Black Widow Guardian

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	Black Widow Guardian
Found in	Quake II: Ground Zero
	[Source]

	Black Widow Guardian II
Health	5,000
Attack Damage	Plasma Beam: 10; Homing Shadow: 20; Pincer: 26 - 35; Summon Stalker;
Found in	Quake II: Ground Zero
	[Source]

	Black Widow Guardian I
Health	4,000
Attack Damage	Upgraded Light Blaster: 10; Rail Gun: 50; Kick: 55; Summon Stalker;
Found in	Quake II: Ground Zero
	[Source]

The Black Widow Guardian protects the Gravity Well in the Quake 2 expansion Ground Zero. She serves as the games final boss and must be defeated before the player can destroy the Gravity Well and complete the game. The Black Widow Guardian is arguably one of the most, if not the most difficult enemy in all of Quake.

Description

In Quake II: Ground Zero, the Gravity Well has trapped the flag ships in orbit above Stroggos and stopped any pods being launched to the surface. Among those who managed to land before the Gravity Well is activated is Stepchild (the player). The player makes his way to the Gravity Well, creating a bomb as he goes. The player finally reaches the Gravity Well in the final level, Unit 5, but finds the Black Widow Guardian guarding the path. The Widow must be defeated to gain access to the Gravity Well.

The Widow is the one and only enemy in Quake II to have two forms. Her first form is a very tall humanoid with an organic torso and above and mechanical legs. When the player defeats her first form, the Widow will teleport away, leaving her legs behind in an explosion. After a while, the grand doors will blow up revealing her second form, a spider like beast with upgraded weapons and more armor.

First Form

The Widow will walk around the arena which is a large circle with a round of pillars surrounding the inner circle, much like a web. The Widow has average speed and can be easily outrun by the player. Her weapons are fairly useless as her most common weapon is an upgraded light blaster which attacks in an arc. Use the pillars for cover, and when taking shots, always keep moving. Jumping around the outer area not only avoids the Widow, but also keeps the Stalkers away. There will be an unlimited supply of Stalker being summoned into the arena by the Widow. During this first fight, the Stalkers are more of a problem. The BFG is a good weapon to use because it will deal massive damage to the Widow but also attack/kill the Stalkers.

Upgraded Light Blaster: The Widow's Light Blaster is used in the way similar to the first Makron and is easy to dodge. This is the most common attack used by the Widow and is pretty pathetic, like the Makrons. Keep moving to the side to avoid this attack whilst returning fire. The Widow will fire about 10 shots in an arc and 10 shots directly at the player (although not always in this order). Each shot does 10 damage and with Stalkers also attacking, the player will find his health drop like a rock if he stands still.

Rail Gun: Every so often, the Black Widow will use her Rail Gun which appears to have very poor aim. The Widow rarely uses this attack, and when she does, it will miss most the time. Keep moving the one problem with this attack is the middle of the battle, in the dark room, it is hard to tell when the Widow will fire and a Rail charge can take the player off guard. (Whoever wrote this last "sentence", please correct it. I literally have no idea what it means.) Each shot does 50 damage like any other Railgun.

Kick: If the player gets close to the Widow, she'll kick him/her with her mechanical legs, sending the player flying backwards much like Armagons melee attack. which flings the player flying across the arena. Each kick will deliver around 55 damage.

Second Form

When the Widow is defeated, she'll teleport away and get suited up with better legs, weapons and armor to become arguably the most powerful enemy in Quake. Her new spider like legs allow her to move faster and her new weapons are far more effective at killing the player. The ability to summon Stalkers remains, adding to the difficulty of this fight. The Widow's new attacks allow her to easily continue inflicting damage, be it the very accurate Plasma Beam or a few homing shadows, with the Stalkers also constantly attacking. With all this going on, the player will loose a lot of health very quickly and the problem will be the player being unable to deliver the fatal 5,000 damage before he/she gets maimed by the Widow and her Stalkers.

