Guild Wars 2

‘’Domination – Power Block – Enemy skills interrupted increases the cooldown of the interrupted skill by 10 seconds’’

I’ve really been thinking about this and at almost every situation I feel it very underestimating.
As we’re talking about, this trait only has effect with interrupting skills that require casting time. Channeling skills, auto attack and instant cast skills are not being affected by this trait.
With this in mind we gotta figure out which skills are still able to interrupt and actually make difference if you give it 5 seconds longer cd.

This mainly affects the #6 healing. Now most prof use these healings:
X Elementalist: Ether Renewal -> channeling skill, not affected
X Warrior: Healing signet -> passive healing, not affected
Ranger: Pretty much all 3 skills are being used and possible to interrupt -> affected
X Guardian: None of these skills are affected
Mesmer: Ether fast -> affected
Necromancer -> consume conditions -> affected
Engineer -> healing turret, hard to interrupt but affected
Thief -> most thieves use withdraw which isn’t affected, but I guess some still use hide in shaddow which is affected so I guess 50/50

That means 3 (I’d say 4 with thief) out of 8 is already crossed off the list with interrupting the most important skill.

Apart from that, 50% of the time when you interrupt someone’s healing he goes already down within those 5 seconds. Adding another 5 seconds is not gonna affect that.

As for other ‘’game changing’’ skills, I’d say interrupting an elite can change the game or a condition removal. Though when you look up those skills it’s either instant cast or it’s hard to interrupt.

As for thief: If you look up their skills, it’s almost impossible to actually interrupt a skill besides HS. And evne if you do, thief doesn’t have cooldown’s so this trait is 100% kitten against thieves, which is one of mesmer’s biggest thread in tpvp right now as far as I’m concerned.

Elementalist-> Skills to interrupt that do affect this trait:
Staff :
Flame burst (not worth interrupting & hard to interrupt)
Ice spike (not worth interrupting)
geyser
healing rain
lightning surge (maybe worth it)
gust (almost impossible to interrupt)
static field
eruption (not worth to interrupt)
unsteady ground (hard but worth)
shockwave
Though staff ele isnt really what you’re gonna fight, it got some potential skills to turn the fight such as healing rain and geyser. But like I mentioned, this trait isn’t really affecting your way of winning anyhow. Most eles run with armor of earth and usually activate it when they want to heal up.

Scepter:
Dragon’s tooth
Phoenix
Shatterstone
Water trident
Rock barrier
Dust devil

Pretty much only water trident, rock barrier or phoenix would be worth interrupting. Though water trident and phoenix are both pretty hard to interrupt and are often used either outside of combat, or when you are CCed.

Dagger:
Ring of fire
Fire grab
Frozen burst
Cleansing Wave
Lightning touch
Ring of earth
Magnetic Grasp
Earthquake
Churning earth (only first 0.45 sec or so)

Ring of fire, fire grab, cleansing wave and earthquake would be the only skills that are worth interrupting. Though Ring of fire is really low casting time so guess fire grab and cleansing wave are only 2 to be worth interrupting vs a D/D ele.

Focus:
Flamewall
Freezing Gust
Comet
Swirling Winds
Gale

Focus is hard to interrupt cause of obsidian flesh. If he doesn’t got that on then I’d say Gale and Coment only worth interrupting. These are the only 2 skills worth interrupting vs a D/F ele.

Utility:
None

Elite:
All
As for elite’s I guess interrupting those are always really nice, but you won’t see them really often uesd in combat.

Conclusing of the elementalist:
Very underwhelming. This trait wont do a lot vs ele’s as they got lot’s of instant cast and channeling skills. Around 50% of the skills that are worth interrupting are also barely seen in pvp and often used out of combat or while having any CC immunity on.

Warrior
Greatsword:
Arcing Slice
Bladetrail
Er… yeah let’s move on

Hammer
Earthshaker
Fierce blow
Hammer shock
Staggering Blow
Backbreaker

Earthshaker 100% worth, same goes for Staggering blow and backbreaker. Staggering blow is quite hard to interrupt but possible.

Longbow:
Combustive Shot
Fan of fire
Arcing Arrow
Smoldering Arrow
Pin Down

Depending on situation, but pin down, combustive shot and arcing arrow are sure worth interrupting. Pin down will also be much easier to interrupt next patch.

Riffle:
Kill Shot
Bleeding shot
Aimed Shot
Brutal Shot
Riffle Butt

Only kill shot tbh.

