Guild Wars 2

I haven’t read this whole post… Since reasons to play lockdown are covered, lets start looking at how-to strategies.

Recap- basically interrupts/lockdown is based on traits, situational, and with a different playstyle maybe as an ‘add-on’ to shatter or phantasm. Both Confounding Suggestions and Chaotic Interruption have similar results and seem to me the only effective lockdown. There have been many great descriptions of mesmer skills and their uses for interrupting. Blah blah blah.

I would like to propose making a list of skills and situations to cause an interrupt… This is because, in my experience, lockdown is only possible if the player (not character) is disoriented “2) They Never See It Coming” from linked thread. Oh yeah its great when the player stops for 1-2s and you can practically see the thought cloud “WTF!” But comparing lockdown in GW1 vs GW2 there is a huge difference. So whadda ya think? Skills to interrupt categories: best results, easiest, by class, situational, etc…

So far my favorite fights are power necros and anything with a hammer, they are just too much fun to watch stutter.

Necro:
death shroud – Life Transfer
axe – Ghastly Claws
dagger – Life Siphon

Hammer:
Guard – Mighty Blow, maybe Banish or Symbol of Protection
War – Earthshaker and Backbreaker

Situationally:
MoDistraction is great for small fights and reviving an downed ally since you can use mantras during an action. Interrupt that guardian getting ready to Banish you to the other side of the map.

Hm, well lets break down interrupts and lockdown.

LOCKDOWN Denying the opponent

Chill (Movement cut by 66% / Skills take 66% longer to recharge) Chill makes it so that interrupting the opponent is even MORE punishing, pushing the 5 second cooldown somewhere around 8 seconds. Good for interrupting heals making long cooldown skills (like warrior stances or profession elites) take longer to recharge, also good for denying enemy escapes.

• Combos with: Temporal Curtain, iWarden, iWarlock, iLeap/Swap, Chaos Storm

• Sigils of Hydromancy and Runes of Grenth offer easy access to AoE chill

POISON (DoT and cuts heals by 33%) Poison is a direct counter to heals. This includes active heals, passive healing (Warriors/Guardians), and Rezzing.

• Mesmers only have access to poison through Chaos Storm, but Sigils of Doom can be an excellent source of poison.

WEAKNESS (Endurance -Dodge Meter- cut by 50%, all attacks have a 50% change to do half damage) Weakness is very strong when used properly. It both cuts damage and dodge rate, thus being useful both offensively AND defensively.

• Debilitating Dissipation (Chaos V) is an excellent source of AoE Weakness when combined with Deceptive Evasion. It makes for a great counter vs Melee classes. Blackwater Mesmer is a perfect example of how powerful Debilitating can be.

CONFUSION Punishes the opponent for each attack they do. High stacks of confusion forces the opponent to either cleanse or attack at a slower rate.

IMMOBILIZE pretty self explanatory. Dat iLeap.

TORMENT Damages stationary foes and double damages moving foes. Especially powerful in condition builds since smart opponents are forced to stand still if they can’t cleanse.

BLIND The next attack Misses. Pretty self explanatory but the best forms of obtaining it are either through traited glamours, Scepter 2, or Chaos Armor.

REFLECTS Sends projectiles back to their source. This is a very important form of lockdown as projectiles are a very common form of attack. Once you’re out of melee-range the opponent has very few options besides shooting you or attempting an obnoxious AoE.

BOON RIPPING The bane of many classes, especially Warriors and Guardians who rely on stability, protection, and fury. Mesmers have some of the best boonripping in the game either through Shatters (Shattered Concentration, Dom VII) or utilities (iDisenchanter, Null Field, Arcane Thievery).

DAZE Opponent can’t attack, but can move and dodge Mesmers can chain daze fairly easily once equipping Mantra of Distraction and if wielding a Focus, Pistol, Greatsword, or Staff.

LOCKDOWN SKILLS
Chaos Storm (Staff 5)
Chaos Armor (Staff 4)
Temporal Curtain (Focus 4)
iWarden (Focus 5
Counter Blade (Sword 4)
iCounter (Scepter 2)
Illusionary Wave (Greatsword 5)
Magic Bullet (Pistol 5)
Mantra of Distraction

INTERRUPTS
Interrupts are a bit different. Interrupts rely on you preemptively knowing what your opponent is going to do. This can be achieved by either setting them up (stand at a certain range from a hammer warrior, you know he’s gonna leap to close the distance / cut someone down to 50% life you know they’re going to be healing soon) or agressively chaining lockdown to force them to try and squeeze a skill through… or getting lucky, of course.

