History DemonicSpiders / DarkSouls

* The Undead Jailers in Lost Bastille are fast, strong, and their halberds have very long reach.
* The pigs in Majula. Many an adventurer has tried to poke them with their starting weapons - only to be immediately raped by their extremely quick attacks and tiny hitboxes.
* The sorcerors in the Shrine of Amana are a particularly notorious example, thanks to the environment slowing you down to a crawl while they spam magic at you from afar.

* The Poison Statue Clusters in ''Crown of the Sunken King'' are basically the stationary poison-spitting statues from the Gutter and Black Gulch... except they can move around. And are nearly invincible to damage. And they fire darts that ''petrify'' you. [[OhCrap Good luck with that]].
* In ''Crown of the Old Iron King'', the Possessed Armor enemies will be your doom. Their melee attacks deal heavy damage to health and stamina, and can be difficult to interrupt due to their high poise and long range. Their ranged attacks are far more threatening, however, as they are deadly accurate with their powerful greatbows, tracking the player's movement perfectly before firing.
* ''Crown of the Ivory King'' has the Ice Stallions, which not only tend to come out of nowhere when you're not looking (most frustratingly in [[BrutalBonusLevel Frigid Outskirts]]), but are also very fast, can take quite a lot of punishment, and can very easily stunlock you to death with their horns. And then shock you with [[ShockAndAwe lightning miracles]] for good measure.
** From the same DLC, the Ice Rats are difficult to hit and can do tremendous amounts of damage with their rolling charge attack.

* Most of the NPC summons are both this and BossInMookClothing, particularly the NPC summons in the ''Lost Crowns'' DLC thanks to ArtificialBrilliance. [[spoiler: Jester Thomas]] from ''Crown of the Sunken King'' is probably the most [[MemeticBadass infamous]] example thanks to his sky-high resistances, insane speed, and Pyromancy spam
* Pretty much all the boss enemies once they become [[DegradedBoss Degraded Bossess]] become this trope instead. ''Especially'' once the Ruin Sentinels start showing up, often in tandem with Stone Soldiers to ruin your day.
* The Undead Jailers in Lost Bastille are fast and their halberds have very long reach, not to mention high health.

* The Poison Statue Clusters in ''Crown of the Sunken King'' are basically the poison-spitting statues from the Black Gulch... except they can move around. And are nearly invincible to damage. And they fire darts that ''petrify'' you. [[OhCrap Good luck with that]].

* Most of the NPC summons are both this and BossInMookClothing. Especially the NPC summons in the ''Lost Crowns'' DLC thanks to their ArtificialBrilliance. [[spoiler: Jester Thomas]] from ''Crown of the Sunken King'' is probably the most [[MemeticBadass infamous]] example thanks to his sky-high resistances and insane speed.
* Pretty much all the boss enemies once they become [[DegradedBoss Degraded Bossess]] become this trope instead. ''Especially'' once the Ruin Sentinels start showing up.

* Most of the NPC summons are both this and BossInMookClothing. Especially the NPC summons in the ''Lost Crowns'' DLC
** [[spoiler: Jester Thomas]] from ''Crown of the Sunken King'' is probably the most [[MemeticMutation infamous]] example.

* ''Crown of the Ivory King'' has the Ice Stallions, which not only tend to come out of nowhere when you're not looking (most frustratingly in [[BrutalBonusLevel Frigid Outskirts]]), but are also very fast, can take quite a lot of punishment, and can very easily stunlock you to death with their horns. And then can shock you with lightning miracles for good measure.
** From the same DLC, the Ice Rats are difficult to hit and can do tremendous amount of damage with their rolling charge attack.

* ''Crown of the Ivory King'' has the Ice Stallions, which not only tend to come out of nowhere when you're not looking (most frustratingly in [[BrutalBonusLevel Frigid Outskirts]], but are also very fast, can take quite a lot of punishment, and can very easily stunlock you to death with their horns. And then can shock you with lightning miracles for good measure.

* ''Crown of the Ivory King'' has the Ice Reindeer, which not only tend to come out of nowhere when you're not looking, but are also very fast, can take quite a lot of punishment, and can very easily stunlock you to death with their horns.
** From the same DLC, the Ice Ferrets are difficult to hit and can do tremendous amount of damage with their rolling attacks.

* The pigs in Majula. Many an adventurer has tried to poke them with their starting weapons, only to be immediately raped by their extremely quick attacks and tiny hitboxes.

