History DemonicSpiders / MassivelyMultiplayerOnlineGames

* ''VideoGame/{{Mopeio}}. In a cute Online Browser game where you eat animals a couple of predators and prey are surprisingly deadly. You can actually [[mope.io play it right now]] on your web browser if you want to see for yourself.

** How the heck has Void Reaver trash not been mentioned? All it takes is for one of your locks to miss a banish for a couple of seconds and the next thing you know, half the raid is face down on the floor from that damned sawblade spam.

** Fittingly, the Borg's main enemy, Species 8472/Undine, also fits this trope. In [[spoiler: the final ground mission released to date,]] the player ends up fighting through large numbers of Undine soldiers, which are, like the Borg, not at all similar to the weaker versions that can be found earlier in the game. These ones hit you non-stop, both with melee attacks (which can cause a nasty infection, due to 8472's superb immune system) and with ranged psychic attacks. Both of which ignore shields, the melee attacks mostly penetrating and the psychic attacks avoiding shields entirely. There is one type of Personal Shield in the game that will block some psionic damage, [[spoiler: which is found as a mission reward at the start of the Featured Episode arc involving the Devidians,]] but it was given so much earlier in the storyline that odds are you threw it out as it became obsolete. Since drops increase in level as you do, you have the option to go back and pick up a stronger, level-appropriate version, which makes the mission a good deal easier. However, 99% of players at this point will be using a personal shield more geared towards fighting the Borg or engaging in PvP combat, which makes ''every single enemy in the mission one of these.''

** Night Widows. Are highly resistant to holds and other basic forms of control, which sucks when your only defense is holds. And throw a smoke grenade so you can't see anyone else, which means you can't hold anyone else, which sucks when your only defense is holds. Fortunately you can just pop an Insight (like an accuracy potion) to see again, but when you don't have an Insight...

** For non tank characters, anything with the summon ability is a demonic spider. The monster will periodically teleport the person on the top of it's aggro list directly in front of him, and follow it up instantly with a strong melee attack (think Scorpion from MortalKombat except that it can't be blocked or dodged), which would disrupt your spell and take a huge chunk out of your life. There is no way to resist it ever.

* ''Pirate101'' has plenty of these.

** Pretty much any named mob was much tougher then any other monster of it's type and level, capable of handily defeating many players at it's level. Even when the game was telling you you could easily beat it because of the level difference, they still often would kill you. At least WorldOfWarcraft had the elite tag to warn you. People learned this lesson very quickly, and yet it would still catch you by surprise again 10 levels later, because the overpoweredness of named monsters increases as their level does.

* ''WorldOfWarcraft'' has Monstrous Kaliri in Skettis. They're fast patrolling aerial monsters that, once locked onto your ass will chase you down, slow you down, and eventually knock you off your flying mount unless you have immunity from daze, and only tank specced characters with sufficient defense will have this blessing. If you can't escape them, then your only hope is to land somewhere safely so you can kill them at your leisure, and 'safe' landing points are rare enough as it is in Skettis. Blizzard even upgraded their AI, changing your chances to escape from "low" to "extremely slim".

*** The Tsoo are not nearly as annoying if the character possesses status protection and does not try to engage too many of them at once. A Controller or Dominator can easily shut down the Sorcerers before they can cause a problem.

** The Predator Prarie Pups turn invisible when they attack. It helps to keep a finger on the tilde (~) so you can auto-target them, especially if you're in one of the foresty screens where they can hide behind trees.

