Most Frustrating (Non-Boss) Enemies in games!

[Ravinoff]

Rabid stalkers in Borderlands 2 (not The Pre-Sequel, though, Moxxi's shock laser just destroys them). Fucking things are Usain Bolt fast, hit like a truck and can dodge and turn invisible.

Re: deathclaws in New Vegas; if you actually talk to people and pay attention in Goodsprings, they'll tell you not to take the Long 15 past Quarry Junction (which is where the deathclaws are coming from). You're supposed to go south to Primm, then head along the Nipton road and north via Highway 95 through Novac.

 

[laggyteabag]

Chrysalids from XCOM Enemy Unknown/Within - This mostly applies to the early game, but if a chrysalid gets in attack range to one your soldiers (by "attack range" I mean "right in your fucking face") you can kiss that soldier's ass goodbye, or at least "goodbye for now, but i'll see you in a couple of turns when you are a zombie and you're trying to eat my face". Thats right, for those that have never played XCOM, these guys walk up to your soldiers (or civilians, if the are around), kill them, infect them with the zombieness, and then they come to eat the rest of you. AND THEN if you don't kill the zombies fast enough, they will then transform into more chrysalids to help spread the joy of zombie aliens. Then there's this one mission where you have to fight against a horde of chrysalids where one new one spawns every turn. Its an ever-growing tide of death and I never want to do it again. Get XCOM though, its a lot of fun.

Shield from PAYDAY 2. I would have said the Mass Effect 3 Guardians here, but at least you can kill them from the front. In PAYDAY 2, shields are a special unit that run at you with, you guessed it, a shield. The only way that you can kill them from the front is if you are using an armour piercing weapon such as a sniper rifle, or a shotgun with slug ammo, but that being said, these weapons are also very situational, so people very rarely take them, otherwise, you either have to throw grenades at their feet (note: GrenadeS. Plural. They are very weak, and you have to buy a DLC to even get them), lead them into a trip mine (that only one class has) or get another player/AI to shoot him in the back (which is very hard to do with AI or with poor communication). Sure, Bulldozers are bullet sponges, but these guys are just annoying.

Rabid stalkers in Borderlands 2 (not The Pre-Sequel, though, Moxxi's shock laser just destroys them). Fucking things are Usain Bolt fast, hit like a truck and can dodge and turn invisible.

Nailed it. I can also remember them having a knock-back, but maybe thats just me. I haven't played Borderlands since a week or two after the Pre-Sequel came out, but these guys irritated me to no end.

 

[ArcadianDrew]

Husks from the Mass Effect series. There you are, nicely in cover taking potshots at some distant enemy, when suddenly three of the blighters come charging out of nowhere like the mindless imbeciles they are. But you can't target them quick enough and they get too close, where they start hitting you, so you run out of cover to get away from them only to be shot to pieces by the bastard you were firing at earlier. Thank god for incinerate in ME2, seemed to one-shot them.

The other are the little spiders in One Whole Unit Blood. They're so hard to target, so you waste precious ammo trying to kill them, only to miss and get hit by them, so you get out the pitchfork and crouch down only to have them jump at you and do damage that way. Eat dynamite little fuckers!!

 

[Ryallen]

Rabid Stalkers in Borderlands 2. The title Rabid means that they are stronger than Badasses. What it doesn't mean is that they are also rarer. Meaning that you will be fighting these guys more often than their weaker variants. And they do shit tons of damage. Did I also mention that they are faster than your slow gun toting ass? And as stalkers, they can turn invisible? And when they hit you, they leave a giant scratch or bite mark that obscures your vision, making them harder to see. Basically, if I can't kill them while I'm using my ability, I just let them kill me. Which takes about 3 seconds, since they can also attack you while moving. Which is total bullshit. There was this one area with a boss in it. There were five of the fuckers. Five. The boss, and five rabid stalkers. Bull fucking shit.

The Stinkeye spawners in Bastion. I gave up on that game because of them. I am utterly confused as to how to get through the second to last level because of these fuckers. They have too much health as it is. With the wrong idol on, even if I wail on them, taking every single exploding eye asshole they throw right next to me, they regenerate it faster than I can hit them. Did I also mention that they spawn like 5 of them at once? Yeah, it's instant death.