* The ''LostCrownsTrilogy'' DLCs are filled with these.
** Crown of the Ivory King has the Ice Reindeer, whih not only tend to come out of nowhere when you're not looking, but are also very fast, can take quite a lot of punishment, and can very easily stunlock you to death with their horns.

** May Gwyn bless your remains if you somehow desire to download the mods 'Perma-Gravelord' and 'Hyper-Aggressive Enemies' for added difficulty.

* In the same vicinity as the Channelers, the Crystal Hollows in Duke's Archives. They're fast, hit quite hard, usually attack in packs, and have a tendency to ambush you at the worst possible moment. It's likely you will die more often to them than the Serpent-Men of Sen's Fortress.

* After a heated fight against the [[ThatOneBoss Sanctuary Guardian]] and a nice little rest near [[MushroomMan Elizabeth]], [[TemptingFate you'd think there wouldn't be too much to worry]] while traveling through the next area, which is a near-exact replica of the future hunting grounds for the Forest Hunter Covenant. ''Nope''. Be prepared to be swarmed by aggressive tree-like scarecrows wielding pitchforks and even ''[[ShearMenace shears]]'', although they come off as little more than GoddamnBats by the time you access the DLC. What's truly dangerous is the ''Guardians'' that are nearby. See the Stone Knight example above? Replace their weapon with a massive axe that can throw you off your feet, and you have yet another unnerving MightyGlacier to watch out for, made even worse as they often come around by the time you're still busy fighting the scarecrows.

* To finish off the trio of awful things in the Painted Realm, we have the [[BodyHorror Bloated Undead]], hollows with a massive tumor replacing their head. They come in two versions, ones with torches that attack the same way as the regular Hollows with torches (which, as mentioned blow, are Demonic Spiders on their own), and unarmed ones that chuck huge fireballs at you. However, the real danger comes ''after'' you kill them, because the tumor explodes into a huge poisonous cloud that pretty much instantly causes Toxic, unless you kill them with fire damage. So if you don't have any way to deal fire damage, you don't have a bow/magic to deal damage from a distance, and you don't have a weapon with a long enough reach to avoid the cloud, then you're in for a rough time, because there is no way to leave the Painted World without going though plenty of these guys.

* To finish off the trio of awful things in the Painted Realm, we have the [[BodyHorror Bloated Undead]], hollows with a massive tumor replacing their head. Aside from the same attacks as your typical hollows, they can shoot fireballs at you (!), and when they die, the tumor explodes into a huge toxic cloud. Do you have magic, ranged weapons, or a melee weapon with a good reach? You're probably fine. Do you not? Enjoy toxic damage.

* [[OurGiantsAreBigger The Sentinels guarding most open areas of Anor Londo]]. [[MightyGlacier They have a considerable amount of health coupled with massive damage resistance]], and their halberd strikes are guaranteed to stagger you no matter how much poise you stack. Even worse, their massive shield is impenetrable, meaning they'll be impervious to any kind of damage unless you hit their blind sides. [[EliteMooks Royal Sentinels]] [[UpToEleven crank this up]] by having even better defenses and two miracles: [[BlownAcrossTheRoom Wrath of the Gods]] and [[HealThyself Great Heal]]. You'll have to strike them down hard and fast if you don't want them to regenerate and beat you to a pulp.

* [[ThatOneLevel Blighttown]]'s boulder-wielding [[OurTrollsAreDifferent Infested Barbarians]]. The regular ones are bad enough, wielding [[CarryABigStick Large Clubs]] with added poison effect that can push you off ledges (which means instant death), but boulder-wielding ones have access to surprisingly long-ranged attacks (by throwing said boulders), rolling their boulders, and just plain swinging them. Not only they do a lot of damage, they have a very large aggro radius, can easily knock you down even if you sport a high Poise stat, and are backed up by [[GoddamnBats infinitely respawning mosquitoes]]. They're such a problem that even experienced players opt to use a longer detour to avoid aggroing them at all.

** While not as aggravating, the Silver Knights of Anor Londo also deserve mention. High defenses, impenetrable shields (much more pronounced with [[BladeOnAStick spear-wielding]] knights, as they will spend most of their time poking at you from behind their shield), and the ability to wield the ''[[{{BFG}} massive]]'' Dragonslayer Bows, which can catapult you off your feet and are ''the'' main reason why [[ThatOneLevel one section of Anor Londo]] is widely hated by players.
*** "Not as agrrevating"? Bullcrap! Two Silver Knight Archers ALONE have become infamous for how they have managed to kill more players than most bosses! People who have even bested the toughest enemies with ease will RageQuit after dossens of failed attempts to get past those two!