* ''VideoGame/{{Runescape}}'' is very well-known for some of its DemonicSpiders.
** A literal example are the infamous Shadow Spiders. They aren't particularly damaging, but the minute one attacks you, it cuts your prayer points in half. When you consider that prayer points are used both to NoSell enemy attacks and give hefty buffs, you see why they're so dangerous, especially considering that Jagex loves to put these guys right at the start of several dungeons. It's even worse as of the Evolution of Combat, where not only are their homes multi-combat, but they now attack with ''ranged''.
** Revenants are demonic spiders themselves. They can attack you while you're already in combat with something else, freeze you, poison you, prevent you from teleporting, heal themselves, cure themselves of poison, and are overpowered for their combat level. The player killers they were meant to replace could do this too, but not all players could inflict the StandardStatusEffects, and several are 50 times more powerful than a player of the same level. There are NO LEVEL 7 PLAYERS that can do 90 damage. Or freeze you. Or teleblock you. Or attack from beyond the draw distance(!!!), which is almost a guaranteed freeze or teleblock.\\
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The good news is, Jagex shuffled them into their own specific area after reverting the wilderness and free trade changes made in 2007, meaning you can just ignore them entirely if you want to. The bad news is, [[PlayerVersusPlayer Player Killers]] are back; Player Killers are notorious for using some of the same or comparable tactics; particularly, spells that keep you in place and teleblock spells. Made that much worse by the fact that other players can obviously run as fast as you, so unless you've got some manner of run energy regen at your disposal, you're screwed.
** The Dungeon Spiders in Dungeoneering, especially before the introduction of the Evolution of Combat. They can poison you, which does 50 damage every 20 seconds or so, which fades away very very slowly. Within Daemonheim, every resource is limited, including food, so losing this much HP is a major issue. However, it's not just that. They can poison you through prayers, which you would expect to stop that sort of madness[[note]]even though all poisonous monsters are capable of doing so[[/note]]. Fortunately, poison mechanics have changed since the launch of the Evolution of Combat[[note]]Poison now wears off after three minutes and does less damage per hit, though it does damage faster[[/note]], and even if you do get poisoned, there is a cure which can be bought for just 200 gp, and potions which give immunity for several minutes can be made with Herblore.
** Brutes in Daemonheim. They're not as infuriating as the dungeon spiders, but their attacks are utterly devastating, especially at higher levels.
** One of the challenge rooms in Dungeoneering is a bit of a DemonicSpider ''web''. The Mercenary room is near-''impossible'' to complete without racking up several deaths on a solo dungeon, especially on a free world. On a members world, it might involve getting attacked from all three sides of the combat triangle at once by Tier 11 mercenaries. Thankfully it is fairly rare, and has been made considerably easier as of the Evolution of Combat.
** There's also Shadows in [[ThatOneLevel The Temple of Light]], from "Mourning's End, Pt 2". They do a huge amount of damage and interrupt you when you're trying to work ThatOnePuzzle. Note that as part of the puzzle, you must bring up windows on-screen, and being attacked automatically closes those windows. Thankfully, they have [[GlassCannon pitiful HP and defense]], but they respawn fast and will swarm you if you let them.
** Goraks, extradimensional monsters that can ignore prayer, hit excessively hard, and drain your stats. They're only found in a couple places (God Wars Dungeon and the Gorak Plane), but they're extremely aggressive and can be dangerous if you don't have a quick means of escape or a way to raise your stats back up. Just to add to that, their drops mostly consist of low-level weapons and pitiful amounts of gold.
** ''[[EverythingTryingToKillYou Everything]]'' on Ape Atoll, unless you're a monkey. The spiders and scorpions, despite being tiny, can easily smack you with nasty poison and respawn almost instantly after death. The monkeys come in packs and can deal ungodly damage, and the zombie and skeletal varieties in the gnome tunnel will mob you if you give them the chance.
** The giant swamp snakes in Temple Trekking / Burgh De Rott Ramble. Not only do they have powerful, fast melee and magic attacks, pack hefty HP, and come in packs, but unlike the other nasty monsters (shades, snails, ghasts, and nail beasts), they can't be easily distracted from your companion. When you enter the area for the event, you're almost guaranteed to get swarmed, with several of them focusing on your companion. If you don't have enough food in your companion, or are not quick to distract them with the Provoke ability, then you're screwed, and it can be outright impossible on the hard route without Provoke.