• Of all the interrupt skills, Halting Strike & Bountiful Interruption are the easiest to obtain and see rewards from

Will also paste this.. maybe it’s time to bump that other thread.

HOW TO MAKE OTHER CLASSES HATE YOU

• Guardians and Warriors hate… Boon removal & Clone deaths.
  Guardians and Warriors thrive on boons such as Protection, Stability, and Fury for both doing damage and survival. A Warrior without Stability, or a Guardian without Protection can end up being a hilariously easy kill. Many of these soldiers also are at their best while in melee. Clone-death traits makes it difficult for them to attack you in melee without risking being crippled/weakness, effectively making them.. well, suck.

• Rangers and Engineers hate… Reflection & Arcane Thievery.
  Pretty self-explainatory, but not always a constant rule. Reflection shuts down a huge majority of what Rangers and Engineers can do for damage and throws it right back in their faces. Feedback and traited Focus together can really shut these classes out of a fight for a bit. Arcane Thievery works well against a few boon-stacking specs, such as the HGH Might-stacking Engineer and Vigor/Regen-stacking Rangers.

• Thieves and Elementalists hate… Halting Strike & Chaotic Interruption.
  Thieves and Elementalists both have very low base HP, and thus are classes that must maintain their mobility in order to be effective. Elementalists are very succeptable to interrupts, and Halting Strike hits them very hard due to their low armor. Chaotic Interruption deserves mention here because all of the conditions it applies can really ruin these squishy opponents’ day. Mantra of Distraction with Halting Strike hurts Eles particularly hard since their heals are rather easy to interrupt and Halting Strike can very easily finish them off. In my experience, certain Thief-specs are very interruptable as well, but I don’t play Thief well enough to be able to explain how/why.

• Necromancer hate… Mantra of Distraction & Boon Removal.
  Have you ever seen a Necromancer go Lich/Plague form only to have their long-lasting Stability get ripped off them by a crafty Mesmer? It’s hilarious. Suddenly that giant lich is getting yanked left & right, dazed and stunned, and is nothing but a big green target for everyone else. Serves them right for flaunting those incredible glowing 6-pack abs liches have for.. whatever reason. When they’re not using wells or Staff, Necromancer are actually rather easy to interrupt.

• Mesmer hate… Condition Damage.
  I’ll be honest.. There’s no one particular way to keep a Mesmer locked down. Too many teleports and stealths for that pathetic nonsense that those other inferior pedestrian classes can’t hand-…er, Mesmer fanboyism leaking in. Apologies. Anyways, while Mesmer are resiliant to hard CC (stuns, dazes, ect.) conditions tend to screw us over sideways with no lubricant. Most Mesmer carry only one form of condition removal, and that tends to be either on a long cooldown (Null Field) or tied to some silly stipulation (Arcane Thievery needs a target / iDisenchanter can be destroyed/shattered ). Condition damage and condition debilitations are the best way to take down a slippery Mesmer.

You could have just linked to that other post… but w/e thats my preference. (may want to update that mesmers hate conditions, 10 points in inspiration and MoRecovery is great). Great overview though. Thanks for helping me clarify the discussion.

Ok… clarification, lets stick to interrupts. Daze, stun, daze + immobilize, knockbacks/pulls, are the results I’m talking about. The conditions and boons: poison, weakness, confusion, torment, retaliation; along with boon ripping and reflection are great but IMO not lockdown. You can argue that reflect is such a skill but it is only useful on ranged opponents. Blindness and aegis likewise only works for attacks, not heals or other utilities. Chill is similar but still allows for skill use & movement.

Effects that result in not being able to use a skill(s) and/or preventing movement.