 

[MerlinCross]

Chrysalids from XCOM Enemy Unknown/Within

While annoying and rage inducing at times, the Original Chrysalids were worse. Oh they did the same thing(Rush your face, eat it off, zombie).

But 3 things help make the Classic one far more fearsome. First is that 1 hit can make a Zombie. Any hit what so ever. The Second is that UFO: Enemy Unknown had Time Units. Every action took some TU's rather than the Updated 2 action system. This means 1 Classic Chrysalid could run up, zombie one of your soldiers, and then still keep moving.

Final thing is while the Classic Zombies can turn into Chrysalids on their own(Debate; several people claim they can, research shows otherwise) if you kill the zombie, out pops a Chrysalid. AT FULL HP AND TU! So you can easily get over run by these things. Only way to kill a Zombie safely was with Incendiary weapons.

Make no mistake, the Updated ones are pretty annoying and frustrating at times(especially that jump). But there is a reason why the Classic is treated with such fear and horror in a way the new one can't get to.(in my opinion)

 

[Tanis]

http://chrono.wikia.com/wiki/Stablekeeper
^This stupid mini game was very annoying, and hard, when I was a kid.

 

[SoreWristed]

The small, wirring sawblade little orbs in any and all Ratchet and clank games. Where you fight an epic battle, struggling to stay alive by the seat of your pants to finally see the dropship go down with 1 hit point left, only to be hit by one of these guys that was stuck behind scenery somewhere. that was the first controller i ever threw.

The Medusa's in God of War. They'd stop you in your 3 figure hit combo, effectively halting all momentum because you'd have to stop and focus on them exclusively. I've had friends tell me they thought they were easy, and they are if you face them alone, but seeing one pop out of the ground amidst a large mob just makes me sigh.

The Harpies and Shanks in destiny and the flying drones in Wolfenstein : the new order. Both in the same category for being flying enemies in a game that mostly feature enemies on foot. They just destroy my expectations, when i'm behind cover, i expect enemies to come out there and there. And they fly over your cover to mess with that. I know they are designed for that exact reason, but it's just so frustrating to get killed in a corner when i'm catching my breath waiting for my shields to come back up.

Any enemy, that when they have sufficient numbers, are able to stunlock you. I'd have this most frequently in WoW, when i was running a vanilla dungeon for transmog gear and achievements. I know they are meant to be taken on in small groups but for time reasons, you'd pull and entire dungeon, and then get slowly killed by hits doing 1 or 2 damage while you stand there being useless.

The beggars in AC. While not really enemies, they'd throw you down whilst typically running away from guards, allowing them to run up to you and force you, yet again, into combat.

Random, super high-level, encounters in FF9. More specifically, you'd come out of the ice cave at an appropriate level, and you'd run into these overpowered dragons with super high hp pools for that time in-game.

The spiked head goombas in paper mario. Whilst i have to give props to this game for making you strategize your resources whilst still maintaining action in combat due to the action commands. Those spiky heads, especially when in the back rows, just mean you won't be getting out of this battle unscathed, because you'd have to pick out enemies individualy untill you can ge tto them.

The electrified yellow goop enemies in Zelda : Phantom Hourglass. I always think i have time to get a hit in before they electrify.

I seem to have been frustrated by quite a lot of games haven't I? I should mention i have enjoyed every single one of those games immensely, but those few moments just give me the willies.

 

[murrow]

Skeleton Warriors in Gothic 2. Every armed humanoid enemy was tough in that game, but skeletons took it to the next level. There was a skeleton mini-boss in one particular sidequest that wore paladin armor whom I never managed to defeat without cheats. The fact that he summoned a little posse of warriors with him didn't help.

Since I'm talking about Gothic 2, might as well mention black goblins. Very fast, a pain to hit, and deadly to low level characters.