* The Bonewheel Skeletons. They often appear in packs, are extremely fast, and their attacks are ''devastating'' to HP and stamina. Weaving while running is a good way to avoid them... in open areas. It's not so easy in tight, confined tunnels...

Almost every single basic {{mook}} in Videogame/DarkSouls would qualify as a DemonicSpider in any other game (and you are very likely to die a few times during the ''[[FakeDifficulty tutorial]]'') than [[NintendoHard this one]], but there are some that stand out to the point of making you want to punch the screen in frustration. Without further ado, here are some of those DemonicSpiders:

* The [[KillerRabbit Basilisks]] who were immediately notorious after the release of the game. They have a breath attack which inflicts Curse, the most debilitating status effect in the game. The way status effects work, you have a meter that fills up as you are exposed to something that has a status effect. Players in their first play through will likely have zero resistance against curse, meaning the meter will fill up in about a second, almost instantly if you get caught in the cloud created by two of them. Curse kills the player [[OneHitKill instantly]]. When players revive, their health is permanently halved, even if they die again. Getting cursed removed is [[GuideDangIt a quest in and of itself]].

* The Bloated Sorcerers in Oolacile Township. While they don't teleport away like the Channelers, they still pose a massive threat to you given their wide array of [[spoiler:[[CastingAShadow Abyss sorceries]]]], near-instant poisoning if they reach out for you with their hand, and are usually backed up by several ferocious Bloatheads who don't show remorse in [[ZergRush overwhelming you with sheer numbers]].

** On this particular example, if you happen to be infected with a Gravelord curse while in NewGamePlus, stronger Red Phantom versions spawn ''en masse'' in the same area ''alongside their original counterparts'', making crowd control nearly impossible and thus making one of the hardest areas to fight your way through. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdJkLYeOFAE Case in point.]]

* After a heated fight against the [[ThatOneBoss Sanctuary Guardian]] and a nice little rest near [[MushroomMan Elizabeth]], [[TemptingFate you'd think there wouldn't be too much to worry]] while traveling through the next area, which is a near-exact replica of the future hunting grounds for the Forest Hunter Covenant. ''Nope''. Be prepared to be swarmed by aggressive tree-like farmers wielding scarecrows and even ''[[ShearMenace shears]]'', although they come off as little more than GoddamnBats by the time you access the DLC. What's truly dangerous is the ''Guardians'' that are nearby. See the Stone Knight example above? Replace their weapon with a massive axe that can throw you off your feet, and you have yet another unnerving MightyGlacier to watch out for, made even worse as they often come around by the time you're still busy fighting the scarecrows.

* Giant Skeleton Beasts in Tomb of the Giants. [[ParanoiaFuel They lurk in the dark]], are particularly ferocious, bite off enormous amounts of your health, and players will be in for a nasty surprise if they count on these monsters to stay stunned after an initial attack. Oh, and they're usually paired with a Giant Skeleton archer/sword-wielder (which are already quite deadly by their own rights) or stay in group. Their presence makes the tomb a nightmare for low-level players.

Almost every single basic {{mook}} would qualify as a DemonicSpider in any other game (you are very likely to die a few times during the ''tutorial'') than [[NintendoHard this one]], but there are some that stand out to the point of making you want to punch the screen in frustration. Here's some of those DemonicSpiders:

** While not as aggravating, the Silver Knights of Anor Londo also deserve mention. High defenses, impenetrable shields (much more pronounced with [[BladeOnAStick spear-wielding]] knights, as they will spend most of their time poking at you from behind their shield), and the ability to wield the ''[[{{BFG}} massive]]'' Dragonslayer Bows, which can catapult you off your feet and are ''the'' main reason why one section of Anor Londo is widely hated by players.

* Titanite Demons. While they often qualify as [[MiniBoss minibosses]] since none of them (bar one in Lost Izalith) respawn, not so much in [[ThatOneLevel Sen's Fortress]], where getting hit by a pendulum throws you into a pit ''filled with them'', giving you a taste of horror as you deal [[ScratchDamage puny damage]] while they're about to crush you in [[OneHitKill one hit]].

