This whole spamming debate is getting a bit out of hand.. I pulled out a Rocket Hammer and did literally one combo, and received insults / complaints for the next 10 minutes about being a spammer.

Anyway, I don't really see alchemer usage as "cheap and otherwise skill-less", so its continued use wouldn't be seen as spammage to me.

I'm surprised. :P

However, doing the same thing with two pulsars.....*shudders*

In the books of Cradle, I quote;

"Thou who use [the word] spam and insults thy fellow knights with such things, are recognized as a mere miscreant, or in thy words today, a noob. Complaining [of spam] is more of a nuisance than spamming [is]"

Follow the rules, kids!

Too confusing; Don't read - If anyone complains about spamming, tell them that if you swipe/shoot/put down (sword/gun/bomb) any thing consecutively is the definition of spam. 5. (A narrowing of sense 1, above) To flood any chat forum or Internet game with purposefully annoying text or macros. (Dictionary.com, 5 - computer meaning).

What is flood? Think of a flooding of rain - TOO MUCH WATER!

Now let's think of the community thoughts on spam. Flourish - Why... I don't even.. it's a sword, to use it you must swing more than once to kill someone. I've yet to see someone swing once and hold up their hands and say, "WAIT I CAN'T SPAM, I AM NOT NOOB!111"
Gran Faust - Basically same as flourish
AP/Sentenza - It's a gun, when you're in the military, marines don't stop shooting because it's annoying/spam.

This list can go on forever so, to end this -
Answer to original question; Yes alchs are considered spam because it is consecutively repeating the act of shooting bullets.

IS SPAM OK? Yes, no one can kill without spamming. No spamming is not skill-less it's being smart which, apparently, people don't like being.

I'm sick of this whole "spam" debate. teethpicks have to be clicked multiple times to attack, the exact same as drivers or polaris. People screaming "spam" are really just looking for another excuse to whine or complain or rationalise defeat or aggravation at a troublesome match.

when strikers come to kill me, I don't see them just take one swipe and stand back. They take several. Constantly. Arguably, they "spam" their booster to run circles around me.

"spam" is about productive or legitimate a complaint as:

"omg laaaaaaaaaag wtf man lag lag lag lag laaaa....................

Actually it's very easy to get past polaris spams. Strikers can boost around it, guardians can simply shield (shields take virtully zero damage from polaris bullets) and recons can take a clear exit (since there's never less than two entrances to a CP; often three or four) and sneak up.

The only time polaris spamming is a problem is if there's several people doing it, and that's no more dangerous than several strikers with teethpicks.

I'd also like to point out the flaw in your argument:
bombs are balanced by charge times, and swords are balanced by their "combos". Polaris is balanced by the area of efficacy. Polaris is near useless until it expands; all you have to do is approach the "spammer" and their "spam" suddenly becomes no more threatening than swinging a sword whilst facing away from you.

So no, polaris isn't more OP than "spamming" any other weapon, as it's easily avoidable and has a large drawback. Polaris spamming really isn't that powerful a weapon as much as it is annoying. I'd consider teethpicks far more dangerous as they lunge you forward a great distance (topped by striker boosting) which allows strikers to cover ridiculous amounts of distance and achieve zerg rushes from off-screen without giving anyone a chance. Polaris is slow and incredibly easy to see coming and dodge. It's really your own fault if you get hit by it and even then the worst thing about polaris is the shock, which can also be easily achieved by VT, Voltedge, Storm Driver....

IS SPAM: toothpick AA comboing repeatedly, Polaris shot many times in the same direction, hammer dashing all over the place

ISN'T SPAM: everything else

You think I have time to type out all the individual forms of spamming? I just went for the main ones

Sorry benightz, Im not jealous of your hammer, I have 3 of them

Anyways, my belief of spamming is nitrome spamming, which is what I do, sadly.

Top post:
Is Alchemer gunning actual spam? Spam being defined as "repeating the same cheap (or otherwise skill-less) attack(s) over and over in an obnoxious manner", if my observations are correct.

The cheap/skill-less part is irrelevant. That's just a twist to make it sound condescending. Spamming is just doing the action repeatedly and frequently.

I'm a max-ASI gunner (justifier recon) and I'm a double-swap shooter, and I will gladly admit any time that I spam my guns. Biohazard, Valiance, Alchemer, whatever.
I firmly believe that anyone on my team that tries to call the other team 'spammers' as if our team is innocent is being hypocritical solely because of the fact that they are on my team.

As for the skill part, just repeating attacks doesn't get you anywhere unless the people on the other team are bad, in which case it just doesn't really matter, since they'll die anyway.

Yeah, that's right. If they're just repeating attacks 'with no skill' and you're succumbing to it, you're just bad.

Spam's only dangerous when it's done with purpose. Baits, walls, traps, all that good competitive fighting game stuff.

