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The DemonicSpiders in Roguelike games are what other games' DemonicSpiders have nightmares about.

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Franchises with their own pages:

* ''[[DemonicSpiders/TheBindingOfIsaac The Binding of Isaac]]''
* ''[[DemonicSpiders/DarkestDungeon Darkest Dungeon]]''
* ''[[DemonicSpiders/FTLFasterThanLight FTL: Faster Than Light]]''

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* ''VideoGame/AbsentedAgeSquarebound'': The Puck and Gnome enemies are basically like the Mr. Toad enemies in that they can remove equipment from Karen. Unfortunately, they're also a powerful ranged attackers that can heal their allies. If the player ends up fighting multiple at a time, it can be hard to survive their long range attacks and equipment removal mechanic while outdamaging their healing. This is especially true during the Chimaera fight, who summons Pucks at much higher levels than normal.
* ''[[VideoGame/AncientDomainsOfMystery ADOM]]'' has summoners, such as werewolf lords, which create other summoners, which in turn summon others, filling the level before you take 4 or 5 steps towards it. Due to a feature of the levelling system which strengthens monsters according to how many you have killed, this quickly becomes tiresome, and later on, lethal. Blink dogs that ''teleport away'' to multiply, jackalweres, dark elven wizards which can call spiders that are now as strong as giants... It's no wonder that one of the best pieces of advice for newbies is, "Kill breeders/summoners on sight. If you've killed too many minions, run."
** The Battle Bunnies. A level filled with fast-breeding bunnies with Nasty Sharp Pointy Teeth. What's more fun? Scrolls of Vermin Control, which normally "neuter" every breeding creature on the level, go up in smoke on this level. The player's only chance is to use magic to beeline through the crowd and take down Bugs Bunny, thereby keeping the remainder from breeding. Though Bugs is not actually described as being a rabbit himself.
** Ghosts can pass through walls and have an aging touch, making them this to any player race with a short lifespan. A "tension room" full of ghosts can easily surround an orc or troll in a corridor and age him to death.
** Ogre magi are at ''least'' as tough and strong as normal ogres, ''and'' can cast invisibility on themselves and ice spells at the player.
** Dark elven priestesses, princesses and wizards (called [[FanNickName spider factories]]) are particularly nasty summoners. Not only they summon hordes of spiders, which fill the area with immobilising webs and use poison, but have themselves nasty attacks such as paralyzation and energy ray spells.
** Liches. Normal liches are fairly tame, possessing only a confusion attack, [[EnergyBall glowing balls]], a healing spell and the ability to paralyze the PC in melee. Then you get master liches, which can do all that, plus summon other undead monsters and curse inventory items (or the PC!) in melee range. Lich kings are when things start getting nasty, with the ability to summon virtually any random monsters, drain stats in melee range, and improved versions of the previous lich abilities. Finally, there's the dreaded emperor lich, with extremely potent versions of all the previous lich abilities, and the ability to cast [[OneHitKill Death Ray]].\\
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The middle portion of a Greater Undead Vault contains a horde of liches from Master to Emperor -- even if you can survive fighting them, without some serious area effect attacks, you're going to spend considerable amounts of game time hacking down summoned minions while the liches drain you stats and the mere fact of staying at a dungeon level deep enough to contain such a thing keeps giving you corruption.
** Stone oozes ignore armor, hit surprisingly hard, and can paralyze on touch. Whether or not they are horrendous blobs of death or mildly threatening melee enemies depends entirely upon whether or not you currently resist paralysis.
** Kobold trapmasters can, as their name suggests, create traps-- including inventory-wrecking water traps, high damage acid traps, and corruption traps.
** Writhing masses of primal chaos aren't particularly threatening when they show up naturally; however, if a monster repeatedly walks over a corruption trap, then they can turn into one -- even if you're nowhere near the part of the game where monsters of that kind of power are normally encountered. They have multiple attacks per turn, which corrupt and have a slowing effect; if you get slowed, then they will start hitting you ''dozens'' of times for every single turn you get, easily killing an early game character, or possibly even corrupting them to death.
** The mercifully rare minotaur mages. They have a terrifyingly potent confusion spell, and are extremely efficient at draining your stats when you stumble into melee range.
** If you ever get a message about "a deadly and chilling silence", ''run.'' Any melee attack in the room gets a massive damage multiplier, turning even the weakest of monsters into fearsome threats capable of splattering end-game characters within a few turns.
* A key part of ''VideoGame/{{Angband}}'' strategy is knowing ''not to get into fights'' with creatures like these.
** Hummerhorns (giant wasps) have a horrifying combination of two abilities; a bite that causes confusion, and the ability to ''self-replicate''. If you have just one of these on your hands and you don't deal with it immediately, you're in for a world of trouble--its confusing bite will hinder you from acting while it happily replicates around you, surrounds you, and bites you to death. Even a high level player can be taken down by these if they haven't taken precautions.
** Zephyr hounds come in huge packs and have various breath weapons, which they won't hesitate to blast you with.
** Quylthulgs are immobile piles of rotting flesh with various teleportation abilities and the ability to summon packs of monsters, ranging from a menagerie of angry beasts to a slew of demons.
** Drolems are the reason you ''never'' go below 2,000 feet without poison resistance. They're dragon golems with powerful poisonous bites and breath weapons-- and being golems, they're immune to many things that biological dragons wouldn't be. More than one player has had the misfortune of being wiped out by a drolem's poison breath before they even knew what hit them.
** Ancient Multi-Hued Dragons. Multi-hued dragons resist all basic elements, making them hard to kill, and can breathe all of them too. Ancient Multi-Hued Dragons are common enough that if you don't have those resistances, you run the risk of getting seriously hurt or even outright [[OneHitKill one-shot]] by an AMHD around the midgame.
** Anything with the tagline "It moves [[LightningBruiser very quickly]]". Speed is the OneStatToRuleThemAll in ''Angband'', so anything that out-speeds you is bad news.
* ''Brotato'' from Blobfish has a number of terrible alien mooks to fight. One of the worst is the Pursuer which looks like a cookie encased with a bony shell. Unlike aliens such as the Bruiser which uses a fast but highly telegraphed rush, the Pursuer simply keeps increasing its movment speed the longer it's still alive. It'll easily catch most players unless their own speed is above 15. Pursuer's also have a high amount of health as the calculation for their health is 24 x the current Wave and each one inflicts a hefty 1.2 x the current Wave (most enemies use the inferior 0.85 x current Wave for determining damage). Attacking them with attacks that do knockback is uniquely sometimes a backfire, uniquely Pursuers can sometimes use the impact to direct themselves in your direction instead of getting flung backwards.
* ''[[VideoGame/{{Cataclysm}} Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead]]'' has a number of nasty enemies ready to make your character one of the millions lost to the post-apocalypse.
** Bears and moose are fast, tough, and aggressive. They and [[RaisingTheSteaks their zombie counterparts]] are infamous for mauling early-game characters: moose, in particular, have [[MemeticBadass a reputation]] among the community like that of carp in ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress''.
** Wolves are faster than you and attack in packs, and killing one wolf will, for a time, make any other wolves you encounter aggressive. Thankfully, grim howlers (their zombie counterparts) only come alone and are weaker.
** Among the mutant wildlife, giant wasps, black widows, and giant trapdoor spiders are aggressive and venomous. Black widows can occasionally be found in basements, usually in a massive horde, and the player will likely be slowed by blundering into webs the instant they use the stairs. Giant wasps have a distressing tendency to GoForTheEye, and occasionally spawn in decent numbers outside a special, paper-walled house. Giant trapdoor spiders tunnel underground like giant worms, are fast and tough, and spawn in special lairs that may not be visible at first glance.
** Most of the special undead give some players good reason to use the available mods that disable them. To wit:
*** Zombie brutes will [[PunchedAcrossTheRoom send you flying]], and shocker brutes combine this with a potentially stunning area-of-effect electric attack. Zombie wrestlers can do this ''and'' grab you like a grappler zombie then drag you around, while zombie nightstalkers are [[StealthyMook invisible in the dark]] and can attack from afar with their stretchy arms. Skeletal brutes combine the brute's strength with bulletproof bony armor; kevlar zombies have [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin kevlar for skin]] that gives them great staying power; and ashen brawlers are shrouded in a cloud of smoke that makes your character cough, wasting valuable time and potentially injuring the torso.