* Almost every single basic {{mook}} would qualify as a DemonicSpider in any other game (you are very likely to die a few times during the ''tutorial'') than [[NintendoHard this one]], but there are some that stand out to the point of making you want to punch the screen in frustration. Here's some of those DemonicSpiders:
** The [[KillerRabbit Basilisks]] who were immediately notorious after the release of the game. They have a breath attack which inflicts Curse, the most debilitating status effect in the game. The way status effects work, you have a meter that fills up as you are exposed to something that has a status effect. Players in their first play through will likely have zero resistance against curse, meaning the meter will fill up in about a second, almost instantly if you get caught in the cloud created by two of them. Curse kills the player [[OneHitKill instantly]]. When players revive, their health is permanently halved, even if they die again. Getting cursed removed is [[GuideDangIt a quest in and of itself]].
** The [[CatsAreMean cat beasts]] in Darkroot Forest definitely count. There are three of them, each has hundreds of health, [[LightningBruiser and they attack and move rapidly]]. Fortunately, however, [[ArtificialStupidity their AI is easily exploited]], with multiple locations that they can't pathfind through, and an easily discovered glitch that will get them stuck on a incline.
*** There's a small copse of trees in one corner of the area that you fight them in that they can't move into. Standing in it with a spear, occasionally popping out to lure them back over makes the fight with them more tedious than challenging.
** The large Mushroom People, to the point of [[MemeticBadass exaggeration]]. After fighting the small ones, who are a joke (they even fall flat on their faces when they try to attack you!), their funny appearence and their laughably slow speed, most people will probably underestimate them and charge right in. The same people will then find out that these things not only have [[MadeOfIron a metric ton of HP]], but that their punches hit hard enough to easily kill most characters in one or two hits.
** The Wheeled Skeletons. They often appear in packs, are extremely fast, and their attacks are ''devastating'' to HP and stamina. Weaving while running is a good way to avoid them... in open areas. It's not so easy in tight, confined tunnels...
** The Crow Demons of the Painted Realm. Tend to show up in groups of two or three, hit surprisingly hard, and they can jump on you and peck you to death. Worse, if you're trying to obtain [[ThatOneSideQuest Souvenirs of Reprisal without going online]], they are the ''only'' enemies that drop them, meaning you will have to fight these things repeatedly.
** Serpent People. Ridiculous strength, ridiculous damage reduction, and Sen's Fortress has at least one (more commonly a ''horde'') literally around every corner.
** Giant Skeleton Beasts in Tomb of the Giant. They lurk in the dark, are particularly ferocious, bites off enormous HP amount, players will be in for a nasty surprise if they count on these things to stay stunned after an initial attack, and they're usually paired with a Giant Skeleton archer/sword-wielder (which are already quite deadly by their own rights) or stay in group. Their presence makes the tomb a nightmare for low-level players.
** Channelers. They like to hide on platforms out of your reach and bombard you with Soul Arrows, which take off major chunks of health and tend to be very hard to dodge. Even worse, when you finally close in on them, they do their buffing dance and boost the attack power of anyone near them, including themselves (and they ''know'' how to use that trident). Even worse, they tend to teleport before you can finish them off, retreating about thirty feet away to rain Soul Arrows upon you once more.
** [[KillItWithFire Torch]] Hollows. Take the ''basic enemy'' of the game, confiscate the broken and rusty sword it normally carries and give it a torch. Torch Hollows have earned as much respect and fear as the Wheel Skeletons to some players, and can do significant damage if it lands a full frenzy attack combo. The Depths bonfire typically hosts the numerous bloodstains of those that tend to forget how much of a threat the single Torch Hollow guarding the corridor out can be.
** The Drakes in the [[ShapedLikeItself Valley of Drakes]]. Massive health pool, powerful [[ShockAndAwe lightning]] [[BreathWeapon breath]], and an all-around unpredictable A.I. pattern where they tend to take flight as you're about to strike them. They're even more aggravating due to the fact that they're the ''only'' respawning source of Dragon Scales (Hydras and Zombie Dragons don't reappear until the next playthrough after killing them in the current one), and even then they drop it at an ''absurdly'' low rate.
** [[EliteMooks The]] [[SeriesMascot Black]] [[BlackKnight Knights]]. As befitting of their intimidating stature, they all wield weapons that can break your guard easily and deal huge damage, and they have one of the highest aggro-ranges of any enemy in the game, meaning you'll have to defeat them or they might run up to you even as you retreat to a safe bonfire.
** ''[[UpToEleven Every single red phantom enemy]]'' spawned by a Gravelord infection becomes this. Increased health, attack power and, most importantly, ''aggro-range'', causing them to chase you even more aggressively than you would initially assume, and sometimes ''before you even notice them''. Woe betide a player who attempts [[HarderThanHard New Game+7]] and gets gravelorded along the way, as those same red phantoms will usually OneHitKill even players with ''maximum health''.
*** May Gwyn bless your remains if you somehow desire to download the mods 'Perma-Gravelord' and 'Hyper-Aggressive Enemies' for added difficulty.