Most things in this game have counters. I bet most of you didn't know that Hammer's 2nd swing doesn't have invincibility frames. It's pretty vulnerable if you can read the movement and know how to lead your attack to hit through latency.

"If it's so much of a problem, replace your wolver crap with the magic series for cryin out loud."

Gray Feather may have somewhat more ele def, but it isn't enough to tank even one more WRH hit than Vog. Seriously.

It might let you tank one more hit compared to Skolver. I'm not sure.

"I guarantee you, use Volcanic pate set + grintovec line and rocket hammers will be cryin' for mama. because INSANE elemental defense + freezing them in place will render the RH useless"

Volc plate has perfectly ordinary ele defence--exactly the same as Vog.

As for Grintovec being a good counter, vid, please.

"Skill does not exist in SK, there's waaaay too may different weapons for skill to exist."

This makes no sense. Please explain.

Spam is purely subjective. Yes, repeating any action could be considered spam. But typically, spam is used to refer to actions that 1. require relatively low skill, 2. is relatively harder to counter, and 3. has relatively high payoff in terms of achieving some goal. In other words, an unbalanced attack. As your skill level goes up, what you perceive to be spam can also change, due to the balance of these three elements changing.

Subjectively, Polaris fits all three criteria: it is easy to repeatedly fan 2 shots (anyone with a Polaris and a mouse can do it); dodging the shots is more difficult than placing them in a good pattern (especially at narrow points, and especially if you can't boost around); and it is very good at area denial.
At the same time, I would argue that alchemer switch-shot is not spam, also by these subjective measures: it is not that easy to maintain a stream of fire (especially considering you have to aim well); there are good counters such as lunging weapons that close the distance; and lastly it is not a magic bullet for some aspect of the game.

To cite a different example, Peach and Roy from SSBM have powerful smashes that are easy to "spam": it doesn't take much skill to mash a C-stick; dodging or shielding requires good timing; and the attacks do lots of damage. Novice players are easily frustrated by this sort of low-effort, high-reward move, but as you become more skilled, you get better at dodging and countering, taking advantage of the weaknesses of these moves (and characters in general).

Skill certainly does exist in SK, and that's abundantly obvious as soon as you try a non-aggressive role. As a pure haze bomber, I can pick out the good players far faster than I would be able to if I was just running around looking for someone to shoot at. Fact is, even when people have the exact same gear, you can see people operate completely differently and the skill in the players becomes apparent. I know which players I can troll with hazes and protect CPs against and I know which ones I simply can't survive against on my own, even when they're all geared the same (and to me, damage, defences etc are all irrelevant; I die in two hits regardless). Gear has nothing to do with that, as the skilled players have used any number of weapons.

Although I do agree that saying people are spamming/OP/unskilled purely because they used skolver/teethpick, it's not what's intended (for the most part on this thread (or at least by myself)), as there is an element of the good weapons being used because they're good, and "spam" is just a word that's thrown around. It all depends on how you define it. As Mohander said, polaris could be spam but he feels that alch-switching isn't. Arguably, alch-switching is spam too, as (by definition) they're shooting the guns faster than they should be able to; i.e, spamming them, whereas non-switchers have to deal with the 2-clip and reload, which could thereby argue that that's the legitimate, non-spamming way to do it. Similarly, when I switch between alch-polaris to shoot, is that spam, or is it spam when I only use polaris?

Fact is, most people just scream spam when they don't like what's happening or feel defeated. The best players out there won't be stopped by spam, and the worst players won't be able to beat you whether you spam or not. It's just an excuse, so ultimately whether something is spam or not...honestly, it's irrelevant.

It's small things really. Common sense and preparation will have a lot to do with it certainly, but it's just a style from watching. Go around and haze-protect CPs (with no intention to kill or anything, purely defensive) and you'll see people who are otherwise good at killing, but can't get to you, and then you'll get some players who just mow you down anyways. This is especially apparent when you have people with you and you all wind up dead. That's always a sad day :(

Some people call you a noob because they don't have a weapon that you have. They are competitive and they tease you if they kill you. That's annoying. I kill them with my rocket hammer and they rage at me for no reason. It's pathetic. I said they were jealous and said they were jealous of pixels. How stupid of those noobs. They threatened me that if I don't give every weapon (except proto) to him, I will be reported to Spiral knights for cheating, and they don't understand anything about the rules. I letted them report me and nothing happened. They kept giving me threats and they said I should give up, give all my stuff to them and die. It was so mean so I reported them and it said they left. It probably means that a GM took care of them and banned them for being rude and offensive. I never cared about them

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As far as i know Alchemer gunning is not spam
You need a specific amount of skill to actually HIT someone with it
and its only the charge that is threatening
so i don't really think Alchemer gunning is spam
What really is spam in pollaris spam
every time i try and capture a point in T3 LD there almost always seem to be
someone spamming away in my particular direction.
That's true spam.