*** If left alive long enough, brutes turn into zombie hulks, which combine the brute's punch with sky-high HP, [[ImmuneToBullets immunity to .22/9mm bullets]], the ability to destroy any barrier, and [[LightningBruiser terrifying speed]]. Skeletal juggernauts [[MightyGlacier trade off speed]] for stretching attacks and even more armor, while kevlar hulks turn all these characteristics up to eleven, being immune to all but the strongest armor-piercing shots.
*** Zombie bio-operators, while rather rare, can swiftly mangle characters with their brutal bionic martial arts attacks. They have an elite version that's even worse.
*** Zombie technicians can yank any metal-containing weapon out of your hands. Whether this is a momentary aggravation or a death sentence depends entirely on what other monsters are around.
*** Zombie necromancers can revive any unpulped or unburnt zombie corpse, and zombie masters can upgrade zombies on the spot, sometimes into other zombie masters. The PK's Reimagining GameMod adds a third monster, the zombie lord, that [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs combines both of these abilities into one monster]].
*** Zombie predators are upgraded zombie hunters with an attack that [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice stabs you in the torso]], knocking you over and causing bleeding. They are also much faster than you and have the feral hunter's leap, meaning they can rapidly close in for the kill. Not fun enough? Consider the zombie prowler, which has the predator's leap and impaling attacks, but is also ''invisible'' in darkness, and likes to lurk in dark subway tunnels...
*** Corrosive zombies trade off the spitter zombie's AreaOfEffect acid spit for a rapid acid attack that piles up pain. They are also quite tough (140 HP) and spew acid around themselves when struck, making melee combat even more of a nightmare. Even worse, soldier zombies can evolve into two even stronger variants, the bilious soldier zombie and the caustic soldier zombie, both of which have milspec armor and even stronger ranged attacks.
*** [[GrenadeSpam Grenadier zombies]] deploy explosive variants of the ever-annoying manhacks, ranging from EMP bombs and tear gas to lethal grenades and C4 charges. Elite grenadier zombies are even worse, as they deploy much deadlier 'hack variants-- if you're unlucky enough, they can send out a ''[[NukeEm mininuke]]'' ''[[OneHitKill manhack]]''. In older experimentals, they spawned more often, making them an incredibly deadly threat. Both Grenadiers and Elite Grenadiers have the nasty tendency to activate the last of their explosives upon being killed, resulting in several explosives going off in quick succession. Later game versions replace them with robots that do the same thing: the NR-031 Dispatch for the grenadier zombie, and the NR-V05-M Dispatch for the elite grenadier zombie.
** [[BlobMonster Blobs]] are merely a self-replicating annoyance. Fungal monsters are rapidly self-replicating and potentially lethal, mostly through the indirect hazard of [[BodyHorror unearthly fungal infection]]. And if you see even one Fungaloid, that surely means there must be a huge patch of fungal terrain nearby that's rapidly spreading.
** For Nether monsters, there's the fast and aggressive mi-go, and the regenerating MightyGlacier that is the shoggoth. The flaming eye is a more passive version, as its stare can inflict a variety of nasty status effects ranging from getting [[CoveredInGunge slimed with ectoplasm]] to [[BodyHorror spontaneous mutation or fungal infections]]. It was even nastier in older versions where the flaming eye had terrain-destroying EyeBeams, as it could blow up your car or collapse the building you're in on top of you.
** Anything with a gun, from bandits to military robots. Most characters can't take more than a couple of 9mm shots even with decent armor, and a burst from a milspec turret will cripple (limbs) or [[OneHitKill one-shot]] you (torso, head) unless-- or ''even if''-- you're in PoweredArmor. Turrets in particular are the main reason to be careful around [[AbandonedLaboratory abandoned laboratories]].
** Unseen hunters. They're invisible (and ''regenerate'') in darkness, camouflaged (read: almost invisible) in light, faster than you, jump around like fleas on crack, hit like a runaway train, and can grab and drag you around with their basic attacks. They're the reason you stay out of subway tunnels unless you've got a good reason to be there.
** [=NPCs=] with flamethrowers, even friendly ones, tend to indiscriminately fire them at anything they deem an enemy, even inside buildings. Even outside, the blast of the flamethrower can end up catching a building in its radius and burning it down; this denies you of the spoils and can attract zombies as the building collapses with a deafeningly loud smash. Fire also tends to destroy clothes and cause huge amounts of pain if you're caught in it, meaning almost-certain death.
** Tank Drones are one of the deadliest robots in the game. They have half as much health as a zombie hulk, very strong armor, a variety of deadly weapons built into them (Taser and flamethrower for close range, automatic rifle and grenade launcher for medium range, and a rocket launcher for long range), and the ability to chase you down. Generally, your only option is to run.
** The 0.D experimentals added a bunch of mi-go variants, some of which have ranged attacks. The worst, however, is the mi-go slaver. Its slaver beam, as a magical spell, can pass through any block of see-through terrain; it drains stamina and inflicts pain, which lowers your stats and makes it harder to fight or flee. Mi-go slavers also have night vision, making night raids with them around a crapshoot. All these traits are bad enough on their own... but a bug briefly turned them into the most dangerous enemy in the game, when it made their slaver beam completely drain your stamina while inflicting enough pain to bring all your stats to 0, which was a death sentence. After a well-deserved nerf adjusted the pain and stat/stamina drain inflicted, they're still much more dangerous than their vanilla mi-go brothers, but no longer the walking game-overs that they were.
** The official ''Magiclysm'' mod, which adds magical items, abilities, and monsters to the game, also adds demon spiders as a deadly encounter. Often found on the outskirts of towns, they deal enough damage to instantly destroy a character's limbs 4 times over and can cast explosions in the player's location. The strongest variant, the demon spider queen, has the highest difficulty rating in the game at 25663 points, according to the game files: for comparison, the most powerful monster in the base game only has a difficulty rating of 500. While it is possible to kill them, it would require some of the heaviest firepower available to even have a chance of survival.
* ''VideoGame/DeadCells'' has quite a lot of them, depending on the difficulty level and the route the player takes:
** The Slasher enemy is a giant swordsman with a weapon to match his size, giving him great range and damage, easily able to two-hit a playrer on earlier biomes and remaining a threat through most of the game. He attacks in a quick three-hit combo, the last of which is a shockwave attack. He can turn mid-combo, making dodging the attacks difficult, and unless using specific shields, stunned for low enough periods of time on a parry that he can ''immediately'' attack upon the stun ending, taking a player by surprise and taking a huge chunk of health. Woe betides you if you find an [[EliteMook elite]] version, which has higher health, damage and attack speed, or if you have to fight multiple at once.
** The Shocker is squishy and can be easily taken care of if the layout or player's loadout are appropriate. If neither is, however, you're left with trying to get in melee range of an enemy that will uses its mildly-damaging, unparryable, unavoidable AreaOfEffect attack the moment it sees you.
** The Scorpion, encountered only in the second and third level of one path, but deals fairly high damage and (the most important part) also inflict poison with its hits, making it able to bypass the [[HPToOne sudden death prevention]] mechanic and kill an already-wounded player in one blow.
** The Slammer, a bird-like enemy found only in higher difficulty levels in a couple of biomes, and for a good reason. They have high health, can follow you through walls and elevation once alerted, and their attack is an impossible to parry highly-damaging slam on the ground. Rolling behind them to get a hit in will be very dfficult, because they can turn around and attack immediately quickly, and they have enough health to take a couple of hits before going down.
** The Golem are found in only ''one'' biome regardless of difficulty level, and for a ''very'' good reason. Very high health, a wind-up punch that is ''extremely'' powerful and can push the player a fair distance, a ShockwaveStomp attack that requires jumping which little to no other attack in the game need, and the best part? Running away from them is useless ebcause they will ''teleport the player in front of them if they're far away''.
* ''VideoGame/{{DRL}}'' have a number of really nasty monsters that can end your run in a hurry.