*** The giant snails themselves count, if you don't know the trick. They have devastating ranged attacks; even with melee armor, you'll still be taking a lot of damage quickly, and they can outright wreck your companion. The trick is to take a shell from one of the smaller snails you find in Mort Mire and chisel it into a helmet; wearing it reduces the damage their ranged attacks deal by 90-95%. [[GuideDangIt Naturally, this is explained nowhere in game, and only vaguely hinted at it in the official Runescape guide]].
** How about an old one? In the older versions (as well as the current "Old School" version) of Runescape, you had the Draynor Jail Guards. They were aggressive, located in a multicombat area, could kill a new player in four hits with high accuracy, and were less than a minute away from Lumbridge, the starting town. To new players just starting out, they were a nightmare to deal with, but they would gradually decrease to GoddamnedBats status as players gained levels. In fact, medium-leveled players sometimes even exploited their aggression and used them for training.
*** Even worse than the jail guards were the Dark Wizards south of Varrock, infamously known for killing many a new player. Aggressive monsters with powerful magic attacks located in the start of beginner quests, they could kill a player fresh from the tutorial in just two hits. It was common to see the remains of dead beginning players at the stone circle south of Varrock. Made worse because due to MinMaxing, wizards had low levels so a unsuspecting player would attack one only to be quickly killed.
** The [=TokHaar=]-Ket-Zek, [=TokHaar=]-Tok-Xil, and [=TokHaar=]-Yt-[=MejKot=] found in the [=TokHaar=] Fight Kiln and Fight Cauldron. All of them do hideous amounts of damage, possibly hitting for well over a thousand damage. The Ket-Zek uses magic and melee, the Tok-Xil uses ranged and melee, while the [=MejKot=] sticks exclusively to melee.
** Pretty much any monster that can use abilities in combat, but in particular are the Iorwerth and Cadarn elves in Prifddinas. Their adrenaline meter is constantly locked at 50%, enabling them to use threshold abilities [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard without having to build it up]], whereas you do not have that luxury. It's not terribly uncommon to attack a Cadarn Magus and have him immediately stunlock you into an Asphyxiate.
** The first of the [[EliteMooks elite slayer monsters]] introduced in November 2015, Wyverns, are the bane of even the best players. They are aggressive, inflict gobsmacking amounts of damage with their attacks (even more if you do not apply a special potion to protect you from their breath), can inflict a very damaging [[PoisonousPerson poison status]], and are accompanied by a very annoying environmental mechanic. See, the underground cave they reside in is incredibly cold. If you allow yourself to become too cold, you start getting stunned for 8-10 seconds at a time, preventing you from attacking, healing, or teleporting. This can be countered temporarily by lighting the fires in the cave and using anti-stun abilities, but if you are caught off guard you may have no choice but to watch your helpless character get [[CurbStompBattle murdered]].
** The second elite monster, [[WolverineClaws Ripper]] [[LightningBruiser Demons]], while not quite as bad as wyverns, are still a major threat. They attack [[SpamAttack very fast]], hit very hard, and when their special attack bar is filled, can use an attack that will [[OneHitKill kill you instantly]] in a DeathFromAbove manner if not evaded. Worse yet, when you kill one, it [[LastDitchMove starts swinging around wildly]], [[KaizoTrap causing multiple hard hits]] if you don't back off. And if your health is below half when one dies, the others will [[GangUpOnTheHuman become aggressive]] and try to finish you off, and likely will.
** The crystal shapeshifters on Tarddiad. Don't let the deceptively low combat level fool you, these guys mean business. They can attack with all three attack styles, and will change styles to whatever your armor's weakness is. Their basic auto-attacks are hard-hitting and accurate, and they can use a huge variety of abilities, including ultimate abilities. In addition to all this, melee shapeshifters can shut off your prayers, and all types can roll into a spiked ball and smash into you, dealing up to 3000 melee damage.
** The [[FlunkyBoss spider minions]] occasionally summoned during the fight against Araxxor and Araxxi can sometimes be literal DemonicSpiders, but the one in particular that stands out the most is the Mirrorback spider. Attacking Araxxor or Araxxi while one of these nasties is alive will result in the entire attack being [[AttackReflector reflected back onto you at full power]]. Needless to say, you can [[HoistByHisOwnPetard easily kill yourself]] if you use a heavy-damage attack as a mirrorback spawns.