Axe, mace and sword:
Eviscerate
Cyclone Axe
Throw Axe
Dual Strike
Skull crack
Crushing blow
Tremor
Savage leap
Final Thrust
Impale

Out of all skills, I would only probably find it worth interrupting impale, eviscerate, tremor and skull crack. Probably impale is only worth interrupting if the warrior is condition spec.

Shield & warhorn:
Shield Bash
Charge
Call to arms

Shield bash maybe worth interupting, but also easy to dodge so ye..

Utility:
Bull’s charge
Kick
Stomp
Trow Bolas

Elite:
All

My opinion on warrior: Warrior is very stability-heavy specced usually and there are not many skills that are really game-changing if they are on 5 seconds longer CD. More skills to interrupt than elementalist and sure this trait works better vs warriors, but wouldn’t say it’s worth more than deceptive evasion or chaotic interruption.

Ranger:
I’m not really sure what to think of ranger’s current state atm and especially don’t feel like this trait is gonna be really effective vs them, but I’ll do my best shot:

Greatsword:
Maul
Swoop
Hilt bash

Only skill worth interrupting would be hilt bash. Maybe swoop if the enemy runs away.

Longbow:
Point blank shot
Well erm, if you can interrupt would be nice, but not really that worth it.

Shortbow:
Poison volley
Concussion Shot
Eh well, 0.25sec casting time good luck. Concussion shot if you can but not worth it imo.

Sword- Axe:
(hornet sting??)
Monarch’s Leap
Serpent’s Strike (Only 0.25sec time to interrupt since 0.75 sec evade)
Splitblade
Winter’s Bite
Path of Scars

Truely, maybe #2 would be a bit worth to evade if possible, but don’t think that would be game-changing.

Dagger-torch-warhorn
Stalker’s strike
Crippling Talon
Trow Torch
Bonfire
Hunter’s Call
Call of the wild

Hm… Depending how much dmg hunter’s call does, i guess worth interrupting. Same goes for call of the wild if you want to prevent going more dps with the boons.

Utility:
All spirits

Elite:
All

My opinion on ranger: Probably only worth to interrupt are the spirits, which are usually summoned already, the elite, which is usually hard to notice and most important one the healing of the ranger. Pretty much none of the weapon skills are worth putting interrupts in. I can see some potential in TPvP for this trait against spirit rangers, but only when the spirits are dead.

Guardian
Guardian relies a lot on blocks and CC immunity’s. This makes it hard to interrupt skills and will mostly go along with interrupting only a few weapon skills.

Greatsword:
Leap of Faith
Symbol of Wrath
Blinding blade
I guess Leap of faith is good to interrupt if you’re fast enough. Dodging this isnt too hard tbh and not really game changing. Binding blade is more worth it to interrupt.

Hammer:
Mighty blow
Zealot’s Embrace
Banish
ring of Warding

Ring of warding 100% worth interrupting if you can notice that soon enough. Hard to spot but a very situational skill, so if you interrupt it when the guardian is close to you it’s really worth it.

Staff:
Orb of light
Symbol of swiftness
Line of warding
Line of warding is worth interrupting but also easy to evade so not 100%.

Mace-Scepter-Sword:
Symbol of faith
Smite
Chains of light
Zealot’s Defense
Smite and chains of light are sure worth interrupting if possible. Both are very hard to spot and often used with the meditation guardian, which uses a lot blinds so it makes it hard for you to interrupt. Better to spam your evade imo at start if you see a guardian comming onto you with scepter.

Focus-Shield-Torch:
Ray of judgement
Shield of judgement

Hm… maybe shield of judgement but not 100% behind that.

Utility:
Hallowed Ground, purging flames, sanctuary

Elite: Books if possible

My opinion on guardian is that it is hard to interrupt the guardian and also that the trait isn’t really affecting guardian really much.

Mesmer:
Mesmer is one of the classes that I would assign as being most rewarded to use this trait against. Funny though, cause mesmer is the profession using the trait himself.

Greatsword:
Mirror Blade
Mind Stab
I-Berserker
I-Wave
Pretty much all skills are worth interrupting besides mind stab. I’d say I-Berserker is best to interrupt out of all.