So similar to your adventures into wvw and portal use ChaosA. Lets get some typical uses and tricks for interrupts. Which skills, when, why…

Gotcha. I had figured this was more of an in-depth thread than the general guide I’d posted, which is why I hadn’t linked it and only pasted in that second part (the first part I wrote on my lunch break just now. Since I’m back at work I can’t write as much as I’d like)

The thing about the conditions is that they ARE lockdown and are important to a lockdown build, but you’re right that they’re different. Conditions are what’s considered a “soft lockdown” while it doesn’t prevent skill use it does make it either more difficult to impossible to use certain skills. This is why Debilitation Dissipation is so good, AoE Weakness can be devastating to an enemy team; stopping their skills for a lil while is one thing, but cutting damage from a burst in half (like a shatter Mesmer with weakness) means that you essentially negated their attempt AND put their skill on a full cooldown. Reflects, while situation, in some cases are BETTER than dazes, I’d rather reflect a killshot than interrupt it.

Shall happily contribute more when I get more writing time, I see this thread becoming a good source of combined wisdom/experiences.

Ah, this vid, and it’s breakdown, may also help. Alissah dueling with Mind Crush and explaining her mentality. (Btw Dekk if this is too much, please let me know and I’ll happily remove it and just post a link)

• Mantra Chargnig: 0:47 – Charge Mantras before the fight

• Doing Damage: 1:46 – Both Phantasms AND Shatters contribute to damage.

• Safely Landing iCounter: 2:13 – When you know you’re going to counter an attack, use Daze Mantra as the counter animation starts to keep yourself safe (and stun the enemy if you’re lucky). Note: Alissah did not do this here, but she should’ve. She would’ve both nailed an interrupt (Halting Strike) and heavy damage from the counter. =P

• Mind Crush at it’s Best!: 3:04 – Example of perfect use of Mind Crush’s abilities to dominate an opponent. She gains combat advantage with stealth, counts his dodges, hits him with heavy damage with a smooth combination of shatters and Phantasms, and interrupts his heal attempt. (Note: Halting Strike hits the Thief for a beastly 3297 damage when Alissah interrupts his heal thanks to the high Vulnerability stacks from dazes)

• Stealth for Initiative: 3:53 – Gain advantage by starting a fight summoning a phantasm and dazing the opponent (Mantra) at the same time.

• Stealth beats stealth: 4:20 – Counter stealth with, uh.. stealth.

• Stack Vuln .. Like a BOSS: 5:18 – Perfect example of how quickly and easily you can stack 20+ Vulnerability on a target.

• Staff Contributing to Damage: 6:12 – Using interrupts properly, even the Staff can contribute significant damage via Chaos Storm and iWarlock.

• What not to Do: 7:30 – Errors and mistakes using the build

8:58 – Mind Crush vs Shatter Heavy

10:45 – Mind Crush vs Shatter Heavy – Epic Round 2.

(Alissah) Its pretty complete, but here are some things I would add:

2:13 I like playing it safe, which means safing my defensive skills for later if I need them. The distraction mantra kind of falls under defensive skills :P. I didn’t know what to expect, so I wanted to save it for later.
Also, If the daze didn’t turn into a stun, he still would’ve dodged my riposte :O. I’m not a fan of RNG :P.

6:38: I share my 2 golden rules, essential to learning the art of Warrior trolling.

6:45: When a hammer warrior pops signet of fury or Berserker Stance just before engaging, chances are they will start with earthshaker. A simple Riposte will throw them off (although not in this case, because he used the rare signet of might).

7:15: I try to use the Domination Signet defensively, but the 0.25 second cast time was enough to make it fail. (consider this when choosing between the signet and Distraction Mantra)

9:25: An example of Illusonary Riposte’s multiple uses. I wanted to block Gooqle’s melee attack for high damage, but he created too much distance, so I used counterblade instead (and got an interupt by accident!).

10:10: Always try to get as many illusions out before using ether feast, Phase Retreat is perfect for this!

11:50: Spam your Phantasmal Swordsman, just do it. Here I missed the opportunity and swapped to staff instead of summoning it, It may have been the difference between victory and draw.[/quote]

From playing an interrupt build for the past month I am quite certain there are more tricks out there. Just thought it would be helpful to start a discussion and maybe be able to compile a list later… Can be build specific, techniques, rotations, when to play defensive or offensive. Videos are great!

So far my favorite thing to do is to immobilize someone for a really, really long time. Once while roaming I used G5 on someone, then MoD and then Iswap. With 100% condi duration, that was a total of 12 seconds. I felt bad for them. It’s also really fun to use AoE interrupts like Illusionary wave, Temporal Curtain, sword 4, Staff 5, etc on a zerg and see them pause for 4 seconds.

GS5: Illusionary Wave for that pesky thief using Shadow Refuge