dislekcia wrote:Spike still doesn't sound useful... Contrast the superfluous -spike suffix to -stacking. Stacking is simply collecting, but as there are many different things to collect, that's a useful term to have differentiators for: Dodge-stacking, DP-stacking, Burning-stacking, Poison-stacking, Resist-stacking, CP-stacking, etc.
That also makes sense, but stacking is more of a setup term than execution term. If you're firing off stuff that you stacked and use term the in the "stacking damage/attacks via X" then you get as arcane as with "spike". I guess some of the players simply differentiate between setup and execution and needed terms for it, and we ended up with an arbitrary one (much likeanyone would). "Stringing" was also a term I used as in "a string of free hits".
The concept of "spike" is most useful when you think about how aiming for a spike is going to affect you opportunity cost tradeofs and resource management while you play.
dislekcia wrote:Gods certainly don't each have a "spike" by design because that's not a concept that's meaningful to us. They each have different angles of efficiency and tradeoffs though.
They really don't - JJ and Pactmaker don't have one at all. All the other ones do, but it certainly didn't have to be an intentional decision to make them that way. I was more that they were recognized as such by players when Gods became preps and as such "answers" to dungeons/PQI. It helps have a cohesive picture of sinergies. The game existed in the alpha without the prep system, and that might be why the beta playtest brought this bit of terminlogy up.
Apparently just playing the game is always some form of spike. So, yeah, we probably do when we play, we just don't think of things that way.
You could call it a "banana" (or a "saga" lol), but when your thinking just in terms of strategy and a dungeon puts specific challenges before you you sort of need either a plan or a system of reading the board. Dragon Isles put a set of challenges before you - you need to find a way to get around, find a way to, well, stack resources and buffs, deal with one boss, deal with the guards or manouver them out of the way, deal with another boss. All of that is "playing the game" but not all of that is a spike. Just killing the firstborn and the matron is, and dealing with the guards can be but doesn't have to be.
So you can plan for it - I'll stack my health while I explore, and then XP-banana the firstborn. I'll stack my piety while I'm at it, and potion-banana the guards to get rid of their debuffs. Then I'll piety-banana the matron. If I find the wonnafyt, I can save my potions, level up to 10 and ignore the dragonguards...
If there was always only one boss, then the word for banana... er, "spike" would be "endgame" or "endgame plan", but since there are more than one ussually, it's not the endgame but just a point where you turn resources into damage instead of just other resources, moving space or whatever. If you can tell what your options are in advance, you can tune the rest of your "playing the game" to support your angle of attack the best...
Hence:
Darvin wrote:dislekcia wrote:Spike still doesn't sound useful. We never designed around the term or the concept.
And yet, you can feel it in-game. Think of a Warlord against Bleaty; between CYDSTEPP and GETINDARE he can be assured three free attacks, enough to be within shooting distance of a KO. Then think of that same Warlord against SMM; no matter how much mana/potions he gets for consecutive DP's, he's not going to get through all those hit points and needs to change his approach. Alternately, a Paladin will have significant trouble just surviving a hit from Bleaty, but has no problems wearing down low-damage SMM with attrition strategies.
Since you can use tools to replicate or support either approach, and have to for 100% completion, you have to know what you're replicating. And you're not replicating a Warlord or a Paladin, you're replicating their "Spike". Except you possibly need to "stack" more stuff on yourself to be as good at it as them since they're built for it and others might not be.