Staff:
I-Warlock
Chaos Storm
Both are worth interrupting with this trait as chaos storm is a really strong skill. However, it does got a 0.25 sec casting time so good luck with that…

Scepter- Sword
None at scepter
I-leap
Not often interrupted and hard to interrupt as it is usually used when out of sight (stealth etc)

Focus – Pistol – Torch
Temporal Curtain
I- Wardeen
I-Duelist
Magic Bullet
I-Mage

I-duelist and magic bullet would be only skill worth interrupting. Temporal curtain got 0.25 sec casting time so that’s a no go for the amount of risk you would take with trying that.

Utility’s:
Mantra’s (when charging), & some 0.25 sec casting time skills but too much risk Imo. Interrupting veil, arcane thievery or signet of domination would be boss though.

Elite:
Moa & Mass invis.

My opinion on mesmer: Like I said before, lots of skills to interrupt combined with the trait. Only downside is that usually the mantra’s are already charged before combat. Interrupting healing vs mesmer is crucial already. Another 5 sec is almost 100% win.

Necromancer:
Mostly the skills you interrupt vs necro’s are channeling skills or healing skills. The trait only works vs the healing too bad.

Death shroud:
Dark path
Tainted Shackles(?)
Not 100% sure if you can interrupt tainted shackles. Really short casting time so hard to interrupt if possible. Dark path is worth interrupting.

Staff:
Mark of blood
Chilblains
Putrid Mark
Reaper’s Mark
All marks are worth interrupting… however usually the necro doesnt stay in staff anyway after the cast, so if he has 5 or 10 sec cd on it won’t change much I think.. It’s impossible to see which mark the necro is casting.

Axe – Scepter
Unholy Feast
Grasping dead
Feast of corruption
Unholy feast and grasping dead are maybe worth interrupting if you can spot them good enough.

Dagger:
Dark pact
Deathly swarm
Enfeebling blood
Probably dark pact is only worth interrupting

Focus – Warhorn
Reaper’s touch
Spinal Shivers
Wail of doom
Locust Swarm
Spinal shivers and wail of doom 100% worth interrupting. Especially with VIII trait in chaos you have lots of boons and you dont want them gone.

Utility’s:
All wells if possible (0.25 sec casting time)

Elites:
Flesh golem

My opinion of necromancer: Again, only worth to interrupt healing with this trait pretty much. Especially if you fight as condition spec. Just hope he doesnt transfer them back! Trait impression: unimpressed so far

Engineer:
I’m no engi expert so this is gonna be a tough one but I’ll try my best:

Riffle:
Blunderbuss
Jump shot
Both have short casting time and hard to interrupt. Jump shot would be pretty worth it.

Pistol:
Blowtorch
Glueshot
Meh pretty kitten. I wonder why static shot is 0 sec casting time?

Shield:
Throw shield: I guess worth it a bit.

Utility’s:
Bomb kit:
Fire bomb
Concussion Bomb
Smoke Bomb
Glue bomb
You mainly wanna interrupt or evade the concussion bomb.

Grenade kit:
Sharpnel Grenade
Flash Grenade
Freeze Grenade
Poison Grenade
You mainly wanna interrupt freeze grenade or the poison one.

Tool Kit:
Box of nails
Pry Bar
You really wanna interrupt pry bar if you get pulled or if the engi is close.

Elite:
All, especially supply crate

My opinion on engi: Most healings are able to interrupt, but pretty hard sometimes. Not many skills that are easy to itnerrupt which work with the trait. Again this trait wouldn’t be super good vs engi.

Thief
My favorite class to review with this trait! Why? Because thief is pretty much immune against the trait. The only way you would affect thief with this is to interrupt:

Basilisks venom
Shadow refuge (Short casting time, almost impossible)
Hide in shaddows.
Caltrops
Thieves guild

All are worth interrupting, but not all are used as there are 2 elites in this list and 2 ’’utility’s’’ who are also not really much used anymore.

Thief is kittened to be immune vs this trait. Imo they should lose 3-4 initive points when being interrupted with the trait or also get cooldown of 5/10 seconds on that skill.

So why did I just waste so much time figuring out what affected the trait? Well simpily because I think the trait is underpowered. It mostly only affects healings and even then its only 50% of the classes that can get interupted on their healing kinda. The trait should be much stronger and is totally not in line with chaotic interruption. Most skills i’ve mentioned above are not even the best skills to interrupt, which brings you to the dilema: interrupt this skill and gain profit from the trait, or interrupt a much more important skill and don’t gain profit from the trait?