Plasma Beam: Similar to the players Plasma Beam, the Widow can launch this powerful beam with unlimited range and pin point accuracy. The Widow can either use the beam in a sweeping motion at the area in front of her, dealing small damage or put the beam directly into the player with minimal hassle, dealing high damage. The best way to avoid this is to hide behind the pillars. Each shot does 10 damage but due the nature of the attack, the damage will add but very quickly. When the Widow fires in an arc, the player will be hit for about 10 to 20 damage from each pass but if caught by a direct attack, the player will quickly loose 100 health a second. The Widow can deliver short bursts of 40 damage to long ones of 160 damage. If the player does not stop moving, the attack will easily hit.

Homing Shadow: The Widow can launch multiple balls of darkness which home in at the player much like the Vore's Fire Pod but a lot faster and harder to see in the dark arena. The shadow balls make a unique, easily heard sound so the player knows when there is one coming after him/her. Each ball will do 20 damage but due to the number of balls launched and the difficulty of dodging them, they can very quickly do heavy damage ontop of the Stalker's light blasts and the Widow's Plasma beam. The Widow is capable of launching many balls in at a very fast rate (5 to 10) dealing in the excess of 200 damage. The best way to avoid them is to hug the wall so that when the player dodges them, there is less chance of them bending around.

Pincers: The Widow's melee attack now involves the giant pincers on her new spider legs. If the player gets anywhere near the Widow, a web like claw will shot out her legs, pull the player towards where they will be sliced n' diced by per pincers. As with any melee attack, it is easy to avoid as long as the player doesn't get near the enemy. If she carries out the whole attack, it will deliver around 30 damage.

The Widow's Lair

The final level of Ground Zero involves taking the Anti-Matter Bomb created in Unit 4 and placing it on the Gravity Well to blow it, thus completeing the games main objective. Before the player can gain access to the Gravity Well, he/she must defeat the Black Widow Guardian. This is by far the most difficult enemy in Quake II and one of the most difficult enemies in all of Quake series.

Part I

Collect all the items that surround the hole in the floor before dropping in. The player will fall into a very large round shaped room with pillars very similar to that of Armagon's Lair. There are numerous ammo and health pick ups spread across the arena, outside and inside the circle of pillars. The most important of these are the Cell packs.

The Widow will be patrolling the inner circle until she see's the player and begins to attack. Her most common attack is her Upgraded Light Cannon which she fires lazily towards the player. Occasionly she'll launch a Railgun slug although this is as accurate as the Carriers and will hardly ever hit aslong as the player keeps moving. Keeping moving in the outer circle whilst returning fire. The Chaingun and Railgun are a good start but it won't hurt to use a few BFG shots to deal some good damage from the start. Make sure to make a direct hit to deal the most amount of damage. Of course, not only will this deal heavy damage but it will also kill off any Stalkers currently in the arena.

When the Widow falls, there will be a long delay between her teleporting away and returning in her second form. Use this time well to collect ammo (mainly Cells) and health. It would be useful to let off one more BFG shot after she teleports to clear away any Stalkers without wasting this time between fights. Once the player has collected relevant health and ammo, await by the big red doors for the Widow to come crashing out in her second, more powerful form.

Part II

See above for her new arsenal of weapons. The Widow will continue to spawn Stalkers so keep moving to avoid being hit by them. Her most deadly weapon now is the Plasma beam which she can deal very high damage with. Don't stop moving so as to give her a much more difficult time in hitting the player with the beam. Continue to empty the BFG into her and when that runs dry, switch to Chaingun or Railgun.

If the player runs low on health, then attempt to get the health packs near the pillars. Go for the outer circle pick ups as the player can go for these whilst taking cover behind the pillars. If the situation becomes dire and he/she is low on health and has used up all the health packs outside the pillars, then attempt to pick up the packs on the inside. This is more difficult as the player will be exposed but as long as he/she does not stop moving, the packs can be picked up without being hit.

With 4,000 health (first form) and 5,000 health (second form), this battle is going to be very long and the biggest problem is surviving long enough to deal 9,000 points of damage. The Widow's shadow beams make even strafing and jumping deadly as the shadow beams can home in on the player and even bounce off walls if they miss and hit the player from behind. Becareful not to get too close so as to avoid her melee attack.

On Hard+, the Black Widow has a divine 13,500hp (both forms)

Videos

A video of a player confronting the Black Widow Guardian using jumping to avoid being hit by the Stalkers and returning fire with the powerful Railgun and BFG to bring the Widow down as quickly as possible.