** The "VMR", as the community calls them: Archviles, Mancubi, and Revenants. Archviles have the most HP of any non-boss and non-nightmare monster, are one of the fastest monsters in the game, have a very powerful attack that can only be dodged if your speed is fast enough, and most importantly, are capable of fully reviving nearly any dead monster in their sight, often ''immediately after you've killed them!'' Mancubi have very high HP and high natural armor, and have the deadliest attack of any monster in the game (which consists of them firing three rockets that individually deal very high damage, and have a large splash radius that can result in you getting hit by all three if you're near a wall, resulting in extreme damage if not an instant kill), though they are hindered by their extremely low speed and being easy to corner shoot. Revenants, while not having as high of HP as the other high tier monsters, are fast and shoot a powerful projectile with a splash radius that aims at the tile the player was standing on, which results in their attack never missing.\\
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The threat of the VMR can, however, be easily nerfed. They all deal fire damage in their projectile attack, and fire damage is very easy to gain resistance to (a simple fireproof armor assembly on Red Armor will give the player a Red Armor with 55% fire resistance, which can even make the full brunt of a Mancubi blast easily brushed off). There's also the Fireangel master trait (if you're a Technician) if you really, ''really'', '''''really''''' hate these guys; it makes you completely immune to splash damage, nerfing them even more at the cost of other master traits. On the other hand, even if you are sufficiently protected against fire damage, you also have to deal with the fact that all of these explosions can and will destroy any nearby items you were hoping to grab, like weapons, armor, ammo, health and mod packs, and powerups; as well as blow any barrels in the vicinity and generally make your life more difficult.
** Arachnotrons lack any special traits, but are fast, have high HP and armor, and wield a rapid fire weapon that can deal high plasma damage and is difficult to dodge all the blasts. Fortunately for the player, Arachnotrons are extremely weak in melee (having a weak melee attack and taking 50% more damage from melee attacks), which can be enough to keep them from being demonic spiders, except that too many of them in one place will fuck you up bad, especially if you are a melee build that relies on the Berserker trait, as the spiders' blasts do just enough damage to fuck you up, but not enough individually to trigger berserk.
** If a monster has "Nightmare" in front of its name, you're ''not'' going to have a good day. Pretty much every one of them has more HP, speed and even stronger attacks than their original incarnations. This turns into even more of a nightmare with monsters that are already demonic spiders all their own, such as Archviles and Arachnotrons.
** Barons of Hell aren't as beefy as in the original ''Doom'' (in ''DRL,'' their HP and armor values are equivalent to Mancubi), and their attacks aren't as dangerous as the attacks from the unholy trinity of the VMR. What makes them a huge threat to your survival is that they're the only monster (besides the Bruiser Brothers, which are a boss form of Barons) whose projectile deals acid damage, and they're able to pick up and use armor and medkits. Acid is the most difficult type to obtain resistance to and deals double damage to your armor: couple this with their ability to equip armor and use medkits, and a Baron is capable of taking a ton of punishment while depriving you of armor and health, which can cripple your long-term hope of survival.
* ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawl'', while not as punishing as ''VideoGame/{{Nethack}}'', still has many non-unique enemies that are quite unfair. Most of them have a powerful smiting attack, i.e. a ranged attack that cannot miss and does not require line of sight (which means the player is unable to retaliate if other enemies are in the way, barring the use of one of the quite rare (and hard to cast) smiting player spells.
** The earliest ones the player encounters are the orc priests. Often found before level 5 of the dungeon, they are the first enemy in the game with Smiting. Smiting is instant, undodgeable, unblockable, and usually shaves off 10-15 health with every cast, allowing them to kill you with [[HolyHandGrenade holy wrath from their god]] while standing safely behind a couple of regular orcs that shield them from anything you could cast at them. The best defense at this point is having a spell with an area of effect, which is part of the reason Mephitic Cloud (as the only low-level area spell, which has the benefit of disabling casting) is so useful.
** Unseen Horrors have the speed and erratic movement patterns of [[GoddamnedBats bats]], but hit substantially harder. And they're invisible, which means actually ''targeting'' them is a challenge in and of itself. They begin appearing around Floor 8 of the Dungeon, and are the reason See Invisible is important for any character.
** Spiny frogs are the bane of many casters, with poison resistance to nullify Mephitic Cloud, surprisingly potent melee attacks, and fast movement speed.
** Hydras, the bane of squishy stealth characters and evasion-based fighters. They spawn with anywhere between four and eight heads, and while their attacks aren't bad individually, they get one attack per head - meaning an eight-headed hydra will hit you ''eight times per turn'', which tends to add up fast. Now, you can chop off their heads with an edged weapon like an axe or a longsword... but unless it's a ''flaming'' edged weapon, the hydra will grow two heads in its place and heal a significant chunk of health. They're also resistant to poison, and have enough MR to reliably resist most hexes you can cast at this point of the game, making it hard to disable or weaken them. Thankfully, they don't have much in the way of resistances ''besides'' that, and their physical defenses are fairly lacking.
** Jellies are usually not a problem for any caster, but trying to fight them in melee temporarily corrodes your equipment, weakening your defense and making your attacks significantly less potent. It gets worse for ranged fighters, as jellies heal by eating the ammo you throw at them -- unless it's rocks, which don't do that much damage in general. Luckily, they are quite slow so unless you get cornered you can usually get them.\\
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The advanced jellies are also very nasty. Death oozes are extremely fast, and pack rotting attacks as well as corroding your equipment. Acid blobs spit extremely accurate acid splashes at you; even with corrosion resistance, you'll take a lot of damage. Azure jellies deal horrifying cold damage every time they hit you; expect to take up to ''88 damage per hit'' if you lack cold resistance.
** Before they got nerfed, [[PsychoElectricEel electric eels]] were this. They would appear in large schools in every body of water, fire painful bolts of lightning at you from across the room, and then dive underwater as soon as you got close. Fortunately they got a nerf at some point (the Crawl Wiki doesn't have the version number); they still fire bolts of lightning, but those bolts are much less damaging, the eels themselves are much less common, and they no longer dive underwater.
** Caustic Shrikes. All the worst parts of stronger jellies, stapled to bees, with disproportionately high HP to match. And they come in ''packs''. They cause a disproportionately high amount of deaths at high levels just because of the sheer damage output from them, especially if you're caught out in the open.
** Pretty much any eyeball-type monster, but the crown goes to the humble giant eyeball. If it can see you, it can paralyze you. Doesn't matter if there's monsters, clouds of gas, or even transparent walls in the way, if you're in its line of sight, you are at risk of paralysis, unless you have stasis. Honorable mentions go to shining eyes, which will repeatedly mutate you into a weak, twisted mockery of yourself, and eyes of destruction, which fire irresistible energy bolts. All of these, as well as jellies, populate the Slime Pit.
** The Spider Nest is a branch that has one chance out of two of appearing instead of the Snake Pit in a game. As the name implies, it's full of spiders, and unless you are poison resistant (or even better, poison immune, which means you are playing a Gargoyle or an undead) many of those qualify as DemonicSpiders. Some have an extremely nasty poison that will bring down the toughest characters in a few turns, which can quickly burn through your stash of potions of healing. Some have an attack that confuses the character, allowing their allies to swarm you. Some throw insanely powerful orbs of destruction at you while staying on the edge of your line of sight. And worst of all is the ghost moth. It's invisible, extremely tough, very fast, it eats away you magic just by being in your field of vision (except you can't see it... because it's invisible), and has a confusion-inducing melee attack. Oh, and unlike most of the denizens of the Spider Nest, it's also poison resistant.
** Any sort of higher demon, but there are a few specifics:
*** Executioners are tier 1 demons with double the speed of most characters, which they like to boost even further with the Haste spell. Once that's done they'll zip into melee range and start hitting you three times for every turn they take, which ends up being 6-9 hits for every action you take. While beefy, heavily-armored melee brutes can usually soak up their blows, casters and other squishy characters will get sliced to ribbons quickly.
*** Brimstone Fiends, Ice Fiends, and Shadow Fiends/Tzitzimimeh are all tier 1 demons most reviled for knowing (and loving to abuse) the spell Torment, which [[PercentDamageAttack cuts your current HP in half]] with every use and is unresistable for most characters. While all monsters who know Torment are bad, Fiends up the ante by adding other nasty attack spells. Brimstone Fiends have Hurl Damnation, which never misses and ignores armor; Ice Fiends are absolute terrors in melee, dealing up to ''106'' armor-piercing damage each strike; and Shadow Fiends have Dispel Undead Range, which deals massive damage to undead characters such as mummies or vampires-- who, incidentally, are the only ones able to reliably resist Torment.
*** The tier 3 demon Neqoxec. Though somewhat weak, neqoxecs know (and love to spam) the spell Malmutate, which is very likely to give the player negative mutations. As of 0.27 there are few ways to resist mutations. Thankfully potions of mutation remove mutations before giving you new ones. No guarantees that the new mutations won't be worse than what you had before, though.
