Earth Spike is so broken it's not even funny

[Iris Heart]

Every time I get Earth, and this skill consequentally, it's basically a free run. Is it bugged? Why does it does so comically heavy damage? In constrast, same goddess, Rock Hands or whatever it is called, spawns periodically rock hands above your head that attack nearby enemies extremely fast - nearly useless. So little damage. How does this stuff is getting balanced?

[Null Winter]

Earth Spike is overwhelming burst damage in a large AOE in a game genre where that is very powerful due to breaking horde, elites, and bosses; The Fists Of Muda Muda are single target rapid DPS, which is pretty much only useful when you're sturdy enough to face-tank a boss.

Not helping is that Earth Spike is a Strike, while Fists are a Cast; the caster characters do NOT want to walk up next to melee-focused bosses unless they have absolutely min-maxed to shoot the Fist DPS up to insane levels... where any other Cast would also be about as deadly at longer ranges. Meanwhile, everyone can use Strikes well.

[NorionV]

Rock Hands would be broken if it functioned like other casts. But it's duration and cooldown don't overlap, so no matter how much you buff those numbers, there's an inevitable downtime and it can't stack up.

Conversely, a cast like Frost Zones or Meteors will fire the next shot before the previous effects wear out. With this you can cover the world in ice and/or fire if you can get the cooldown and duration buffed enough.

Rock Hands would turn into some whirlwind of strikes kinda stuff if it were able to multicast like that. But it can't, so it's a lot weaker than most other casts, while also being close range.