Wolfs and similars in Gothic 3. It seems that whatever they nerfed in humanoids compared to G2 they put it back quadrupled in animals on G3. You can't do much about their attacks, and they finish you in a heartbeat

In NWN: Hordes of the Underdark, the golems protecting the demilich in the Maker's Sanctum in the Golem Island, if faced with a melee character. They pummel you like there's no tomorrow and their attack bonus is so massive every blow connects. I'd mention the demilich as well, but I believe it counts as a boss. That f***ing disembodied skeleton head is immune to everything!

Still in NWN, an honorable mention goes to the trolls in OC's Act 2. They're trivial to beat, but GOD THERE'S SO MANY of them, they take so long to die and yield almost no experience.

Cliff Racers are a no brainer, but in Morrowind I'd also mention slaughterfish and dreugh. They're particularly annoying because they might show up from any direction once you're underwater. Also ordinators, if you're careless enough to show up in Vivec in an Indoril armor.

Lastly not an enemy per se, but a pain nonetheless: the dromons in Medieval: Total War. They outrun almost every other ship, so they can't be engaged, and they block the coast, preventing me from launching amphibious invasions. Bloody Byzantines...

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Walking Hosts in Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.

Why did they ever give these guys legs? Did anyone complain that they weren't annoying enough in the original game?

They're generally weak enemies, but they're invulnerable to literally every form of damage until they lift their heads and spit out three tears. But get this, having enemies who are temporarily invulnerable wasn't enough, they also deal contact damage (so they can damage you without ever being able to take damage themselves). And more often than not, they will refuse to attack you and just meander over to you, at worst cornering you and at best wasting your time.

And the game loves having rooms very early on that cater to the annoying habits of Walking Hosts by filling rooms with environmental hazards. So you're dancing around a host and trying to find the rhythm of where a Death's Head will bounce or when a spike trap will raise, and trying to damage the host when it lifts its head while at the same time dodging the shots that it shoots at you. It's not exactly hard, it's just annoying because you waste so much time waiting for the Host to be able to take damage.

And they have the stupidest, smuggest look on their faces too.

 

[DementedSheep]

This fucking thing made me rage so hard when I played Okami. For some reason I really sucked at that mini game. I got stuck on the one with 5 points.

Dose the Stalker from Warframe count as a boss? If not, him. If you kill a boss you sometimes get a mark on you which gives him a chance of spawning while you are in a mission. He likes to hit you when you're alone and using your shittiest frame. That's not just bad luck either, he dose actually have a higher spawn chance when you have a lower conclave (gear strength) rating and are on your own. Abilities don't work on him and he can one hit most frames. He kills you and then leaves. You have a limited number of in-mission re-spawns per day.
The infested Ospreys who fly around leaving poison clouds are annoying as well though part of that is because I tend to like high shield low health frames and poison bypasses shields.

Also from DA:I: the despair demons. The teleport around the place which is annoying to start with. What's worse is they have a very long range attack and will move so far away from the rift that if you chase them it can reset the bloody thing and you have to kill everything again. They also end up sitting in spots that require awkward jumping to melee them.

I'll see your despair demons and raise you arcane horrors. They take a lot of hits before they go down, and they seem to have a knack for teleporting away just as you use an ability on them, or they teleport to the other side of the room, wait for you to run over and start hitting them, and then teleport away again. And as for the ones in the Exalted Plains who are accompanied by seemingly endless respawning corpses (and poison arrow-equipped corpse archers), they can feck right off.

At least Arcane Horrors seem to teleport in a circle around the initial spawn point and I think they can only teleport to flat ground. I've seen them get stuck and teleport in place a number of times and I haven't had to jump on a table or halfway up a slope to hit them as far as I can recall. Though the ones in the Exalted plain were a pain in the ass. I'm not sure whether those corpses were endless or not because I ended going around the outside, killing the arcane horrors and then legging it. I only found out afterwards that you could actually set the bundles of straw on fire. That probably would have helped.

 

[Glongpre]

The Medusa's in God of War. They'd stop you in your 3 figure hit combo, effectively halting all momentum because you'd have to stop and focus on them exclusively. I've had friends tell me they thought they were easy, and they are if you face them alone, but seeing one pop out of the ground amidst a large mob just makes me sigh.

The beggars in AC. While not really enemies, they'd throw you down whilst typically running away from guards, allowing them to run up to you and force you, yet again, into combat.

Random, super high-level, encounters in FF9. More specifically, you'd come out of the ice cave at an appropriate level, and you'd run into these overpowered dragons with super high hp pools for that time in-game.

Medusas weren't too bad in god of war 1, you just had to keep rolling, which wasn't too annoying until you tried to do that one challenge, I forget what it was called. But you had to fight like 50 medusas. It was very long, and tedious.

Omg those beggars, screw those guys. They frustrated me so much. Not when I was running usually, just walking around, and they would push you. What the hell is your problem brah? Then the templars suddenly realize there is an assassin, mhm. Hey that guy got pushed, seems suspicious, he must be an assassin!

I don't think that the FF9 one is really fair, the mogs tell you not to go up there! And you can use those dragons to power level, if you know what you are doing. I think that is the only time in the game that you can run into a much higher level enemy, but I don't know for sure.

 

[SoreWristed]

Random, super high-level, encounters in FF9. More specifically, you'd come out of the ice cave at an appropriate level, and you'd run into these overpowered dragons with super high hp pools for that time in-game.

I don't think that the FF9 one is really fair, the mogs tell you not to go up there! And you can use those dragons to power level, if you know what you are doing. I think that is the only time in the game that you can run into a much higher level enemy, but I don't know for sure.

the mogs also told you to go east, i think, from the cave. And you could only tell it was east if you looked at the big map which was confusing as hell. But you can also run into some superpowered marlboros in the section that takes back from conde petie after you get married. oh, and the walkthrough told me i should be able to defeat the giant caged bird in treno first time, that was also frustrating as hell

 

[Cowabungaa]

Fucking Zubats man. The bane of every Pokemon player.

Honourable mention to any other tiny, flying, spammy enemy. Those flashy fucks in Half Life 2 that fly up to you, those drones in Wolfenstein: The New Order, drones in CoD: Advanced Warfare, you know those kinda things. They're just little annoying mosquitoes you have to swat.

 

[Someone Depressing]

The Basilisks in Dark Souls. Oh God, the Basilisks. Thank God that I used all of my Humanities when I got them because I'm a freak with no planning skills, or I probably would have rage-quitted long before I even got to Blighttown.

They're pretty cute though, not even in an ugly way. I think that they are adorable, in all of their decoy-eyed chicken toad European glory.

 

[Comic Sans]

Then there's Dragon Quest III's Canniboxes. They're even more dangerous than Mimics, despite Mimics just spamming instant-death spells (which almost always fail), for two reasons: you encounter them long before you get the spell that detects Canniboxes/Mimics, and they do enough damage to one-shot anyone in your party when you first encounter them. They're just giant, unfair eff-yous.

Oh god, the Canniboxes. Those were sadistic enemies. I think I first found one in that big Pyramid you need to go into. I got party wiped. That entire pyramid was a fucking deathtrap. The confusing layout, those trick floors that drop you into the basement where you can't do magic, the incredibly difficult enemies for the level you are. The desert in general was a huge difficulty spike with the Hellcrabs, but the pyramid was icing on the cake. The Canniboxes were just the unfair evil cherry on top. For bonus points, try getting the Golden Claws when you are there. One of the best Fighter weapons you get all game, but you have to trudge through the null magic floor with a fight in like every step when you pick them up, since it QUADRUPLES the encounter rate.

 

[Don Incognito]

Feral Ghoul Reavers in Fallout.

Goddamned bullet sponges, and they hit like a freight train to boot.

 

[Don Incognito]

Cazadores in Fallout NV. I'll fight a Deathclaw before a Cazador.

The right tool for the right situation, my friend.

Cazadores may seem difficult, but against a SMG (or energy-weapon equivalent) in VATS? Piece of cake.

 

[Silvanus]

Holy shit that raises memories, there's actually one with something like 9 points, the only way to beat it is either put a grid on your TV and film it or have incredible memory or luck

Ooh, I remember the 9-point Blockhead.

I beat it by dividing up the work between the three people in the room: told them I would remember the first three, someone else the middle three, and the third person the last ones.

Still took about 6 tries.