* In ''PhantasyStarUniverse'', there are numerous enemies that fit this {{trope}}. The following are most of the most menacing enemies.. but this is a game where any enemy can have very powerful [[StatusBuff Status Buffs]], including halving all damage they take and doubling all damage they deal.

* Ak'ab in ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'', a combination of a charge attack that stuns, and the tendency to move around a lot, means players can be fighting large groups of these at once, and be stunned for large amounts of time in that fight, if not careful.
* ''VideoGame/StarWarsGalaxies'' had the Nightsisters of Dathomir. They were extremely powerful on the attack (able to kill an unbuffed player in a few hits), had oodles of HP, were resistant (or, in the case of the higher level ones, completely immune) to most types of attacks and, unlike other dangerous pieces of Dathomir's wildlife (like the Rancors), were not easily spotted thanks to their drab garb and relatively small size. Oh, and the best part? They ''attacked vehicles'' and would usually destroy them in a single attack, meaning you could be flying across the wilds on a speederbike, only to have a nearby Nightsister blast it out from underneath you and then proceed to turn you into pocket mulch. Nightsisters were the reason why no one dared take out rare vehicles - like AV-21s - on Dathomir until the game was updated to allow destroyed vehicles to be repaired.

* The dungeon ''Shards of Orr'' from ''GuildWars'' expansion ''Eye of the North'', is plagued with these, from mobs consisting of zombie brutes who deal lots of damage, coupled with skeleton sorcerers who blind you and knock you down, and then add a cleric to the mix for healing them, oh and for the record: groups of many enchanted weapons that are all agroed at the same time.

* Part of the design philosophy in ''TabulaRasa''. If it isn't immune to half of the available weapons types, it probably can heal and rez allies, or can make themselves invulnerable for periods of time, or reflect damage back at you. The real fun enemies combine these attributes: Atta are immune to electric, thermal, and virulent damage, have massive health bars, spawn in groups, and choose between an attack that ignores armor or an attack that knocks you on your backside at range. Linkers will, at random intervals, make themselves invulnerable to all forms of attack and reflect any attacks against them and unleash all the damage done to them ''again'' as they become vulnerable again; players can and regularly do commit suicide trying to plink them. Rakash Repair Bots heal themselves and allies, ignore armor, have locations where machines spit one out every eight seconds, and can create copies of themselves, their allies, or even the player.

* The MMORPG ''MapleStory'' has a large number of these depending on player level and class, such as Nependeaths, which auto-agg and spam with a similarly unavoidable ranged attack (but are mercifully immobile), Electrophants, which have no knockback and deal absurd amounts of damage, and Jr. Nekis, which are fast, absurdly difficult to hit, and deal an inordinate amount of damage.

* How many DemonicSpiders can ''GaiaOnline'' incorporate into their MMO? Let's count...

** The Dungeon Spiders in Dungeoneering, especially before the introduction of the Evolution of Combat. They can poison you, which does 50 damage every 20 seconds or so, which fades away very very slowly. Within Daemonheim, every resource is limited, including food, so losing this much HP is a major issue. However, it's not just that. They can poison you through prayers, which you would expect to stop that sort of madness[[note]]even though all poisonous monsters are capable of doing so[[/note]]. Fortunately, poison mechanics have changed since the launch of the Evolution of Combat[[note]]Poison now wears off after one minute, though it does damage faster[[/note]], and even if you do get poisoned, there is a cure which can be bought for just 200 gp, and potions which give immunity for several minutes can be made with Herblore.

** A literal example are the infamous Shadow Spiders. They aren't particularly damaging, but the minute one attacks you, it cuts your prayer points in half. When you consider that prayer points are used both to NoSell enemy attacks and give hefty buffs, you see why they're so dangerous, especially considering that Jagex loves to put these guys right at the start of several dungeons.

* ''VideoGame/{{Runescape}}'' has the infamous Shadow Spiders. They aren't particularly damaging, but the minute one attacks you, it cuts your prayer points in half. When you consider that prayer points are used both to NoSell enemy attacks and give hefty buffs, you see why they're so dangerous, especially considering that Jagex loves to put these guys right at the start of several dungeons.

** The Dungeon Spiders in Dungeoneering. They can poison you, which does 50 damage every 20 seconds or so, which fades away very very slowly. Within Daemonheim, every resource is limited, including food, so losing this much HP is a major issue. However, it's not just that. They can poison you through prayers, which you would expect to stop that sort of madness. Fortunately, there is a cure which can be bought for just 200 gp, and potions which give immunity for several minutes can be made with Herblore.

** One of the challenge rooms in Dungeoneering is a bit of a DemonicSpider ''web''. The Mercenary room is near-''impossible'' to complete without racking up several deaths on a solo dungeon, especially on a free world. On a members world, it might involve getting attacked from all three sides of the combat triangle at once by Tier 11 mercenaries.

