History DemonicSpiders / DarkestDungeon

If there was any doubt that ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'' was not NintendoHard due to its prevalence of random chance, let [[DemonicSpiders these guys]] clear that for you.

->''These nightmarish creatures CAN be felled. They CAN be beaten!''
-->--'''The Ancestor (notice he never said killing them would be easy)'''

If there was any doubt that ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'' was not NintendoHard due to its RNG, let [[DemonicSpiders these guys]] clear that for you.

* Ghouls, large undead that appear in any dungeon once you reach level three. In addition to having a mountain of health, they have two very nasty stress raising attacks (Skull Toss and Howl; the former also stuns the target and deals hefty damage, the latter is party-wide and also lowers the torch light level), and a powerful short range attack that can cause bleed (Rend). Whats worse, Skull Toss has a tendency to go for the backline and a single critical by it can be bad news even against a previously healthy teammate. Where the softest teammates are usually placed.

Let it be known in general that ALL Veteran giant units and Champion elite units for each area and enemy type are this trope in the game. Not only does their very presence ruin your previously established "best strategies" against an area's units, but they are each uniquely designed to synergize with the associated strengths and weaknesses of their area's normal units to overwhelm your party so not premptively preparing for their presence WILL devestate your team. Keep in mind however that preparing for them simply enables you to have a "chance" not to be devestated. The Darkest Dungeon, the game and [[FromBadToWorse the area]], is an ocean of DemonicSpiders.

** Especially egregious are Swinetaur duo's. Swinetaur shift backwards to unleash either a forward charge in the form of a devestating single target attack with knockback/stun or full party AOE just as strong as the former. With two of them this means they play off each other, one charging forward to place the next one in the back for their turn. You effectively have two high hp enemies shredding your team to death with a good chance that killing one will just see it replaced by another Swinetaur.

* Bone Courtiers deserve a special place in video game hell. Their signature attack, Tempting Goblet, involves throwing a chalice full of (presumably cursed) wine at a teammate. It has a very high accuracy percentage and inflicts a considerable amount of stress. Chances are high that you've lost at least two party members to heart attacks because of these little shits.

* Like the other elite enemies exclusive to Champion-level dungeons, the Squiffy Ghast is a nightmare to face. Unlike the other elite enemies, the Ghast forgoes dealing heavy physical damage in exchange for being stress-inducing Madmen on steroids. They have a rather respectable health pool, high dodge, and great speed to boot, so they're definitely going to get at least few turns in before going down. They take a page out of the Madman's book by being able to induce a Stress taken debuff that lasts until your next camp (so if you're in a Short mission and/or out of Medicinal Herbs, you're out of luck), and a page out of the Ghoul's book by inflicting a strong party-wide Horror. These guys will focus your Jesters if they can, who can easily deal with their individual stress attacks, but considering how most enemies are resistant to Bleed in the Cove, it's difficult to bring him along. If you're particularly unlucky, they can appear ''alongside'' the aforementioned Ghouls, so if you encounter that enemy combo, prepare to kiss your party's sanity or Laudanum goodbye. The cherry on top is that the bosses of the Cove are fairly stressing fights, so it's imperative that you manage your party's sanity prior to facing them, which is an issue that the Ghasts are all too willing to exploit.

* Ghouls, large undead that appear in any dungeon once you reach level three. In addition to having a mountain of health, they have two very nasty stress raising attacks (Skull Toss and Howl; the former also stuns the target and deals hefty damage, the latter is party-wide and also lowers the torch light level), and a powerful short range attack that can cause bleed (Rend). Whats worse, skull toss has a tendency to go for the backline and a single critical by it can be bad news even against a previously healthy teamas it usually meaning someone soft has been struck and stunned with bonus points if its your healer or stress removing jester.

