Spike damage

Spike Damage refers to massive amounts of damage dealt to one target over a short period of time. The attackers might measure the amount of damage relative to their average or median DPS, the target's team might measure the damage relative to the target's maximum health, and the healers might measure time relative to their own reaction speed and time needed to cast the necessary skills to protect the target from the next major attack. In general, a spike is more damage in less time, compared to pressure. The term spike is only meaningful when compared to other possible rates of damage.

Builds focused on spike damage usually have a lower average DPS in the long run, due to balancing factors such as long activation/recharge times, exhausion, and energy costs. Some forms of spiking exhaust the initial resources of a player or team, such as draining all of an Elementalist's energy. The spiking team usually hopes to kill an enemy with those initial resources, giving a great advantage despite not being able to maintain the initially high rate of damage. Other kinds of spike teams deal erratic damage, doing low or no damage for long periods, puncuated by sudden spikes in the amount of damage being done, overwhelming enemy healers.

Spike damage may come in the form of one powerful skill, such as Obsidian Flame, or from a fast successive skill combo, such as a knockdown followed by Aftershock. Spikes often come from multiple damage sources hitting simutaneously, such as being the focus fire of six attackers or running into 20 traps overlapping each other.

Spike Damage is effective against enemies that rely heavily on health regeneration skills (like rangers who heal with Troll Unguent), since the foe takes damage more quickly than they can recover. Spike Healing counters spike damage by rapidly healing the amount of health that was lost, but depends on the reaction speed of the healer. Healing too slowly won't keep the target alive, while healing too quickly often results in overhealing before the majority a multi-source spike damage comes in.