** Many EnemySummoner foes are considered demonic spiders as well, including deep elf summoners, mummy priests, and orc sorcerers, all of which rarely do battle without first calling in a dozen or so various demons. Vampires used fit in this category as well thanks to their tendency to flood the room with rats and bats until version 0.12.
** Almost every monster specific to [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace the Abyss]], with the exception of abominations, is a DemonicSpider. One of the worst offenders is probably the Wretched Star, which has a smiting attack that gives you bad mutations. Those mutations go away eventually as you kill monster, but it's not that easy to kill things when you're considerably slower than monsters, have -30% HP and MP as well as diminished stats, don't regenerate HP anymore, shout regularly to attract monster's attentions and have a 30% chance of failure when using scrolls.
** Nearly everything in [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon the Realm of Zot]]:
*** Electric golems are extremely fast, blink constantly, and will happily wreck your day with thrown lightning bolts. Not only is electricity resistance a complete pain to actually get, but it only provides partial protection against electrical attacks. Good luck actually getting into melee range with these guys, let alone hitting them.
*** Orb Guardians, found in the Orb of Zot's chamber, are simple melee attackers, except they're fast, tough enough to soak up lots of abuse, hit like a truck, and like to swarm you while you're engaged with some of the more exotic monsters in Zot. While difficult normally, they become nigh-unstoppable when they're enraged.
*** Moths of Wrath can berserk anything within four tiles of them, and they are ''everywhere'' in Zot. While this can potentially disable dangerous spellcasters, it's generally worse to have a pack of enraged draconians coming after you. Their bites can also berserk you, although thankfully they're so weak they usually don't last long enough to do that.
*** Finally, you have the big three: Ancient Liches, Dread Liches, and Orbs of Fire. Orbs of fire are extremely fast, beefy enough to tank several hits, have near-perfect elemental resistances, and can either roast you with devastating fire magic or mutate you to death. Ancient liches are horrifyingly powerful undead sorcerers with a bevy of resistances and broad spell lists; they can summon greater demons to torment you and blast you with hellfire, melt your equipment with acid, cast you into [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace the Abyss]], raise zombies to mob you, turn invisible at will, or just kill you with high-end conjurations. 0.27 changed them up by giving them a standard spell list: now, instead, they are certain to make themselves faster, turn invisible, or petrify you-- and that's when they're not blasting you with Corrosive Bolt or the [[ThatOneAttack devastating Lehudib's Crystal Spear]]. The summoning spells and debuffs were given to the dread lich, who shares the ancient lich's resistances and can paralyze you or summon hordes of greater demons: this can be bad news if they call up one of the more dangerous fiends.
* ''VideoGame/DungeonOfTheEndless'' has a few:
** Hurna Riders (goblins riding Rhinos). Each time a door is opened, you gain resources for that turn, but monsters can spawn from any unpowered rooms that aren't occupied by heroes. Hurna Riders have the ability to smash down doors in a few hits. They target a random locked door and attempt to reach it and smash it down, and if they succeed at doing so, it can spawn a huge amount of monsters ([[DisasterDominoes including more Hurna Riders to smash more doors]]!) that will eventually overwhelm you.
** Chimera Kamikazes, specifically the elite variants. They deal an incredible amount of damage to all heroes in the room should they blow up, sometimes enough for a TotalPartyKill.
** Chimera Hydras. They have a lot of health, prioritize killing heroes and [=NPCs=], hit hard and from a distance, and worst of all slow down all heroes in the room they're in, making it even harder to escape from, ensuring that they and the other monsters can catch up to you and tear you apart.
** Chimera Keepers. [[MagikarpPower Let them grow too big]] and they can destroy a team of four heroes easily due to their high regenerating health and heavy area damage. Even worse is the fact that they provide regeneration and attack boost to all other monsters in the dungeon while reducing the chance of dust drops. They also spawn in dark rooms, forcing your heroes to get through the waves of monsters to even reach them.
* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' has had many of them, true to its motto "Losing is Fun!"
** Appropriately enough, ''Dwarf Fortress'' has a literal DemonicSpider: the dreaded Giant Cave Spider, who can immobilise you with webs before you've even seen them, completely paralyse you within a few rounds, and are entirely capable of reducing you to a soggy pile of dwarven gore with their basic melee attacks. They're also [[LightningBruiser super fast and tough and have redundant limbs covered in hard chitin]], making them incredibly hard to take down even if you survive them for so much as a second.
** Elephants in the earliest versions were [[TheDreaded the most feared and revered animal]] in the history of ''Dwarf Fortress''. Older versions of DF scaled physical strength with size -- and elephants are huge, making them horrifying {{Lightning Bruiser}}s. One good example of this can be seen in ''Blog/{{Boatmurdered}}'', where packs of elephants would suddenly attack dwarves, their enormous tusks gleaming red with blood. Such was their brutality that they were named the king of all beasts, and an undead elephant was a symbol in dwarven culture and society that stood for brutality, terror, death and destruction.
** Carp in the 40d version. Nothing but sheer terror awaited dwarves that settled near a stream or river. They attack creatures outside of water as if they were in, even though they're half the size of a dwarf. Due to a bug, they constantly raised skill and thereby their physical attributes just by ''swimming''.[[note]]since physical attributes in older versions scaled with skill, one of which is swimming (somethng that fish always do)[[/note]] This made their default attack do 1-6 damage, compared to a dwarven punch of 1-2 damage. Coupled with the fact that dwarves are not known for their swimming habits and can be dragged underwater in the blink of an eye, or even just "dodging" into the lake, it got so bad that [[WordOfGod Toady One himself]] said "I think I made the fish too hardcore." They've since been toned down, but their reputation as stone-cold dwarf killers remains.
** Circa [=DF2010=] (0.31.25), the King of Beasts is the fuzzy ball of anger, hate, and claws known as the badger. A single badger is no threat, but they move in huge pack able to skillfully rip even an armored dwarf to death in seconds. Worse yet, there are also Giant Badgers; no one who has ever seen a Giant Badger has lived to tell the tale. As if one [[TurnsRed becoming enraged]] at the slightest provocation and effortlessly ripping a dwarf to bloody ribbons alone wasn't enough, they also come in large packs that can even swarm and kill a full armored military squad. Adventurers can handle badgers fine enough, though.
** Giant keas are surprisingly lethal for what are basically overgrown parrots with serious kleptomania. They run on a policy of step one, go into fortress; step two, try to steal stuff; step three, kill every dwarf they come across. While they ''can'' be killed, they're still fast-moving, high-damage dwarfrippers.
** Giant Sponges before [=DF2014=]. Yes, sea sponges. Your dwarves' ArtificialStupidity makes them fight sponges to the death -- and since sponges have no vital organs, blood or even targetable limbs, they were effectively immortal before the combat overhaul, so the dwarves either drown trying to reach them or get pushed to death. (Yes, they have a slam attack. [[LogicBomb Despite being immobile]].) Worse still is a ''thralled'' giant sponge: not only are able to move out of water and murder your dwarves, they also have all the durability of a regular sponge. [=DF2014=]'s introduction of pulping took giant sponges down a notch, as now sponges can be mangled to death.
** Anything with a projectile-based weapon. On paper, arrows and bolts deal about as much damage as any other attack ("any other attack" meaning a hit from a spear, and that a particularly fine kitten-bone bolt does as much damage as a basic iron spear). However, they deal 'piercing' damage, are nearly unblockable, and rarely miss or "glance away", which means that any arrow that hits will more than likely deliver fatal damage to your various organs. In Adventure mode, they can also shoot at you from several screens away, meaning that your Legendary Swordmaster, who can effortlessly fight off entire crowds of foes and strike down Demons without taking a single hit, can be killed by a single arrow fired by a novice archer that shouldn't even be able to see you. In Fortress Mode, you can have entire armies of bowmen descend upon you, perforating your champions with dozens upon dozens of missiles the minute the idiots stagger outside to do battle. It's a frustrating experience, but then again, most Roguelikes are. Before the 0.40.11 update, two separate bugs made ranged weapons even worse. Projectiles almost ''completely ignored'' armor material properties, meaning that if that arrow hits you, you'll probably end up on the ground bleeding to death, even if you're wearing full steel plate with adamantine mail. Worse yet, archers had virtually no attack delay, making crossbows more like Gatling guns rather than crossbows.