** ''Everything'' on Ape Atoll, unless you're a monkey. The spiders and scorpions, despite being tiny, can easily smack you with nasty poison and respawn almost instantly after death. The monkeys come in packs and can deal ungodly damage, and the zombie and skeletal varieties in the gnome tunnel will mob you if you give them the chance.
** The giant swamp snakes in Temple Trekking / Burgh De Rott Ramble. Not only do they have powerful, fast melee attacks, pack hefty HP, and come in packs, but unlike the other nasty monsters (shades, snails, ghasts, and nail beasts), they can't be easily distracted from your companion. When you enter the area for the event, you're almost guaranteed to get swarmed, with several of them focusing on your companion. If you don't have enough food in your companion, then you're screwed, and it can be outright impossible on the hard route.

** How about an old one? In the older versions (as well as the current "Old School" version) of Runescape, you had the Draynor Jail Guards. They were aggressive, located in a multicombat area, could kill a new player in just four hits, and were less than a minute away from Lumbridge, the starting town. To new players just starting out, they were a nightmare to deal with, but they would gradually decrease to GoddamnedBats status as players gained levels.
*** Even worse than the jail guards were the Dark Wizards, infamously known for killing many a new player. Aggressive monsters with powerful magic attacks located in the start of beginner quests, they could kill a player fresh from the tutorial in just two hits. It was common to see the remains of dead beginning players at the stone circle south of Varrock. Made worse because due to MinMaxing, wizards had low levels so a unsuspecting player would attack one only to be quickly killed.

** One of the challenge rooms in Dungeoneering is a bit of a DemonicSpider ''web''. The Mercenary room is ''impossible'' to complete without racking up several deaths on a solo dungeon. On a members world, it might involve getting attacked from all three sides of the combat triangle at once by Tier 11 mercenaries.

** How about an old one? In the older versions of Runescape, you had the Draynor Jail Guards. They were aggressive, located in a multicombat area, and were less than a minute away from Lumbridge, the starting town. They were the bane of many a new player.
*** Wizards are infamous for killing new players. Aggressive monsters with powerful magic attacks located in the start of beginner quests. It was common to see the remains of dead beginning players at the wizards tower. Made worse because due to MinMaxing, wizards had low levels so a unsuspecting player would attack one only to be quickly killed.

** The second elite monster, [[WolverineClaws Ripper]] [[LightningBruiser Demons]], while not quite as bad as wyverns, are still a major threat. They attack [[SpamAttack very fast]], hit very hard, and when their special attack bar is filled, can use an attack that will [[OneHitKill kill you instantly]] if not evaded. When you kill one, it [[KaizoTrap starts swinging around wildly, causing multiple hard hits]] if you don't back off. And if your health is below half when one dies, the others will [[GangUpOnTheHuman become aggressive]] and try to finish you off, and likely will.

**** Special mention goes to the Springtail Virmen in Valley of the Four Winds. Attacks in packs? check. Has a bleed that deals approximately 17,000 damage a tick at maximum stacks? Check. Are they everywhere in the cave you're supposed to save a quest target? Check. These guys pose a threat even to a Level 90 player.

* {{Runescape}} has the infamous Shadow Spiders. They aren't particularly damaging, but the minute one attacks you, it cuts your prayer points in half. When you consider that prayer points are used both to NoSell enemy attacks and give hefty buffs, you see why they're so dangerous, especially considering that Jagex loves to put these guys right at the start of several dungeons.

** Really, to a non-mage class, anything that spams war magic. It can hit extremely hard, especially so if you have had a vulnerability spell of that element cast on you. Non-mage characters don't tend to have high Magic Defense, where mages typically have it higher than normal. This only applies to close quarters however, as most war spells take the form of a PainfullySlowProjectiles, meaning you can just move out of the way at higher ranges. Good thing the AI isn't nearly as smart as the player.

** Really, to a non-mage class, anything that spams war magic. It can hit extremely hard, especially so if you have had a vulnerability spell of that element cast on you. Non-mage characters don't tend to have high Magic Defense, where mages typically have it higher than normal. This only applies to close quarters however, as most war spells are PainfullySlowProjectiles, meaning you can just move out of the way at higher ranges. Good thing the AI isn't nearly as smart as the player.