Hush

Template:BossTable Hush is the boss of the Blue Womb.

Fight

Hush starts off with a fight identical to the ??? fight, having the same attacks and behavior but a noticeably different appearance and half of ???'s health. After Hush's first form is defeated, it reveals its large true form at the top of the room, taking the form of its splash screen appearance. Its health pool is very large, and its basic attacks consist of barrages of shots following various patterns akin to those in the "bullet hell" genre of shoot 'em ups. Combined with enemy summons in between, the attacks can be particularly hard to evade.

Every time Isaac deals roughly 20% of its health, it will sink into the ground, stationary, non-attacking and invulnerable. Once most of the projectiles on screen have dissipated, it will pop back up, using more varied attacks than before.

Phase 1 (100-80% health)

Hush fires barrages of bullets in certain patterns, combining 1-3 different patterns of shots. The same pattern can be used multiple times in each barrage.

Phase 2 (80-60% health)

Hush will move to the center of the room before resuming its attacks. It also gains an additional attack:

Hush spawns a cluster of Hush Flies that fly toward Isaac. These flies have invincibility for a short time after being spawned.

Phase 3 (60-40% health)

Hush keeps its attacks from previous phases, and gains two more attacks:

Hush spawns a horde of Blue Gapers, which have an appearance similar to Hush's first form, before sinking into the ground to relocate. While relocating, Hush summons Blue Boils that fire either single shots or triple salvos at Isaac that can travel across the room. Hush is invulnerable in this state.
Hush fires three rows of wavy Continuum shots in one of the cardinal directions, which warp over to the other side of the screen and increase in speed the longer they travel. Hush will perform this attack 2-5 times before using a different one. These shots move in a set pattern, so standing still in a safe spot will allow Isaac to avoid an entire barrage.

Phase 4 (40-20% health)

Hush keeps its attacks from previous phases, gains an extra attack, and modifies its attack where it fires barrages of bullets:

Hush sinks into the ground while firing its barrages patterns, moving in a random direction or chasing Isaac as it fires, and spawning Blue Boils as it moves. Hush is invulnerable in this state.
Hush creates three large red projectiles that move outward and split rapidly into numerous smaller projectiles. Hush can start other attacks before the projectiles from this attack fully dissipate.

Phase 5 (<20% health)

Hush keeps most of its attacks from previous phases, but loses its ability to spawn Hush Flies. It gains one more attack in this phase, and will have a greatly reduced attack delay when at <1% health:

Hush fires two laser beams upward from its eyes, which will create beams on the ground that move toward Isaac and leave slippery Blue Creep in their wake. The speed at which the beams move is based on Isaac's speed stat, and are always possible to outmaneuver. While firing these lasers, Hush will also release wavy, slow-moving lines of tears in five directions.

When defeated, Hush will scream and disappear in a flash of light. The ground where it once was will become scorched in a shape resembling a distressed face.

Gallery

Hush's initial appearance in Phase 1.
Hush's appearance in the second part of Phase 1.
Hush's appearance in the third and final part of Phase 1.
Hush's true form in Phase 2.
Hush after defeat.
Hush as one of Delirium's forms. (First phase only)
Hush's second form as one of Delirium's forms. (Unused and unfinished)
Unused and unfinished skinless Hush sprite sheet.

Unlockable Achievements

Template:Achv Template:Achv Template:Achv Template:Achv Template:Achv Template:Achv Template:Achv Template:Achv Template:Achv Template:Achv Template:Achv Template:Achv Template:Achv Template:Achv Template:Achv Template:Achv Template:Achv

Damage Scaling

Damage scaling is an unclear mechanic introduced by Nicalis in The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth to provide a more challenging experience to the players, enabling some enemies to retaliate against high damage attacks by deploying an "armor" of sort to greatly reduce the amount of damage taken. Further details and an in-depth explanation may be found here.