** The [[spoiler:[[TheLegionsOfHell demons]], appropriately enough]]. Not because they are individually tough, not because they fly, only partly because they're stealthy and avoid traps, but mostly because some of them set everything nearby on fire AND breathe massive bursts of fire. On the positive side, you'll never get more than a few dozen on any one map, and if you defeat them all you can then amuse yourself by chucking garbage and enemies into Hell. Post-2010 update, however, the number of demons is now either ''several billion'' or ''infinite'', and some of them, lacking multiple body parts or vital organs and blood, are functionally immortal. Evidently, Toady One decided the old Hell was too easy.
** Orcs from some of the mods can veer into this; not only are they bad-tempered, fast-moving, and obscenely tough, but they turn up in swarms, right from the first winter, they are immune to automated traps, and they can kick open locked doors. The only reason forts with orcs modded in survive more than an in-game year is that they are still susceptible to the more...''elaborate'' deathtraps from the twisted imaginations of DF players, such as drowning chambers, drop chutes, and atomsmashers.
** Adventurers' worst nightmares are bogeymen, who spawn in mid-sized numbers, are VERY good at dodging, can teleport to you if you run away, and only appear in total darkness. Despite being small, they can sometimes ''KICK IN YOUR SKULL THROUGH A STEEL HELMET.'' And they don't need to be great, because they dodge enough that it is almost impossible to hit one! Oh, and some can fly. The only good thing about them is that even a single companion will stop them from spawning, but it is very possible to be attacked and killed while you go to a fortress to get a companion who won't get killed on your first quest, or while going back to civilization after all of your companions died in a quest. Not much fun, but lots of [[InsistentTerminology Fun]].
** As a corollary to all of the above, anything else can be included on the list as long as its a [[OurZombiesAreDifferent zombie]]. Zombified creatures don't feel pain, which means [[CriticalExistenceFailure they will not stop attacking until destroyed]]. Back in the day they couldn't be destroyed at all since they didn't have vital organs. A patch in 0.31 turned zombies into the first enemies in the game to have HitPoints -- which were removed in 0.40, making them hard to kill again, despite their greater vulnerability to blunt weapons. And yes indeed, long-time players keep modding zombified creatures in to make their game even harder.
*** Since the 2012 version (0.34.11), zombies in some evil biomes may spontaneously rise from the dead. The catch is that "zombie" does not necessarily have to be a whole creature -- body parts, bones, skin, hair, and even ''mussel shells'' can rise from the dead. That angry goblin corpse that your swordsdwarf killed? [[NiceJobBreakingItHero You've only made more zombies by cutting it up.]] Worse, if a zombie kills a living creature, that living creature will itself become a zombie, eventually spiraling into an uncontrollable ZombieApocalypse.
*** A subtype of the undead are "husks", zombie-like monsters with a singular hate for all life. Certain evil biomes feature clouds that turn normal creatures into husks; once they're turned, they're nigh impossible to kill and powerful to the point of being [[GameBreaker broken]]. Oh, and they tend to be covered in the dust that caused them to turn, which makes more husks if you touch it. And they keep all the combat skills they had before they got husked. [[BringMyBrownPants Yes, your legendary Axe Lord clad in adamantine armour can become a thrall.]] [[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=101438.0 This thread from the forums]] suggests that not even [[spoiler:'''''DEMONS''''']] can fight to more than a standstill with a swarm of husks.
*** Embarking next to a necromancer tower is considered a ''spectacularly'' horrible ([[VideoGameCrueltyPotential read: Fun]]) idea, and for good reason. In their debut version (0.31.x), necromancer sieges came carrying zombies in swarms of hundreds -- which the accompanying necromancer could quickly multiply into thousands, due to the effect of body parts counting as reanimatable. 0.40.x scaled down the numbers of zombies, only in exchange for the zombies ''carrying weapons and armour''.
* One enemy that sticks out in particular in ''VideoGame/EnterTheGungeon'' is the Veteran Shotgun Kin. Enemies with the Veteran tag [[LeadTheTarget lead their shots.]] Shotgun Kin fire a spread of five bullets in an arc. Put two and two together, and you have an enemy that, while merely troublesome on its own, can quickly turn into a nightmare with even a small amount of backup, especially when you're forced to dodge-roll, as the Veteran Shotgun Kin has a nasty tendency to fire where you'll land before the rolling animation is complete. It also detonates into a pseudo-random spray of bullets when killed, and you can potentially encounter ''four or more'' of the damn things ''in one room.''
** King Bullats are resilient {{Asteroids Monster}}s that shoot ricocheting projectiles in a circular arc, almost guaranteed to nail you in the back when you think you've dodged it, and when killed, it spawns multiple Bullats of all types, from explosive ones to spiritual ones that shoot multiple ghostly bullets after death.
** Lead Maidens encountered in the Gungeon Proper are invulnerable to bullet projectiles when closed. When they open and make themselves vulnerable, they also fire three salvos of arrow-shaped bullets in all directions, which ''all converge on you at once'' when it closes up again. Unless you can find some really good cover, you're likely to get hit by one of these things.
** Lore Gunjurers are different from their SquishyWizard counterparts in that they can take an unreasonable amount of punishment and summon three different types of quick, unpredictable projectiles, all of which home in on you and take the form of one of the FighterMageThief class types. The Fighter bullet mercilessly zooms towards the player at high speeds, the Mage bullet fires bullets of its own while slowly advancing towards the player (and charging at it once it runs out of shots), and the Thief bullet ''teleports behind you,'' causing you to roll opposite the direction you are anticipating. It doesn't help that Lore Gunjurers are often situated with their brethren, allowing them to pop off multiples of these attacks at once while you're distracted by all the other hazards.
** Lead Cubes in the Forge [[spoiler:and their fleshy counterparts in Bullet Hell,]] at least if you're not playing as [[spoiler:The Bullet.]] They are {{Invincible Minor Minion}}s that cannot be damaged until the room is cleared (upon where it becomes meaningless to attack them, as they make no effort to fight back and [[GoldenSnitch the room is essentially conquered at this point]], unless you're ''that'' desperate for money), and they zip towards the player at high speed, causing CollisionDamage. It wouldn't be so bad, except the rooms can be quite spacey, especially in the Forge [[spoiler:and Bullet Hell]], so you often won't see these things coming until they're suddenly charging after you, requiring split-second reflexes or just plain [[LuckBasedMission dumb luck]] to not get hit by one, especially with other distractions to worry about. [[spoiler:The Flesh Cubes are even more insane in this regard -- they leave behind a blazing fire trail when darting about the room, and release bullets when they collide with an obstacle or wall.]]
** Shelletons, when spawned naturally and not through an [[MookMaker Ammomancer]]. They soak up tons of damage, fire off the most confusing spread pattern of nearly all the enemies in the game, and have an irritating {{Eye Beam}} attack that tracks your movement. And you have to destroy the head once you blast away its body, otherwise it reassembles itself and regains all of its hit points.
** Revolvenants, who appear in the Forge [[spoiler: and Bullet Hell]]. They have two attacks: The first and more common one is to launch a string of bullets at you. Following that, each bullet shoots more bullets out to the side perpendicular to the main string for a few seconds. The second attack is to surround you in a circle of bullets that follows you. Two large bullets then move through the center, so you have to dodge roll over them. Finally, the remaining bullets all move through the center together.
* ''VideoGame/{{Hades}}'' has quite a few.
** The Wretched Sneak is a Tartarus miniboss whose gimmick involves teleporting around the room and attacking you with either fast shots, or an up-close stab. This is annoying enough in the beginning of the game, but if you have the fourth level of Extreme Measures active, the final boss can summon an even stronger version of it alongside other enemies. That thing is a nightmare to kill when the arena is twice as big and you have to deal with all the other threats.
** From the Asphodel region:
*** Wretched Witches. The region turns what used to be a minor inconvenience into an enemy that, in groups or alone, can quickly turn the game into a BulletHell. As of the Blood Price Update, a new "miniboss-lite" room has been added to Asphodel, featuring a unique coven of witches. They all have very high health (which affects their now very tanky armor), and will now spin in place filling the map with spiral upon spiral of BulletHell, so that you can't turn left without taking a hit. Like all witches, they love to head over the Phlegethon so as not to be easily reached, and like every other enemy, they can't be staggered or interrupted until the armor's taken off. This nightmare is guaranteed to give you more of a headache than some bosses. Made even worse with Middle Management active, as they can fire shots that cannot be canceled with your own attacks unless you have Athena's boons on the attack in question (which will reflect them normally).
