+1 to the above. Sounds like you were fine. You went to AoE when it was suggested, thats almost all you can do at that level. If youre mathematically inclined, you could take a couple mins and break down how much potency you get spamming doom spike(while making sure to keep heavy thrust on) on groups of say 2-6 enemies versus how much potency your combo attacks would do to a single target. That would arm you with the exact knowledge of when its better to whip out the spike versus running through all your skills. But yeah, just the fact that you cared/were curious enough to come ask tells me in the long run you should be fine.