Strategies

Having a Stop Watch for this fight is very valuable, as the slow effect triggered upon taking a hit will aid the player's ability to dodge the complex tear patterns and deal with the massive spawns of enemies, which can happen in quick succession.
Any items that can fend off projectiles will be highly useful for the fight. Orbital familiars, Circle of Protection, The Soul, Trinity Shield, Dry Baby, Fart Baby, and Infamy may greatly help to mitigate damage.
- Lost Contact, in combination with a high tears stat, may be effective in blocking projectiles. A player with a low tears stat may find that Lost Contact will cause any tears fired during bullet hell attacks to be destroyed before reaching their target.
  - When the player has piercing tears, Lost Contact can cause dodging most attacks to become trivial, as the player's tears will destroy any enemy projectiles they come into contact with while remaining themselves intact.
Marked and homing tears may help to land more tears while trying to avoid enemy projectiles, either by automatically firing at or targeting Hush even if the shot is a little off.
Piercing tears (or any tear-replacing item that grants a piercing attack) are useful for killing the enemies Hush spawns, preventing Isaac from becoming overwhelmed and allowing him to dodge its other attacks more easily.
A safe way to beat Hush is through the usage of Gnawed Leaf in combination with a passively damaging item such as Daddy Longlegs or The Pinking Shears, though it will take a while. Using The Ludovico Technique in combination with Gnawed Leaf can also be effective since Hush doesn't move a lot.
Hush is affected by the Chaos Card. It's advised to save the card for phase 2, which has far more health. Alternatively, throwing it upwards during its first phase can kill both phases if timed correctly.
Hiding in a corner may assist the player in dodging some of Hush's bullet hell attacks by allowing time for the associated projectiles to spread out.
Although Samson's Chains can block shots, the wavy path of Hush's continuum shots may allow them to hurt the player even when they are directly behind the ball from Samson's Chains.
Having three orbitals, e.g. Pretty Fly, Big Fan, Cube of Meat or Ball of Bandages at once will block a large number of Hush's shots.
The Ventricle Razor allows the player to repeatedly enter and exit the boss room, granting multiple uses of items like the Wooden Nickel to help as the Keeper, provided a source of charges is available. Multiple pickups may also be dropped for use during the fight.
- Holy Mantle can also be reset in this way, giving the player the infinite attempts to kill Hush without taking any damage.
Serpent's Kiss or Maw of the Void will make killing Hush's spawns occasionally drop black hearts, effectively increasing the player's health pool past the normal restriction of twelve hearts.
When playing as Keeper, Head of the Keeper and Wooden Nickel can be used to drop spare coins on the floor that can be taken after being hit. The latter can be combined with The Battery for one extra charge, and with 9 Volt for continuous recharges every 15 seconds.
A Card Against Humanity works in the Hush room. This can be used to generate hearts and coins. Having Sack Head or Petrified Poop makes this strategy even more effective.
Regardless of Isaac's item combination, taking occasional breaks between firing at Hush is effective, as during this period, Hush's damage resistance will decrease since he isn't taking any damage.
It is not recommended to have Broken Modem, as it will stop Hush's tears and close some escape routes, making it harder to dodge in some cases.
If the player is able to get Mysterious Liquid and Trisagion (and possible a high tear rate + slow moving tears), the player is able to kill Hush extremely quickly due to the multiple tear creeps underneath him, which doesn't seem to trigger his resistances.

Notes

Defeating Hush for the first time will spawn a Final Boss Chest. Moving into the chest will unlock Ending 17 and end the run.
Using the Emergency Contact on Hush's second form seems to lower its damage resistance by 50% for approximately 5 seconds.
Choosing to fight Hush in Challenges is not recommended, though it is possible to do so. Despite the fact that it offers the chance for two or more new items, the fight is very difficult.

Trivia

In its first form (the replica of the ??? fight), "Ascension" plays while in its second form, the name of the boss theme is "Morituros".
- Morituros in Latin is the accusative masculine plural for 'about to die', which roughly translates to "those who will die".
Hush is one of two bosses that have damage resistance, the other being Ultra Greed.
Hush is one of only two bosses in the game with a Boss Room scaled in a 2x2 fashion, the other being Delirium.
There is an unused file in the game named "boss_hush_skinless" which appears to be an unfinished spritesheet for a third form of Hush. It resembles a red, fleshy version of the head of The Forsaken. This was confirmed by Edmund to be "a red herring for dataminers."
- It is possible to spawn it using console command. It moves, but doesn't attack in any way.
Hush has the second-highest health of any boss in the game, with a total of 7666 health; only Delirium has more health. However, Hush has damage resistance while Delirium does not.
Hush shares his name with a level from Edmund's previous game Super Meat Boy.
Hush has an X on the right side of its mouth; this resembles the X found on Tinted Rocks.
Hush's boss room gradually becomes darker as Hush loses health.
According to Edmund on Twitter, Hush represents Isaac's imminent death slowly approaching towards him, which is the reason why Hush and ??? are the same thing, since ??? represents Isaac suffocating in the chest.
According to Edmund on Twitter, Hush is a giant ??? pushing from the other side.

Bugs

Bug!	If Delirious is used in phase 2 of the Hush fight and Delirium is killed,The Calm (music usually played after defeating a boss) will replace Morituros.