*** The Gorgons are basically the same as the Wretched Witches because they also come in large groups and love to spam you with projectiles, but they're worse because their attacks turn you to stone, forcing you to watch your lifebar slip down bit by bit while you struggle free, and then you can get petrified again in half a second. Also, they always head directly over the Phlegethon's pools so that you can't directly attack them, creating a major pain in the ass. Even worse, there's a miniboss version that you can fight, which you have to fight at the same time as a miniboss-level Skull Crusher.
** Elysium provides several examples:
*** The soldiers of Elysium are split into Brightswords, Strongbows, Longspears, and Greatshields, and each of them qualifies for a different reason. [[FragileSpeedster Brightswords]] don't have much range or attack power, but they can dash, and will put on sudden bursts of speed and blitz it halfway across the map to either hit you, or dance out of the way from your attacks. [[MightyGlacier Strongbows]] have the most highly-telegraphed attack in the game, but it hurts by far the worst among the soldiers. [[LightningBruiser Longspears]] are easily the worst; they have the highest running speed of all the soldiers, and may as well have an {{instant death radius}} because their attacks are fast and come with no tells whatsoever, so even dashing past them isn't safe. It's a very wide radius, too--their spear range is greater than everything you can wield except Coronacht when fully charged, including the gun. [[StoneWall Greatshields]] force the InTheBack playstyle on you, which can be problematic if your strategy focused on high aggression thus far. And what's worse, every soldier-type enemy leaves behind a spirit after being defeated, which also has to be killed; if the spirit isn't killed fast enough, the soldier will just respawn with full health and armor, forcing you to fight them all over again.
*** Soulcatchers. They are a nightmare on the battlefield as you likely won't notice that they're there until you're getting stun-locked by a swarm of butterflies while trying to deal with other, more aggressive enemies. They're slow, so it's not like you can't hit them, but they have a ''ton'' of health even before armor enters the picture. Prepare to rely on patience if more than one spawns on the field at once. The Dire Soulcatcher, one of Elysium's mini-bosses, is even worse; not only is it supremely tough to crack, but it also keeps spawning souls that will turn into normal enemies unless you divide your attention and deal with them, ''and'' it can teleport if the enhanced mini-bosses Pact condition is active.
*** Nemean Chariots were so bad in this aspect that they received a {{Nerf}} in the Long Winter update. They had a ton of health, even more so than Soulcatchers, and are ''very fast'', running you down with ridiculous speed and dealing large chunks of damage as they plow you into whatever is nearby. Even after the update, they still somewhat remain as examples of this trope, but their damage-per-second was brought down to more reasonable numbers. If there's more than one of them though, or if they have armor, defeating them is gonna be a challenge.
** In the Temple of Styx, Satyr Cultists are a nightmare. They bounce around the battlefield constantly, can take a ton of punishment before going down, and they attack by spitting poison darts at you. The poison knocks off a decent chunk of your health if allowed to run its course, and while it can be cured using the [[HealingSpring yellow fountains]] in the room, ''the game does not tell you this''. The elite versions are even worse because they can't be interrupted, and they shoot with a three-way spread.
* The soldier ant in ''VideoGame/{{Nethack}}'' has no special/magical abilities—and yet is the most common cause of deaths in the game, thanks to their speed and numbers. It's not the only monster with a reputation, but fights for the spot of worst creature with floating eyes, leprechauns, nymphs, gremlins, eels, krakens, mind flayers, master mind flayers, green slimes, cockatrices, chickatrices, black dragons, liches, arch-liches, rust monsters, disenchanters, iron golems, air elementals, the [[http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Gnome_With_The_Wand_Of_Death Gnomes With The Wand Of Death]], and minotaurs to an extent. By this point, the astute reader has picked up that ''Nethack'' isn't a "game" as much as an extremely prolonged form of masochism. Ask any serious player. In a rare show of mercy, however, the game includes one way to relieve yourselves of your most hated Demonic Spiders: A scroll of genocide. It can wipe out an entire species (for example, one type of lich) or an entire ''class'' of monsters (for example, ''all'' liches), depending on how blessed it is. Unfortunately, this won't work on some enemies.
** Vrocks [[MookMaker summon other Vrocks]]. The summoned Vrocks then go on to summon even more Vrocks, who then go on to dogpile you to death.
** Werecreatures (wererats, werejackals, and werewolves) can infect you with lycanthropy for every attack that hits. Lycanthropy causes you to randomly polymorph into one of the same types of monster that attacked you, unless you have protection from shape changers. Wererats and werejackals have such terrible carrying capacity that you'll almost certainly by incapacitated as soon as you shift, while werewolf transformations will destroy any shirt, armor, or cloak you're wearing. Even worse, lycanthropy is nigh-impossible to cure; if you can't pray for whatever reason, you just have to hope you run across a sprig of wolfsbane or a bottle of holy water.
** Nymphs don't directly hurt you, but you'll be wishing they did. [[BanditMook They steal items]], up to and including the weapon out of your hand and the armor off your back. They can also immobilize you, during which time they'll steal literally everything you have. Even worse, they'll teleport away as soon as you get ready to hit them back. If you get unlucky, it's very likely you'll end up running around the floor in your skivvies with whatever weapon you can grab off the floor, hoping you can corner her and get a good hit in to kill her before you run into whatever ''other'' DemonicSpiders are on the floor. Leprechauns are similar but less ''evil'', preferring instead to steal gold. Thankfully, both Nymphs and Leprechauns tend to spawn sleeping, where you can slip by them if you don't wake them up. That won't help you, of course, when a water nymph pops out of the fountain you were dipping your longsword in.
** Most quadruped enemies are {{Mighty Glacier}}s; slow, but obscenely powerful once they get close. Except ''[=NetHack=]'' tends to deemphasize the "glacier" part, while focusing on the "mighty". The most infamous of these is the mumak, a ferocious war elephant with a headbutt attack that does ''4d12'' damage. At the levels you're likely to start encountering them, a couple of those can almost certainly kill you, and they get multiple attacks per turn, at least one of which will be a headbutt.
** The exception to the "quadrupeds are {{Mighty Glacier}}s" rule is the leocrotta. [[LightningBruiser It's not only exceptionally powerful, but also incredibly fast]].
** [[ChestMonster Mimics]] hide in shops and disguise themselves as items. If an item that doesn't belong in the shop, or if it's a general store, then you'll end up stumbling across it and getting attacked.
** Every monster in this game that aren't GoddamnBats are Demonic Spiders. Arguably the only monster that doesn't leave you feeling sore if you aren't properly prepared would be the Grid Bugs, tiny little bugs who occasionally hit for a whole point of damage, and Lichens, which, while similar to much more deadly fungi, only has a passive that makes you stick to it and dies in a couple hits (Sometimes dropping vegan food that never rots!).
** Giant eels, electric eels, and krakens only live in water, which should make them mostly harmless, right? Wrong. When you pass by them, they'll pop out and grab you. If you can't get away from them or kill them within a few turns, they'll drag you into the water and drown you.
* ''VideoGame/{{Noita}}'':
** Any enemy who can wield a wand can potentially become this. While some wands will be duds that actually make the enemy less dangerous, other times they'll find wands that fire literal ''nukes'' which can obliterate entire screens worth of terrain and enemies.
** The Worms are massive burrowing creatures. They have enough health that they warrant a health bar where other enemies don't, do a lot of damage, and worst of all can appear on any level. The biggest danger with them is their ability to dig through ''any'' material, including the all-but indestructible brickwork surrounding temples. This angers the gods, spawning Temple Guardians in each temple who will attack the ''player'' for something done by a Worm.
** The jetpack-wearing Hiisi aggressively pursue the player, unlike most other enemies, have ranged attacks, and are heavily armored. They tend to travel in packs, often formed around a larger and more powerful leader who will spawn even more Hiisi when attacked. And most dangerous is that they can wield wands, as mentioned above.
** The Masters of Polymorphing in the Temple of the Art are nightmares not because of their stats or behavior, but because their attacks will instantly transform even the most powerful player character into a helpless flying sheep that will die to any attack.
** Sky Gazers in The Work (Sky) spit globs of Chaotic Polymorphine and bleed the substance when injured. This can rapidly spread across the clouds in the region, and getting soaked in it will temporarily transform the player character into a random monster. While some transformations are more powerful, many are defenseless critters who will die in one attack from other enemies in the Sky.
* ''VideoGame/NuclearThrone'' has a handful.
