Borderlands – How to defeat big spiderants

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How do you deal with big spiderants?

They take basically no damage unless you hit them in the abdomen. And the big ones are hard to disorient. I'm playing hunter, so sniper rifles and revolvers are my most used guns.

Best Answer

From the Borderlands Wiki:

Shotguns work well against Spiderants, not only because they can easily disorient, but also because follow-up blasts to the abdomen can usually take down even the toughest specimen.

The larger varieties of Spiderant, particularly Badasses, are also much harder to disorient by comparison to their smaller counterparts or even when compared to the optional bosses. A solution is to focus the targeting element on the upper fringe of the armored head while backpedaling. Due to a collision detection quirk involving their walk animation, several of these shots will register as abdomen hits, dealing critical damage from the front even though the abdomen itself is not truly exposed.

A player with a good elemental (preferably corrosive, due to its long DoT duration) weapon can keep a spiderant completely defenseless as they stagger and are open to abdomen attacks. This is also one of the only reliable ways of staggering a "Badass" Spiderant

Essentially, shots aimed high may count as critical hits, and an elemental attribute to your weapon can only help.