Looking through my docs folders, found this little gem from a while ago that I never ended up posting.

Basically rare mobs that are also minibosses are actually hard to defeat due to AI. Although I'm not too sure how hard it is to code AI for games so this stuff might be sort of ridiculous.

Will prolly add more stuff to this later, as ideas hit me.

Beasts:

The Hive: A pack of monsters that work together with one highly intelligent mind. They know all and see all, so watch out!
Not so much a single monster as a group of monsters. A mob of maybe 10-20 small bug-like monsters that can spawn in the place of any Wolver pack. Speedy speed, average health, average piercing dmg, ect. Has a tackle sorta attack, and a ranged attack where they spit acid or bullets or something. Each of them has a slow health regen. Each individual is called a Hive Cell. Each individual has a 10% chance to drop a 50 Crown coin on death.

What's special about these guys is that, like their name suggests, they work together like a hive-mind is controlling them. Some of them charge you head on, trying to tackle, while others provide support fire, using their ranged attack. Others actively try to flank you while you move around. They are able to also dodge all types attacks, not like gremlins or devilites or whatever that can only try to dodge gun shot. If any one of them takes too much damage and is near the point of death, the damaged one can retreat a bit and trade spots with one of the support fire guys so they can regen some health in safety while not lessening their attack power.

They can also coordinate their attacks. For example, the head group coordinates with the support fire group so that when the head group attacks you, the support fire group fires bullets into the area around you/where you might dodge to. Or the flankers, if they succeed in actually flanking you, attack from your sides and from behind while the head group also rushed in and more support fire is poured in.

They can also coordinate their attacks and formation based on what weapons you're using. Sword, less head-on, good amount of flankers, more support fire. Gun, less head-on, more flankers, more support fire. Bomb, less head-on, less flankers, lots more support fire.

If you're in a party, for every extra member in the party there is also an extra 10-20 hive members. Which can add up to a lot. Maybe too much. Yeah def way too much. Oh well.

Dunno how hard it would actually be to code the AI for these kind of guys (I'm guessing sorta super really hard?), but yeah.

Jellies:

The Blob: A great big mass of slime with a single objective; to eat you. And your friends. And family. Hey, while it's at it, why not everything else on Cradle too?

Literally a huge shapeless blob of opaque white slime that keeps changing its blobby shape as it moves. Has a rare chance to spawn in the place of any Lichen-type monster (including when lichens merge). Really big. Lotsa health, some knockback resist, heavy damage, slow movement speed. fast attack speed. Leaves behind a trail of goo when it moves, that causes Slow or whatever the thing the snow in the Grinchlin Assault mission did. Low chance to drop Celestial Ore for everyone on death.

3 types of attacks: They slowly stalk you and try to engulf you, a rare attack where they grow tentacles and try snare you and draw you in and engulf you, and a life-steal attack for after they engulf you.

They move really slowly, so in theory it would be sorta hard for it to catch up to you and attack. But if they are in range, they can almost instantly 'jump' and completely engulf you inside them, leaving you virtually no time to react. Fighting one with a sword is a rather risky decision, because of this. The tentacle attack has tentacles attack you, flailing around quickly and wildly. If you get hit without your shield up, you take no damage but you get snared, and begin to get drawn back to the Blob where it will engulf you. You cannot damage the tentacle if you're snared, but your teammates can. If they destroy it, you will be free. A bit like the Apocrea Harvester thing.

Once you are engulfed, you are pretty much dead. You cannot shield bump them off, you cannot attack, you cannot use sprite skills, you cannot dash or shield bash, ect. All you can do is try to slowly run out from inside them, like you were stunned. And they will move around to try and keep you from doing this. During this process, they constantly deal light damage to you, regening their own health a lot while they do this. Each (rapid) healing tick regens 100 health, and drains half a pip of your own health. In a way, a bit like the Harvester's soul steal attack. While life-stealing, they ignore any teammates you have.

