Spiker is the title of a group of E-Techpistols in Borderlands 2 made by multiple manufacturers. It is obtained randomly from any suitable loot source.
Usage & Description
Spikers fire needles that stick wherever they hit and explode after a couple of seconds. Projectile speed is slightly lower compared to conventional weaponry, but faster than most E-tech weapons save for Railers and other E-tech sniper rifles. Spiker projectiles only deal damage when the projectile explodes, not when it makes initial impact. This lack of immediate feedback coupled with the reduced projectile speed can make Spikers very difficult to use effectively. Spikers also completely lack the ability to inflict critical hits, further reducing their versatility.
Compared to Darts, Spikers offer a slightly higher fire rate (less than 1.0 RoF difference) and faster projectiles. Spiker projectiles will also stick to inert surfaces such as walls and detonate after a short time, whereas Dart projectiles ricochet off of inert surfaces. However, Spiker projectiles lack the homing capability that Dart projectiles possess.
Compared to same-brand purple-rarity counterparts, Spikers do roughly 50% more damage per shot but suffer from a very low fire rate, roughly half of standard speed if not lower. This dramatically lowers their available damage per second and makes them especially bad on the basis of damage per ammo used when factoring in the double ammo usage. Further compounding this is their complete inability to score critical hits, and these issues combined with the weapon's reduced projectile speed and delayed damage make Spikers some of the hardest to use and overall weakest pistols available in the game.
Maya'sCloud Kill effect will not trigger until the Spiker's projectile has detonated.
Zer0'sBe Like Water will not trigger with Spiker weapons even after the projectile has detonated.
the spiker is very effective against nomads that carry a shield. as the explosions from the projectiles pass through the shield.
The Spiker's name is a reference to the same-named weapon from the Halo series. Its projectiles resemble those of the Needler weapon from the same series, though the Dart pistol matches the weapon's effects more closely.
Hyperion Spikers have a small chance of spawning without an elemental alignment due to an error in the parts list for Hyperion pistols. Projectiles shot with these variants will be a nearly invisible translucent white and will do explosive damage on detonation, though the explosion itself will be purple in color.
The error is caused by the "Alien" and "Alien_Homing" barrels being mistakenly included in the possible parts list for purple-rarity Hyperion pistols, which can spawn without an element. Purple-rarity pistols which spawn with either of these barrels are automatically "upgraded" to E-tech rarity. This makes non-elemental Darts and Spikers rare, but also makes Hyperion Darts and Spikers more common overall than other brands.
Trivia
There are 24,064 regular variants of the Dart, plus 5,120 non-elemental variants.