** The Giant Scorpions in the Desert will very quickly teach you the basics of duck and cover if you're not used to it yet. Not only are they quite fast and sturdy, they can also blanket the area in random bullet spreads that can be hard to dodge, especially when there's more than one of them. Touching them will deal 5 damage to you, a sizable amount given that the average maximum HP of most characters is 8.
** Assassins are one of very few melee attackers in this game. They can play dead, which can be hard to distinguish from corpses if they're in a crowded area, and only stop once they get hit or you get too close. When they're up, they move ''fast'' and erratically. When they get close enough, they'll hit you with a pipe which does quite a lot of damage, and your only warning that they're about to is a small "!!!" appearing over their head, which again can be hard to spot.
*** If you make it to the [[BrutalBonusLevel Jungle]], the Assassins now hide themselves in bushes, which are indistinguishable from the other foliage until you shoot it. Worse still, they run while disguised and have more HP.
** Sniper robots. They'll shoot fast-moving bullets at you from off-screen, and they'll track you before they fire. You get more warning for this than the Assassin's attack, but it can still be very hard to deal with. And they explode when they die, so you need to pick them off from a distance unless you want them to blow up in your face.
** Now, imagine a sniper with about eight times the HP, a rapid-fire attack, a bigger spread on its bullets, and a larger explosion on death, and you have the Snow Tank. The only redeeming factor about them is that they actually have a delayed explosion, giving you a second to run for cover. Worse yet is when you luck out and spawn a [[MetalSlime Golden]] [[StuffBlowingUp Spider]] [[MoreDakka Tank]]...
** The Snow Wolves in the Frozen City. Roaming around in packs, they are hard to hit due to their erratic zigzag movement and can easily overwhelm unprepared players with their spread shots, which they can fire in quick succession. If you get cornered by a bunch of them shooting bullets at you while a Snow Tank revs up its chaingun in your direction, be prepared for a one-way trip back to the Campfire.
** The Snowbots , common enemies from the Frozen City, can easily be dispatched from a distance, but up close their ChargeAttack can take a player by surprise or reach them before they have time to reload. Their [[ThatOneAttack most devastating attack]], however, is picking up a car and throwing it at you, which they can do from any distance as long as you're in direct their line of sight.
** The regular Crystal Caves are bad enough with [[DangerousTerrain the sticky webbing on the ground]] hampering your movement in places, but it also contains two kinds of enemies you'll quickly learn to respect: literal DemonicSpiders with quick, erratic movement skittering about and [[BeamSpam Laser]] [[EnergyWeapon Crystals]] that can either pick you off at a distance or even [[OneHitKill kill you instantly]] if you so much as ''brush against them''. Now try entering the level with a [[EvilWeapon Cursed]] [[StuckItems Weapon]] in your inventory and watch as all the enemies become much, ''much'' deadlier: the Crystal Spiders now have a chance of replicating when killed, the Laser Crystals shoot much faster and more often on top of blinking around randomly, sometimes right on top of you if you get within melee range, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and both types now have reversed color schemes]]. Oh, and the ''entire floor'' is now completely webbed up [[SarcasmMode for your convenience]].
** The [[ActionBomb Explosive Freaks]] in the Laboratory. Many a run has been ended by a Freak unexpectedly running in from off-screen at full speed and blowing itself up in the player's face, which is compounded by the fact that visibility in the Laboratory is very low. Seasoned players will tend to keep their crosshairs trained straight ahead of them while traversing the lab's hallways as a result.
** Many of the enemies in the Palace could count, but special mention goes to the Dog Guardians, huge radioactive behemoths that take a lot of punishment to kill and can end a run in a single devastating pounce, an attack which they love to spam when given the chance. Oh, and they can smash through solid blocks, which means you can't use cubbyholes to hide from them.
** The I.D.P.D. officers. Many of the regular ones are certified {{Lightning Bruiser}}s that can use Fish's roll move to confound your aim, and later on you'll come across variants that can [[AttackDeflector reflect your own shots back at you]] while pelting you with a machinegun or plasma rifle, zoom around on a jetpack while taking potshots, drag you in with telekinesis before blowing a hole through you with a shotgun slug or cutting you in half with a LaserBlade, throw grenades and even fire rockets at you, and so on.
* The Slimes in ''VideoGame/{{Rogue}}'', due to their tendency to replicate themselves and surround you.
* A large number of enemies are brutal in ''VideoGame/{{Spelunky}}'' and its sequel ''Spelunky 2''. While common enemies like the [[GoddamnedBats bats]] aren't too difficult to kill, some are just plain evil.
** ''Spelunky Classic/Spelunky HD'':
*** The ''actual'' spiders have unpredictable jump patterns that make them some of the most dangerous enemies in the game.
*** The frogs in the Jungle have completely unpredictable jump patterns and timing, inexplicable ability to predict your next movement, and quick vertical movements that make them difficult to take down with the whip. And the red variant turns into a bomb on death, though this gives you time to get away. Either way, expect to die by frog at some point.
*** The yetis in the Ice Caves from Areas 9 to 12 are immune to your normal whip attack, somewhat durable, and can ''chain-throw'' you to death easily. Many deaths often result in these evil creatures tossing your corpse back and forth like a baseball.
*** The cultists in the final areas of the game are similar, with one addition: not only are they capable of said chain-throws, they are also ''fast'' and can ''jump'' after you. As a trade-off, however, they are vulnerable to the whip.
*** Croc Men are basically cultists who teleport right before they take damage, making them nearly invincible. They can also [[TeleFrag teleport right onto the player]] for a OneHitKill.
*** Angry Shopkeepers are fast, unpredictable, and their shotguns will tear through your already-low [[HitPoints HP]]. The safest bet against them? Don't piss them off in the first place. Of course, sometimes you don't get to choose whether or not they get angry. For example, if their shop has a spike trap right outside of it, and an exploding frog gets hit by it, and his dying explosion damages the shop, ''you'' will get labeled as a terrorist, and have to deal with angry shopkeepers for the rest of the run. This can occur ''without you ever seeing the frog, the shop, or the spikes.''
** ''Spelunky 2:''
*** Cave Moles are fast, often burrow out of the ground when you're not expecting it and/or not paying attention, have very generous invincibility during said burrowing, and the game enjoys throwing them at you in packs or when you're already dealing with some other danger. Not to mention, they've got ''3'' hit points, which may not sound like much, but this makes them the strongest standard enemies at that point in the game besides Cavemen, and means a single Arrow from a loose Arrow Trap will not one-shot it.
*** Horned Lizards can also take three hits, and barrel towards you at high speed with immunity to your GoombaStomp if aggro'd. This typically results in either you getting knocked high into the air or into a nearby trap for more damage, other enemies or [=NPCs=] getting flung into ''you'' for more damage, or being knocked ''back in front of them while they're still rolling,'' which can easily lead to a CycleOfHurting into YetAnotherStupidDeath. On top of all that, they don't even have the courtesy of producing a corpse when killed, much like Mantraps, which makes sacrificing them to Kali much more difficult.
*** Witch Doctors in the Jungle. If they spot you, unless you can knock them unconscious in time, they'll cast a voodoo spell that is unavoidable, deals damage and knocks you down. Considering the Jungle is littered with instakill and highly-damaging traps and enemies, being unavoidably knocked down can prove quickly fatal. Even taking them out is risky, as each one has a skull effigy circling around them that can fly through walls and inflicts curse, a very debilitating status effect that makes you a OneHitPointWonder and is [[GuideDangIt immensely difficult to get rid of]] [[note]](assuming that you're not in the Cosmic Ocean, where a lack of altars means that you can't get rid of it at all)[[/note]].
*** Lavamanders in Volcana. They are rare, but incredibly dangerous, as they spit instant-kill lava towards you when you approach and there are very few easy ways to kill them. This wouldn't be so bad, except this game has ''fluid physics,'' and lava can't simply be removed by bombing it out this time around. Just one of these guys spitting a couple times can be enough to completely flood the path you need to go down with insurmountable globs of lava, making it [[UnwinnableByDesign literally impossible to progress]] if you don't have bombs or other ways to get through terrain.
*** Vlad in Volcana. In ''HD'', he was more or less a more beefy vampire, and dropped a rather underwhelming cape — you would mostly fight him if he got in the way of you getting his Amulet. In ''2'', however, he's [[TookALevelInBadass clearly been training]], though, because he can now ''teleport''. And TeleFrag, for that matter. If you aren't careful, he can easily OHKO you if he does that, a la the Croc Men from ''HD''. Fortunately, should you brave him, the rewards are '''much''' more valuable than they were in ''HD'', so it's worth it to take the time to fight him if you can — and should you not be up to snuff, by [[spoiler:saving Van Horsing in 2-1, [[TakeAThirdOption he'll fight him along with you]]]], giving you an almost guaranteed victory as he happens to be capable of [=OHKOing=] Vlad ''himself'', before he even wakes up.