This ends when
1) you die and the Blob continues on to your teammates
2) The Blob regens full health and 'spits' you out.
3) Your teammates cause enough knockback to the Blob so that it gets pushed off you (nitro and stuff would be very useful here)
4) The Blob is killed.
Unless you're playing solo, in which case it will spit you out when it has drained maybe half of your health.

Gremlins:

Hybrids: Gremlins who have survived long enough fighting Knights to learn new fighting skills and techniques.

A whole new class of Hybrid Gremlins. AKA Gremlins who are a mix of any 2 different Gremlin classes (Knocker classes not included). Rare chance to spawn in the place of any normal Gremlin. Have a huge variety of attacks. Low chance to drop Gremlonium on death.

This might need some examples to make this more clear. For example, a Ghostmane/Demo hybrid would be able to:
1) Cloak
2) Plant bombs
3) Plant invisible mines while cloaked that explode a few seconds after you step on them (The mines from OCH)
4) Drop a pack of bombs each time when hit while not cloaked.
5) Create a small area of explosion around them each time when hit while cloaked.
6) Create a massive area of explosion around them when their cloak breaks.
7) Throw explosion saw blades (wtf).
8) Throw a flurry of explosive saw blades.

A Medic/Scorcher Hybrid:

1)Shoot fire from Wrench Wand (Wrench wand has a fiery red crystal instead of yellow)
2) Heal things
3) Set Knights on fire (fire version of healing ability) (OP spontaneous combustion). Puts a warning exclamation mark above targeted Knight's/Knights' head to warn them a second or two before they get set on fire. Can prevent from being set on fire if is shielding before is set on fire.
4) Create a large area on the ground that heals monsters when they step on it (Pushes Knights away and stuns them if they're standing where it spawns)
5) Create a large area on the ground that sets Knights on fire when they step on it (fire version of healing area ability) (Deals moderate elemental damage to any Knights standing where it spawns).
6) Create a large area on the ground that heals monsters and sets Knights on fire.
7) Shoot bullets from the wand.
8) Shoot a wave of fiery bullets from the wand.
9) Shoot a wave of fire from the wand.
10) Make a force-field bubble (pushes Knights away and sets them on fire if they're around the Gremlin when it does this)

Ect ect.

Since there's like... 15 different combos/hybrids possible, this is just a whole new subsection of the Gremlin family.

Also they have 4x as much health as a normal Gremlin or something.

Constructs:

The Crimson Guard: An elite force of Mecha Knights with extremely durable armor and something called 'inartificial intelligence.'

Red Mecha Knights. Rare chance to spawn in the place of any Mecha Knight. Same stats as normal Mecha Knight, except [a lot more] health and 1.5x as much movement speed. Low chance to drop Gremlonium on death.

Highly advanced AI (sorta)(both in coding and in lore). Attacks need no charge-up, so they can attack instantaneously. They have a 3 hit combo, but are not required to finish it; able to shield-cancel. They can dodge all types of attacks. They can use their shield at will like players. They can strafe. They have an utterly random attack pattern. They cannot be easily flanked. They can dash. They can shield bash. They can use the environment to their advantage. They can self-destruct to keep you from getting loot when they die (Jerks) and possible take you out in the resulting high damage explosion that occurs.

Normal: Sword and shield.
Lancer: Has a Gremlin-looking lance. Same attack pattern as Almirian Crusader, generally. Shield (yeah this guy is basically a glorified Crusader).
Gunner: Has a high-tech looking gun that shoots Roarmulous Lasers that shoot forward instantly and last for 0.5 seconds before another laser can be fired. Shield.
Demo: Can throw grenades that explode on impact. Also drop bombs. Shield.
Flare Man: Has a gun that shoots red mini rockets found in IMF/shot my RT, except much faster zoom speed and can set things on fire. Shield.