* In most dungeons, other enemies that count as [[DemonicSpider Demonic Spiders]] will only appear once in a given formation. Not so in the Farmstead. Remember Ghouls, Unclean Giants, Brigand Bloodletters, and Bone Captains? There's a chance that you could end up fighting ''two'' of them at once now. Have fun.
** Nothing stops the game from simply spawning another large enemy to replace the one you just killed when facing a duo of them. Oh you played carefully and took down both at the same time? Here have another two of the same to replace them.
** Especially egregious are Swinetaur duo's. Swinetaur shift backwards to unleash either a forward charge in the form of a devestating single target attack or full party AOE. With two of them this means they play off each other, one charging forward to place the next one in the back for their turn. You effectively have two high hp enemies shredding your team to death with a good chance that killing one will just see it replaced by another Swinetaur.
* Also fun, each regular dungeon generally restricts its possible foes to its respective theme. When going into the Warrens, you know to bring a bleed team, while in the Ruins, you would generally avoid a bleed team. The Farmstead doesn’t have those restrictions, so your team has to consist of generalists or risk getting stonewalled by the mobs most resistant to their strengths.

Let it be known in general that ALL Veteran giant units and Champion elite units for each area and enemy type are this trope in the game. Not only does their very presence ruin your previously established "best strategies" against an area's units, but they are each uniquely designed to synergize with the associated strengths and weaknesses of their area's normal units to overwhelm your party so not premptively preparing for their presence WILL devestate your team. Keep in mind however that preparing for them simply enables you to have a "chance" not to be devestated. The Darkest Dungeon, the game and [FromBadToWorse the area], is an ocean of DemonicSpiders.

Let it be known in general that ALL Veteran giant units and Champion elite units for each area and enemy type are this in the game. They are each uniquely designed to synergize with the associated strengths of their area's normal units to overwhelm your party so not premptively preparing for their presence WILL devestate your team. Keep in mind however that preparing for them simply enables you to have a chance not to be devestated.

* Ghouls, large undead that appear in any dungeon once you reach level three. In addition to having a mountain of health, they have two very nasty stress raising attacks (Skull Toss and Howl; the former also stuns the target and deals hefty damage, the latter is party-wide and also lowers the torch light level), and a powerful short range attack that can cause bleed (Rend).

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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/efmcdec.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"Overconfidence is a slow, insidious killer."]]

* Pictured above: Spiders (Webbers and Spitters), even if they're not necessarily demonic in nature. They have very low health and are able to be one-shot by most attacks, but they also have a decent dodge stat and both types can inflict Blight. The true demonic-ness comes when you have both together: Webbers can mark targets and stun them at the same time with Web, Spitters have a ''tremendously'' increased base damage and crit chance on Spit against a marked target[[note]]enough to bring the flimsier hero classes from full health to Death's Door on a crit[[/note]]. Both kinds also have Bite, an attack similar to Spit that also hits Marked targets harder, but it's considerably less powerful and reasonably inaccurate. Web also inflicts a speed debuff, letting the Spiders act before the poor target can raise a finger to defend themselves. A team of 2 Webbers and 2 Spitters often results in one hero getting Stunned and Marked, followed by the whole group ganging up on them and quickly putting them to Death's Door. If that hero's still standing with low health, the residual blight damage would finish the job.

* Like the other elite enemies exclusive to Champion-level dungeons, the Squiffy Ghast is a nightmare to face. Unlike the other elite enemies, the Ghast forgoes dealing heavy physical damage in exchange for being stress-inducing Madmen on steroids. They have a rather respectable health pool, high dodge, and great speed to boot, so they're definitely going to get at least few turns in before going down. They take a page out of the Madman's book by being able to induce a Stress taken debuff that lasts until your next camp (so if you're in a Short mission and/or out of Medicinal Herbs, you're out of luck), and a page out of the Ghoul's book by inflicting a strong party-wide Horror. These guys will focus your Jesters if they can, but considering how most enemies are resistant to Bleed in the Cove, it's difficult to bring him along. The worst part is that they can appear ''alongside'' the aforementioned Ghouls, so if you encounter that enemy combo, prepare to kiss your party's sanity or Laudanum goodbye. The cherry on top is that the bosses of the Cove are fairly stressing fights, so it's imperative that you manage your party's sanity prior to facing them, which is an issue that the Ghasts are all too willing to exploit.

