New spawns are pretty obnoxious. Been getting shockers/hulks/spitters consistently on day 0. With hardcore this means you lose, as a couple good spits/shocks will ruin your whole character since they have undodgeable after effects.
I really think the AOE attacks in general are overpowered. Maybe reduce the area of the spitter's acid attack [so it's not covering a 4x4 area around a character who just got hit by the acid..] and tone down the after-effects of the shocker cloud.
The cloud of electricity should not and would not be the thing damaging you most in such an attack. It would be the initial blast of electricity frying your neurons and burning your skin, not some static electricity left around after the fact. In this universe, if a shocker misses you completely with their attack you can still kiss your hardcore character goodbye if the cloud randomly decides to get you 5-6 times before you escape the radius. [20-25% of a character's HP in hardcore] The entire cloud needs to be removed and replaced with something that actually makes sense, make the initial shocker attack way stronger and give it a stun ability.
This shoehorned 'cloud shocking' that's been around forever needs to be replaced with something that isn't completely immersion ruining. Or have certain boots add a 'grounded' trait to the PC, making the shock effect of the cloud not hurt them, but not blocking initial shocker blasts. It would give you a way to actually counteract them instead of wishing and praying they don't appear on hardcore, and would continue with the 'specialized equipment is your best friend' part of the game..
I'm not afraid of getting attacked by shockers at all. It's their bullshit cloud of unblockable electricity that kills me with pain effects, which shows that there's a bit of a disconnect.