Self destruct can happen when they are near death. A countdown from 5 begins above their head, but they continue to fight. If you do not kill them when it ends, they self-destruct, exploding and causing heavy elemental damage and fire to anyone in the blast radius, and leaving no loot whatsoever behind.

Once again, probably some ridiculous to code AI so yeah.

Undead:

The Crypt Keeper: An ancient horror of the past that tends to the graves of the fallen. It really doesn't appreciate it when Knights mess up its hard work. Do not disturb unless you are prepared to run.

So, an undead mini-boss that has a chance to spawn in the place of a Phantom. Bit of a mix of a traditional Zombie and a Phantom. Only appears wherever Graves are, which as far as I remember is only Graveyards so yeah. A very high amount of health; like, and can respawn after death like Phantoms, in half the time. Can inflict curse and stun with its attack, and chance to drop Maiden's Tear upon its first death. At first looks like a Carnavon with no shield, wearing a tattered black cloak and hood, with its face obscured by said hood. All you can see is its glowing purple eyes and sigil. Carries a dusty shovel, nothing special about it.

Unlike normal Phantoms, it does not aggro on you when it first spawns. It can be found in a random location on the map, poking its shovel at some graves and doing nothing else. When you get near it or attack it, you catch its aggro and that's where the fun begins.

There's some sort of poomph of wind things that some Battlepods have, where you get knocked back. Wind whips the hood off of the Crypt Keeper's head, revealing its head. The seal on its face shatters with a cool effect, and basically the thing erupts from a docile zombie into an eldritch horror. Pointy gnashing teeth, aura of black and purple flames around it, some sort of shovel Grand Faust now. A Grimdark Zombie if you will, for those of you who have read Homestuck. Looks actually freaky and stuff like some kind of thing out of a horror game, unlike actual ingame Zombies which look silly.

Has a variety of attacks. It can swing its shovel for pure shadow damage very quickly with no chargeup time required, like a Mecha Knight. Metalic gong sound on hit, causes heavy knockback, and a chance for curse/stun. Can combo shovel with a dash where it suddenly zoomphs right at you with a cool smoky aura trailing behind it and then swings, and/or a teleport where the ground underneath it swallows it up and spits it right back up by a Knight with a sort of poof of black smoke pillar, following up with a swing with its shovel. Can also scream at you, causing a wave of that purple/black fire to blaze out of its mouth and deal pure shadow damage.

No chargeup time for any of its swing attacks, so in theory if it wanted to it could keep teleporting and dashing around the place to whack once with its shovel before changing position and insta-swinging again. Scream attack does have a bit of a chargeup though, where it remains in place for a second or two heavily breathing in and is more vulnerable. It can still rotate to aim at you though.

Also has two swirly purple orbs going around it, sort of like Vanaduke. Deals damage and chance for curse if you get hit. However, they can get temporarily destroyed via just damage. Pulsing ring around it like a Grim Totem, letting it rev Zombies that die around it as well. Has pretty nice mobility and can go wherever it wants, again like a normal Phantom. Immune to knockback and status effects

At 50% health it roars and its flame aura grows bigger, allowing it to damage you on contact even if its spinning orbs are gone. Swords be dangerous to use here.

When it dies, it gives a bit of a shriek and implodes into a cloud of purple dust smoke, leaving behind only its glowing Faust shovel. It respawns from said shovel later, twice as quickly as a Phantom, at which point it will give another shriek and do a teleport attack thing to a targeted Knight.

Super HP, respawns, curse, mobility, ASI, immunity to knockback and status effects. And so this guys feels quite OP to me which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Trading any semblance of advanced AI for pure rapid offensive potential. Graveyards will truly be Where Monsters Fear to Tread if this guy spawns in.

Also, since there can be up to 4 Phantoms at a time depending on the number of people in a party, there is a chance, no matter how small, that up to 4 of these guys can spawn at once. So let that sink in for a bit.

Fiends: