The Spike is a Tier 4 tank in Arras.io. It upgrades from the Smasher and cannot upgrade to anything.

Design

The Spike features a circular tank body as a base, with twelve black spikes rotating around it like a sawblade.

Technical

The Spike, as an upgrade to Smasher, is a melee class. It is slightly slower than other Smashers, but its Body Damage has been increased, allowing it to deal higher damage upon ramming enemies.

More notably, it also gains a new ability exclusive to the Spike. It can bounce off upon colliding with another Spike on the same team, causing them to fly off a distance with fast speed. The directions usually depend on which side they bumped to each other, and the Spikes need a certain motion speed to activate it. The ability can be disabled by turning on Override (R key by default). If either Spikes have override enabled or are enemies to each other, the ability will not activate.

Being part of the Smasher branch, the Spike is one of the few tanks that cannot be used in Siege.

Strategy

• Strong Against: Snipers, rammers, low-skilled drone tanks or if the drones are crticaly low and/or far away, Slow firing tanks (Destroyer branch excepted).
• Weak Against: Highly skilled drone tanks, Pounder-Type Classes, Anything when low on health, other melee classes with a better build, Gunner Branch such as the Machine Gunner.

As the Spike

• The Spike can easily defeat other melee Classes if using the same build, but ramming something leaves the player relatively vulnerable to attack by any tank with high DPS or RoF.
• Maxing out all stats except for shield Regen is a possibly effective strategy, as this will allow the player to defeat almost any other melee Class, and also take bullet spammer Classes like the Triple Twin and Penta Shot by surprise. However, even with 12 Movement Speed, this tank is not suitable for chasing tanks with moderate to high DPS because the player may be damaged, or even killed before reaching their target.
• It is advisable for the player to be wary of other Spikes with this build, as colliding when both are at full health will kill both Spikes at the same time. Other Spikes, and even Smashers, may also attack when the player is at low health. Particularly, despite posing lesser body damage, the Landmine and Mega-Smasher can still pose a threat and possibly kill the player.
• Avoid pursuing high DPS tanks like Triplet and Streamliner if they have began directly attacking the player, as their bullets can eventually diminish its health. Retreat first, then after healing back lost health, try to pick them up again, especially if they have been distracted by other things.
• Be wary of other Spikes, as they may have either higher health or body damage. They should only be tackled if they have been damaged.
• Keep an eye on the maximum health and body damage. It is highly recommended to upgrade those stats, if possible, since they are both essential for taking out Polygons and enemy tanks more easily.
• On team game modes, if the Spike’s ability is becoming detrimental with the presence of allies also using Spike, the player should enable override in order to avoid getting unintentionally launched on undesired areas like direct enemy fire.

Against the Spike

• Drone tanks like the Director-branched tanks are a great way to defeat this tank, since the Spike cannot fend off by shooting bullets to defeat the Drones. Instead, they would have to be attacked by Drones, especially if the speed was insufficient for them. However, the spike might ambush
• If a player is a Class with high DPS, they shouldn’t have a problem fending off the Spike. All the player has to do is keep it in the line of fire, and their bullet knockback will probably push the Spike back enough. The player should still be careful, however, as skilled Spikes can attempt to catch them off guard. Here are some classes that are good against the Spike.
  • Pounder Classes
  • Machine Gun Classes
  • Twin Classes
  • Trapper Classes
• The player should aim to flee at all costs if they are another melee class. There’s not much they can do unless the Spike is at low health, and even then it’s a risky prospect to take it on. If the player’s opponent is another Spike, a possible idea would be to tap them slightly and see which tank has more Health and Body Damage, If both of them are at full health. If the opposing Spike has equal or more Health or Body Damage, then the player should not ram it until it loses some health.

Trivia

• The tank’s second design was created by fandom user Toriellabella.
  • The hull of the Spike is made out of four three-sided traps (or three four-sided traps) that are colored black. They are separated by different angles, but spin in the same way.
    • The design’s hull rotation was based off of an UFO.
  • The tank at first used the Diep tank design, then used the second Spike design, then went back to using the first; the design is being kept in mind for a future Smasher, currently labeled as weirdspike within the game code.
• The Spike bounce ability originates from a certain, now patched bug that had once occurred in Diep.io, wherein two Spikes would “bounce” a goodly distance away from each other at high speeds, and also had affected Smashers in a lesser degree.
  • As such, this is a case where an original bug from Diep.io had been promoted as a feature in Arras.io.
  • The Weird Spike also can do this, but with an inconceivable distance and force.
• The Spike was the first tank made unusable in Siege, even before the whole Smasher branch was removed.

Bugs

This section contains bugs related to Spike. Before adding a bug to this list, consider the following: Please screenshot, then reload. If the bug happens a second time, then get a second screenshot to verify that the bug is still happening. If the bug is still occurring, please post the bug report with the appropriate system template. Describe the bug in detail, but avoid having conversations in the description and/or using first-person-anecdotes: such discussions belong in either the comment section or on the appropriate forum board.

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