Eventhough this would come out maybe pretty kittened strong, I would like to see that the trait does it so that every skill that get’s interrupted will get a cooldown of +5 seconds cooldown. This means if your #1 gets interrupted, it will get a 5 seconds cooldown, but if your #2 gets interrupted, it will have a 10 sec cooldown and if channeling skills gets interrupted it will go on full cooldown or full cooldown +5 seconds.

Mesmer used to be the prof that punished people by spamming 1 with the confusion damage. That system worked maybe not optimal, but it sure punished skill spammers. This trait can cause the same, but without kittened damage.

I’ve seen some ppl talk about this trait + Chill to make it so that their healing will go on a 16.7 sec cooldown instead of 10 seconds, though I don’t really see how giving up so much will come out better than a build who doesn’t use power lock.

I hope you could get somewhat through the post and hope to see what point I’m trying to make about the trait and mesmer’s gameplay overall these days.

I am ignorant, but why do you say it only has effect with interrupting skills that require casting time? Where is it written?

Not worth dropping DE or CI for this trait. I knew it wasn’t going to be anything game changing when they (indirectly) stated it wouldn’t affect thief weapon skills.

trooper.2650:

I am ignorant, but why do you say it only has effect with interrupting skills that require casting time? Where is it written?

Channeled skills go on full cooldown when they’re interrupted, so power lock essentially does nothing. Instant casts can’t be interrupted.

trooper.2650:

I am ignorant, but why do you say it only has effect with interrupting skills that require casting time? Where is it written?

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/traits-unleashed-forty-new-traits-and-more/

‘’This will not affect skills that have no recharge, but I’d imagine that stopping a necromancer from consuming conditions would surely put a nail in their coffin.’’

Problem is, interrupting that healing was already good with 5 seconds cooldown and mostly already ‘’put a nail in their coffin’’. Extra 5 seconds instead of DE or CI is far from worth it. This trait is worth the 25 minor trait or a Adept trait in domination.

Lockdown is already underpowered in anything besides 1v1, all these changes they gonna bring up is not really gonna increase the viability of lockdown, but only the build diversity of builds that are not in the meta.

I believe that it is underestimated. Yes we will be losing DE but it might not be that much of a game changer to cry over it. The theoretical reasons for not taking it might not hold water to actual having it and losing DE.

@BlackDevil, I do like what you have written. It makes you think from a practical point how good/bad this new GM trait could be against other class, but we don’t really know until trying it.

It could be that it will be implemented they way you have said it, but till live, we wont know.

I will be testing it when it come out in PVP and see how it plays.

Planning on going with a combination of Power build/Power lock and lock down

Thanks Doiid for typing this all up. People need to realize that while the trait sounds incredible on paper, it will be pointless against many skills where CI still sees some benefit. Power Lock will be fun to test, but right now I only see mesmers taking this when they run an all-out lockdown of 6/4/6/0/0.

The interrupt/initiative issues with thieves just makes the trait that much worse. Thieves should always lose initiative equal to the cost of the skill when interrupted, and double the initiative lost when interrupted with Power Block (in lieu of putting their weapon skills on interrupt cd).

That was an impressively long post. I’ll give you a bit of a fit to back through all that when I say this, but here you go:

Through testing, I’ve determined it is not effectively possible to skillfully interrupt a skill that has lower than 3/4 second cast time. 3/4 second is hard but doable depending on cast animation.

Many of the skills you have listed there are not effectively interruptable.

Pyroathiest.4168:

That was an impressively long post. I’ll give you a bit of a fit to back through all that when I say this, but here you go:

Through testing, I’ve determined it is not effectively possible to skillfully interrupt a skill that has lower than 3/4 second cast time. 3/4 second is hard but doable depending on cast animation.

Many of the skills you have listed there are not effectively interruptable.

Well there are more factors that rely on that. Such as certain combinations. Do you see the player chain his rotation? Even then you could, with some luck…, interrupt a 1/4 sec casting time skill.
Also, animation of a skill really helps. Some skills just don’t even have any antimation lol.
Guess if I had time I could determine which skills are able to get interrupted, but atm I’m a bit busy with my study. x.x

On reaction yeah, but -and this is something I gotta make sure to add to the lockdown guide- there is a way to tell when the person is about to cast, and preemptively interrupt. Usually, someone will start casting within a second after bring dazed/CC’d, you can time your interrupts for that moment and stop them without even having to know what they were about to cast.

