from Greed's projectiles, you will drop three pennies.