Who would win in minecraft a spider or a skeleton?

Answer 1

According to minepedia [minecraftwiki.net] A spider depletes 1.5 hearts in a single attack while a skeleton depletes 3 hearts [both on hard mode]. But a spider is quick and as of Beta 1.2, a spider can walk vertically up walls over every kind of block. Also, Spiders are fast and are good swimmers, while skeletons are just the opposite. So with the skeleton having a higher damage ratio, and the spider having the ability to climb and being faster than a skeleton, the scenario really has many variables, where the fight is taken place, is there water? is it flat? but

[TL;DR] assuming that it is just a flat wasteland taken place on dirt, the scenario favors the skeleton because it would take greater damage from the spider, which means the spider would get jolted back making the long ranged skeleton would get long ranged shots and the short ranged spider would have shot at winning because he too far back at attack at all.

fun fact: A spider has 1% chance of skeleton spawning on its back, riding the spider, this mob is known as a spider-jockey.