This isn’t the same as “spamming” interrupts, because there’s a specific timing and technique to it, but it’s usually effective for stopping .5 and even .25 second casts times.

@BlackDevil: This analysis really makes me look again at Power Block and doubt it’ll outshine CI. I still do think it will be an effective trait, but mayyybe not so grandmaster worthy due to the nature of how skills work in the game. It’ll also be a big help to reference to when working on the lockdown guide.

In one of the SpvP threads: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Kill-3-Birds-With-1-Stone-Power-Block/first#post3850892 someone suggested to put Power Lock in the inspiration tree.

Your opinions on that?

I think it would be a terrible idea because we also have SC Confunding Suggestions.

If we had access to both CS and PL we could spec for 6/x/x/6/x so we’d have 25% longer dazes, 50% chance to turn a daze into a stun AND put the CD of an interrupted skill on 10sec. I think that would be too much even if PL is not that powerful if used alone.

And what I’m wondering about is that this trait has no internal CD which means if I cast a chaos storm in a bunch of enemies that are fighting on a point I will approximately interrupt everyone one or two times. So in the best case I put two skills of each on 10sec CD which is extremely strong – so maybe Anet will give it an internal CD of 5sec or 10sec so it’s not that OP.

But I’ll definitely try some build ideas with PL.

Yunalesca.9850:

In one of the SpvP threads: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Kill-3-Birds-With-1-Stone-Power-Block/first#post3850892 someone suggested to put Power Lock in the inspiration tree.

Your opinions on that?

That is quite some selective reading you have done there.

The person was suggesting an alternate trait for Inspiration whereas the changed Power Lock proposed by the OP could take this place. They were talking about Power Lock shutting down Signets.

A trait shutting down Signets on interrupts is a very interesting design. I personally wouldn’t pick it, though, Its use is way too niche. It basically counters Healing Signet. Outside of that, I can only think of view classes which actually use Signets frequently. Some Necromancers to transfer conditions. Sometimes Rangers but their Signet effects are not that important to me that I’d shut them down.

Regarding Power Lock, being moved to Inspiration doesn’t make any sense to me themewise. Domination is about lock down. Not Inspiration. However, I do not share your concerns towards a theoretical 30/x/x/30/x build. There literally is no synergy between Power Lock and Confounding Suggestions.

Regarding Chaos Storm… well… it will be nice with Power Lock. The question is if it actually is effective. You can interrupt skills which don’t have any cooldown so Power Lock won’t kick in. You can interrupt skills which are unimportant which means that Power Lock might kick in but won’t benefit you. The thing is that we already got kitten cooldown when interrupted. I’m at a point where I’m not sure that the additional 5s will make a significant difference in practice.

Xaylin.1860:

That is quite some selective reading you have done there.

Well, I main only mesmer and play mainly pvp so there aren’t that much interesting threads out here but everything with interrupt and possible new play stiles catches my interest. ^^

Regarding the interrupt in general, we get more benefits from traits regarding interrupts e.g. Bountiful Interruption, Chaotic Interruption, Illusion of Vulnerability and damage from Halting Strike. How long the CD of the skill after the interrupt is, is not the main reason we’re using interrupts.
So I guess you’re right when you say that 5s more CD make a significant difference.

Another personal question a bit off topic since here are so many lockdown-experienced players here : I like the idea of Imbued Diversion a lot but does it only sound nice? I played a 30/10/0/0/30 build with CS, ID and Staff and had a lot of fun dazing and stunning three enemies at one point and my team mates finished them off. But is it viable or only fun for me?

Thanks in advance and I guess we have to wait and see till the patch is up.

Regarding to the inspiration question: no it would not. You’re overseeing things. Daze extra duration goes together with the interrupt cooldown. This means that the longer your dazes or stun’s last, the ‘’less effective’’ your power block will be.

As for the 30-10-0-0-30 build, how would you describe this more effective than the 30-10-30-0-0 build? I can somewhat imagine the build being ’’effective’’ with solier amulet, but then again your damage will be kitten. If you would run this spec with zerker amulet I can imagine dieing in seconds as you have barely any survivability.

Though it’s sure something to look for, but if it’s much more effective than the current immobilizes you can do with IC? Doubt it.

Not to mention 30 into Illusions means you’re relying on shatters to do a good portion of your damage, but also having terribad clone generation due to lack of Deceptive Evasion.