* Brigand Hunters are upgraded versions of Brigand Fusiliers, encountered in Champion-tier dungeons and the Wolves at the Door mission. Unlike Fusiliers, Hunters have a non-trivial damage output, and cause stress damage on top of that. While it's minor party-wide Stress damage, they also like to start the battle Stealthed, guaranteeing them at least two free shots while going unharmed unless you're packing anti-Stealth skills. If you run into a Hunter ''and'' a Bloodletter, especially in the Wolves at the Door mission, prepare to see your entire party's stress skyrocket.

* The Bone Bearer is the elite enemy of the Ruins. Though it has very little offensive power on its own, its very presence on the battlefield grants all other enemies a passive damage buff, and it can actively buff the other enemies even further. Worse still, if at the end of a round there are corpses remaining, the Bone Bearer will simply revive them at full health, so clearing the rabble without corpse-clearing or DamageOverTime is a futile effort. ShootTheMedicFirst is in full effect here, and the Bone Bearer has an effective stun immunity to make it impossible to avoid its buffs.

* The Uca Majors in the Cove also deserve special mention. They’re essentially a tank with two seriously crippling moves. Tidal Slam is a raw power attack which easily hits in the double digits and messes with team order. Worst still is Arterial Pinch. It hits for two damage. Awesome! Its a reprieve from Tidal Slam’s devastation! No. It causes bleed which causes an additional 8 damage per turn and decreases any attempts to heal the hero by 33%. Worse yet, this is a very common attack, so you’ll burn right through your bandages just to keep everyone from hitting death’s door in the next two turns.

* Essentially all enemies have a chance of inflicting the Crimson Curse, a complicated disease that can't be treated at the Sanitarium, requires "The Blood" to keep the afflicted as close to stable as possible, ''and'' giving them The Blood puts you at a MortonsFork: would you rather not deal with the increased debuffs and stress-causing chances of the craving state and end up dealing with a buffed up maniac that has the same tendency to act randomly and independently as an Afllicted hero, including attacking their own teammates, or is it more preferable to endure the craving hero's weakness and obsession until they're wasting to only then give them The Blood, at the risk of the curse's state changing during a fight? Worse still, after you complete the first Courtyard mission ''they spread to the other locations''. At least heroes with the curse are completely immune to any and all other diseases...
* Of all of the Bloodsucker classed enemies encountered, the Chevalier has attracted the most amount of dread to them. Chevaliers are tanky, backrow snipers who'll likely stay out of reach from your heavy hitters while you deal with whoever happens to be in front of them, all while lashing at your party members with heavy hitting moves like the bleed inducing Subterranean Skewer and the multi-target stun Buried Blast. They also have effective immunity to movement so you can't drag them into range of your melee hitters. The only saving grace when it comes to fighting them is that they're among the few enemies in the Crimson Court who can't heal themselves with [[LifeDrain The Thirst]], but that likely won't matter much when all of their friends are keeping them out of reach by staying alive with their own self heals. And speaking of their friends, Chevaliers are one of the few Crimson Court enemies that can show up ''anywhere''. Not only is nowhere safe from them, it's perfectly possible to find them in tandem with some of the other nasties in this same page, among other painful combinations. The one upside is that his stun resistance is ''pathetic''.

* The Giants first appear in Veteran difficulty quests, and for good reason. With a large amount of health, they're certainly not the best choice for your entire party to target first, but with their ability to inflict blight on any of your party member, use the highly-damaging Treebranch Smackdown skill on either of your front ranks, and ''shuffle your entire party!'' with Confusion Spores, you'll get the urge to. Did we mention that Treebranch Smackdown will guarantee the squishier heroes will go onto Death's Door with a critical, and the Virago or Crone can reduce your heroes' dodge to better sap your hopes of avoiding Treebranch Smackdown's immense damage? Stuns can help against them if they hit, but even stacking stun skill chance on a hero tends to not be completely reliable since they have a bit of resistance against it - the most dependable ways to avoid a worst-case scenario against their Treebranch Smackdown is reducing their damage with the likes of the Leper's Intimidate or the Occultist's Weakening Curse skills.