*** Necromancers in the Temple. They aren't capable of attacking directly, but they make up for it by summoning hordes of skeleton minions and reviving dead enemies. They have a frustratingly large aggro radius, capable of detecting the player well before they're onscreen, regardless of any obstacles. They don't even have to be on the same layer — a Necromancer hidden in a background area can still create hazards to harass the player in the foreground. Their revival ability is especially dangerous, as they can instantly resurrect any creature that has a corpse in their vicinity. This includes incredibly dangerous foes such as Croc Men and Angry Shopkeepers. Worse, Necromancers themselves leave corpses when killed, so if you're unlucky enough to face two of them, they can and will endlessly revive each other any time you try to kill one.
* ''Videogame/SunlessSea'': Some foes will naturally be more awful to face than others. Here's a brief list of the very worst the zee will send at you:
** Bound-Sharks will be the bane of many an early captain. Their HP and ramming damage is fairly painful even in the mid-late game, and once they notice you they are ''insanely'' fast to the point of [[AlienGeometries appearing to warp around the place]], to the point of hitting you twice per charge sometimes. You're better off avoiding them entirely until you can be sure you can kill them in two salvos at most.
** Blue Prophets are the biggest reason Port Carnelian should only be visited with a fully stocked frigate, or really, ''really'' briefly. These swarms of massive, hull-chewing parrots will spot you before you've even seen them and chase you too fast to escape, so your only option is to try and outdamage them. Not an easy proposal, as their charges do a ton of it and their health is nothing to sneeze at either.
** Lorn-Flukes are likely the first (and for a good while, only) monsters you'll find with a ranged attack. Said attack does pitiful damage, but will ding your SanityMeter quite fast, and they ''will'' spam it if you're running away. They're also quite handy in up-close battling due to a huge healthpool and nasty ramming damage, so it's a race to kill it before it sinks you or causes a giant mutiny aboard.
** The Constant Companion acts as a sort of BorderPatrol that will immediately rip itself out of the zee-floor if you're submerged and have your Terror above 70. It will immediately know where you are, with no amount of sneakiness helping. It will ''[[SuperPersistentPredator never stop chasing you]]'' even if it means pursuing you through an ocean the size of Europe. It has a health pool rivaled only by the nastiest Lorn-Flukes and the {{Superboss}}. Its charges do massive damage. And if you kill it, and your Terror stays high, it will return eventually. Only the mightiest zubmarines can even hope to survive this thing's assault.
** Another underwater horror is the Thalatte, which the developers themselves describe as a giant pile of organs with an even bigger mouth. They don't have fixed spawn points, so they can show up in the middle of absolutely nowhere, they have sizeable health, and unlike most other creatures they're almost exclusively ranged attackers; their acidic spittle (don't ask how they spit underwater) will mangle your ship something fierce. Pray that their admittedly mediocre aim spares your ship if you stumble into one and it starts hocking acid before you can even shine your lights on it (also a common event).
** On the more civilized, yet similarly painful end of things, you have Dreadnoughts. Whether boarded by loot-thirsty devils or brainwashed uncanny valley dwellers who enjoy the light far too much, their ships will be a pain to bring down due to tanking and too much movement, and they have the full front-deck-aft battery of guns so you will be under a constant barrage of ''pain''. The Wreckships that patrol the underwater DerelictGraveyard of Wrack (and can be found in plenty of other unmarked places in the zee) are a similar pain to face despite looking like its captain dragged them out of the zeefloor very, very recently without even patching them, because they have high health for their looks, they pack one of the most painful cannons in the game, can turn around so ridiculously fast you'll never get out of their sights and will [[ChestMonster pass themselves off as regular shipwrecks until you're too close for comfort]].
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfMajEyal'':
** The [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Nazgul/Ringwraiths.]] If they hit you, you get infected by the Black Breath, which slowly drains your stats and hard-earned experience. If you hit ''them'' it destroys your weapon and gives you Black Breath, and it doesn't even hurt them if it isn't a magical weapon. Magical weapons count...but they get damaged, and it's very hard to fix them. This is in addition to the other magical attacks and summons they can do. Oh, and even if you luck out and "kill" them, they'll keep coming BackFromTheDead until Sauron is killed. Permanently, as Sauron will keep coming back until the One Ring is either used or destroyed. Not a bad depiction of them, actually.
** The [=RNGs=], when you first meet them in the forest. One is easy to kill. But they breed, so if they are awake you'll be facing more than one. They hit to confuse, meaning you can't aim attacks, or use any escape/healing magic. (And they occur several levels before confusion resist becomes common.) Oh, and they can move through trees, so that forest that's limiting your sightlines and probably hindering your movement? Yeah, they'll come straight through that.
** TOME 4 has any mage and ranged attacker. The system was designed such that those enemies are always deadly. When you get to the second half of the game, add Orc Berserkers and Elite Berserkers. And the horrors.
*** Although the archers' threat are lessened if you're capable of doing ranged attacks, they can still be a pain if you fight them in dark dungeons without good light sources or spells, since [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard they can see you when you can't see them]].
*** Mages can do a lot of damage, and when faced with corruptors and blood mages, they are capable of inflicting diseases and even lowering your resistance, which means that all the follow-up attacks will deal even more damage.
*** Berserkers have loads of health, can rush you from a few squares away, and dish out huge amounts of damage per hit.
*** The horrors vary wildly: while some are easy, some have very nasty attacks. What pushes the latter into this territory are the ones that spawn with a crapload of resistances. Luminous/Radiant horrors, in particular, are immune to and heal from fire, and have a solid health-pool and a large amount of damage: any classes that rely on fire without resistance penetration or an alternate means of attack are in for a world of hurt.
* ''VideoGame/TouhouGensoWanderer'':
** Flandre clones not only have lots of health and attack power, they also have the ability to transform every item near them into Useless Trash, which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin - and nothing stops them from doing this inside of shops, where the ShopliftAndDie trope is very much in effect. They also damage every character near them when they do this, and should they kill one of their own allies in the process, they'll fully heal and become even stronger than they already were. On top of that, their attack heals them for the damage they do. If they get strong enough, they can end up healing faster than you can damage them.
** Komachi and Eiki are an interesting case, in that neither of them is especially dangerous on their own... but when encountered together, they embody this trope. Komachi is normally a MightyGlacier who is easy enough to take down by taking advantage of her low speed, but if Eiki is in the same room, Komachi's speed skyrockets to the point where she's getting two actions for every action you take, and each of those actions is hitting you for tons of damage. She can also pull everything in the room to within melee range, and this doesn't even cost her an action to do. Meanwhile, Eiki is draining your danmaku points, leaving you without options for taking her down at range, while Komachi is stopping you from taking Eiki out in melee.
** Kanako hits like a truck, has tons of health, floats and is thus immune to any ground-based attacks, heals most StandardStatusEffects faster than most other enemies, and causes other enemies near her to instantly awaken from sleep - but the absolute worst thing about her is her unnamed ThatOneAttack where she "held out a thin vine". This move causes your equipment quality to deteriorate, in a series where your primary means of meta-progression is via the quality of your equipment, thus this move not only hurts your current run but all your runs going forward. And because of her high health and defenses, she's extremely likely to use this move at least once per encounter, and sometimes even ''more than once''.
** [[LethalJokeCharacter Ascended Kisume]] has no special/magical abilities whatsoever... and yet she tends to be the most feared enemy in the game by most veteran players, simply because of how ridiculous her base stats are. Her status resistance is so high that nearly every item used to get rid of troublesome enemies is effectively useless against her, leaving you with attacking as the only option she isn't de facto immune to - but her raw power, health, and defense means she's almost certainly going to outclass you by ''far'' in that department as well. It's not unheard of for people to use their Final Moment scrolls (which are essentially this series' equivalent to {{VideoGame/NetHack}}'s scrolls of genocide) on lower-level Kisume, who are more or less {{Joke Character}}s played straight, just to avoid having to deal with her Ascended form later.
* ''VideoGame/ZAngband'' has [[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes The Disembodied Hand That Strangled People]]. The name says it all.

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