Spike

From Guild Wars Wiki

A spike is a fast, short-duration surge in damage, designed to kill a target by compressing a sufficient amount of damage in a short enough time that enemy defensive characters cannot save them. Teams which attempt to score kills this way may have a lower damage capacity than pressure-based teams, but have a superior ability to compress that damage in time.

Most 8v8 teams have some degree of "spike healing" (typically Infuse Health), skills that provide a great deal of healing with a short reaction time that can be used to save a target being spiked.

[edit] Examples of spike types

Homogenous Caster Spike 

Homogenous caster spikes are performed by four or more of the same caster class, using the same set of damage-dealing skills. Generally, besides their spike skills, their other skills are dedicated to utility and healing. Necromancers spikes usually use Soul Reaping and binding rituals or nature rituals to power these healing abilities. Some previously popular caster spikes include air spike (Lightning Orb followed by Lightning Strike, either on elementalists or Me/E using fast casting and Air Attunement and/or Elemental Attunement), Obsidian Flame spike, FoC spike (Feast of Corruption fueled by Suffering or Parasitic Bond), and blood spike (Life stealing damage with Shadow Strike or Lifebane Strike followed by Vampiric Gaze). Phantom Pain followed by Shatter Delusions is a common opening combination in caster spikes, often giving away the target with the hex symbol.

Balanced/adrenaline Spike 

A balanced spike consists of the frontline and midline focusing enough damage on a single target to kill it before the monks have a chance to react. The melee lead off with a short chain of attack skills (usually Eviscerate or Dismember for axe warriors, Sever Artery-Gash for sword warriors, and a KD followed by Crushing Blow for hammer warriors); Elementalists hit with skills like Vapor Blade or Lightning Orb, and mesmers finish off the target with Shatter Enchantment or Energy Burn. Melee often shadowstep to their target so the spike is less predictable.

A past example of this is Euro spike, which used a warrior with Shadow Prison to lead a spike including another melee character, Mesmers with Spiritual Pain, and Elementalists with Air Magic spells.

Ranger Spike 

Ranger spikes involve three or more rangers. These rangers use fast-activating or simply powerful skills to spike with, supported by spirits (such as Favorable Winds, Winnowing, or Predatory Season), preparations (Glass Arrows or Read the Wind), and possibly Orders or Conjures. Often the durability of the rangers is boosted by defensive stances and bonds. Ranger spikes sometimes use hexes like Rigor Mortis to ensure a hit with every arrow. Rarely, zero-marksmanship-rangerspike builds will use Life Steal from Nightmare Weapon (and Dual Shot -> Dshot) to bypass prot and score kills. Ranger spikers often use a Hornbow with a vampiric mod for extra damage.

SB/RI 

SB/RI is named after the skill combination that makes it possible: Soul Barbs and Recurring Insecurity. This particular spike build was popular shortly before the Celestial Tournament, after which the nerf to Jagged Bones and Soul Reaping made it infeasible. Unlike other spikes, SB/RI is fairly slow (it deals damage over several seconds), but it deals much more damage than other spikes by stacking massive numbers of hexes and taking advantage of the reapplication of Recurring Insecurity to repeatedly double-trigger Soul Barbs and the healing reduction of skills like Mark of Death to make it hard to heal through. In addition, skills like Reversal of Fortune are particularly ineffective at healing through this since they cause Soul Barbs to trigger.

[edit] Counter-tactics

Splitting 

The most general way to stop a dedicated spike team is to force them to split between multiple objectives. Because spike teams are calibrated to deal enough damage in a burst to kill their target, often a split spike cannot muster up the damage to score kills; their lower damage over time means they cannot overwhelm an enemy Monk. When spikes do split, they often split all of the spikers onto one team and the healers onto another; this can be used to the advantage of the splitting team. Sending one or two team members off to another objective is often a hard situation for a spike build to keep control of.

Catching the spike 

1/4 second healing skills such as Infuse Health can be used to "catch" spikes in progress. Removing the deep wound or predicting the target and applying damage-capping skills such as Protective Spirit and Spirit Bond also helps stop spikes from succeeding. Against ranger spikes or adrenaline spikes, skills that allow blocking such as Guardian, can also help significantly.

Shutdown 

Skills such as interrupts, knockdowns, Blackout, Diversion, or Guilt can be used to cut down part of the damage so the burst is insufficient to kill the target. Against ranger spikes or adrenaline spikes, blind or skills that cause the opponent to miss can be effective as well.