Curse

Fantras · Jun 22, 2005, 07:52 AM // 07:52

How do you time and interrupt healing spells? I have tried, but I always miss. As soon as I see the symbol show up underneat the monk, I hit powerspike or whatever, but it never interrupts. What am I doing wrong?

Mercury Angel · Jun 22, 2005, 08:18 AM // 08:18

Unlike monsters in the game, I doubt you or anyone else will ever be able to INTENTIONALLY tag specific one second skills.
That is, see a certain skill, such as Word of Healing and then interrupt it.

They click to use it, it sends the message to the server, the server makes them use it and tells all of the clients that, and it displays the skill. Then you have to see the skill, think, and react. Since the information isn't instantly processed in any of the above, it's unlikely you'll complete all of that in one second. The time it takes for your computer to take and display the information, the time it takes for you to see it, interpret it in your head, and then will your finger to click the button. Not going to happen. There's some related information regarding braking your car in response to an emergency.

That being said, play some other characters and learn their skills if you haven't already. Remember the animations for the spells which you can interrupt, and which you NEED to interrupt. Then when you see them start casting, you can tag them.
Know that there's a .75 second aftercast when they DO use spells. If it's a monk, and their allies are injured, they will most likely heal them. If they've already healed, wait and try to time it right after the after cast to tag their skill. Most importantly, if they've just cast a spell, then you can't interrupt anything because they can't cast anything until that effect is gone.
Know the situations where they're likely to use certain skills, and try to watch for that situation, or to bring it about, in order to get them to use the skill.
If you still can't get it, use Migraine or Arcane Conundrum to slow them down so that you can interrupt them more easily. Cover it quickly with a less useful hex like Conjure Phantasm. At the least, it'll take 2 hex removals, and the best situation is that they try to remove it themself, especially if they try to use Remove Hex. 4 seconds of casting, doesn't get much easier to tag. (unless it's Restore Life under x2 casting time, for 16 seconds of casting XD)

What I mean is, mesmers aren't JUST a reactive class... They've also got to be a predicative class. You have to be aware of what's going to happen before it happens if you want to use interruptions, for the most part.

Fantras · Jun 22, 2005, 09:20 AM // 09:20

Quote:

If you still can't get it, use Migraine or Arcane Conundrum to slow them down so that you can interrupt them more easily.

Awesome info. Thank you so much.

shawn23233 · Jun 22, 2005, 02:09 PM // 14:09

Some heals are just to fast to be interupted intentionally. You may get a lucky strike in but interupting heals is really not a viable strategy its more of a desperate act. Backfire them and drain there energy, thats a much more effecient way to nullify them. Truth is once you start this on them they usualy start running around and are useless as healers anyway because they are consumed with you instead (and thats really kinda the idea I think).

Most rezzes however seem to be very lengthy affairs and are ALOTTA fun for us interupters LOL.

Epinephrine · Jun 22, 2005, 02:36 PM // 14:36

I hit 1 second spells with some regularity, but I need to be able to concentrate on it - I can't do it while flipping around between targets. Go out in PvE and just work on hitting 1 second spells - you have to target it fast - it has to be nailed very quickly - given the .25 second casting time and some fast casting let's say you have it below .2 seconds; that's .8 seconds to react. Average human reaction time is about .3 seconds, so you have .5 seconds to decide - but the symbol fades in and you have to decide in a small amount of time, plus the ping delay, which could be 100-200 ms, so you have .3 seconds to notice a fairly faint symbol and decide to interrupt it. It can be done - I hit 2 seconds spells with basically 100% success, if I am watching the player, and 1 second spells I can probably hit 50% or maybe more, if I have the luxury of watching for the spell. Faster than 1 second is only hit by luck essentially, or by prediction.

As to the comment about the time to transmit info and all that, have you noticed how much faster you get into a mission with just henchmen compared to with players? I suspect that is part of how mesmers are able to tag anything this way - they allow a time delay to make up for the different timings and to allow info to be sent and received - with only one player in the server doesn't need a delay running to give responses time to come in, so it canstart you right into mission, with a group I suspect it is doing a bit of a juggling act to make certain that everyone is operating on the same timeframe and is able to react to things properly. Just a hunch.

Interregnum · Jun 22, 2005, 06:47 PM // 18:47

Something slightly off topic but you may want to consider is...if the certain heals being cast are too fast to interrupt, then use diversion on them.

This is especially helpful in the last 3 missions where the mursaat monks spam orison almost non-stop. Sure you can pack in 3-4 interrupt skills and nail each one head on...or you can bring a single diversion and disable orison for a full minute.

That's just my experience with a specific example. This also works in other places (like the monk boss/priest combo at the end of thirsty river).

Fantras · Jun 24, 2005, 08:47 AM // 08:47

I am gonna use Arcane Conundrum, Diversion, and Interrupts and see how much pain that throws a healer's way. Wish me luck.

Epinephrine · Jun 24, 2005, 02:16 PM // 14:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fantras

I am gonna use Arcane Conundrum, Diversion, and Interrupts and see how much pain that throws a healer's way. Wish me luck.

You can do that, but you should practice hitting 1 second spells as well. It's a vital skill.

Neo-LD · Jun 24, 2005, 02:23 PM // 14:23

If you watch your intended victim, you can usually get a feel for when he will cast stuff. Also, if your team is unloading everything at one target, you can be sure that te monk is working overtime to heal/protect as fast as possible. Thats a good time to spam interupt on him, you can be sure that you will hit something

grimmolly · Jun 24, 2005, 02:51 PM // 14:51

Off-topic, but when I actually managed to hit a mission boss once with distracting shot while he was using reversal of fortune, the team stopped and a couple folks congratulated me. Sometimes it's just dumb luck and you can even hit a 1/4 second cast when they're spamming it like it's going out of style.

Neo-LD · Jun 24, 2005, 03:32 PM // 15:32

Yea, Distracting Shot has got to be one of the greatest PvP skills in the game. It blows through self healing boss monsters that use troll ungunet, orison of healing,or healing signet. It makes hydras and other elementalist monsters 100% less scary. It is (to my knowledge) the only skill that makes it possible to kill glint with only you and 7 henchies.

Best part is, itss also good in PvP.