Interrupts are hell of annoying

what exactly does the delay do anyway?

Glyph of concentration is your best friend if you're getting interrupted. You could be dazed, with Migraine and Arcane Conundrum on you, with half a dozen rangers spamming interrupts at your rediculously long cast spell, and it's still going to go off.

Obsidian Flesh works too. Death also stops a caster completely and utterly , so maybe it should be 4 (or 5 if Obsidian Flesh isn't the same as Spell Breaker)?

A mesmer is probably the best interruptor. Distance does not matter, type of bow/fire rate is not an issue. I use Backfire and Power Block to mess with casters. Backfire deal 140 full damage to any caster everytime they cast! This is great on fast casters like other mesmers, necros, or monks. For the slower single attribute dedicated caster like the ele or monk, I use Power Block. This keeps the caster from from using any spells in the attribute I just blocked for 14-15 seconds! There are a few other interrupt spells I take depending on where I am.

He means: you simply need to be FAST!

To the OP: I agree with you that skills with casting cost >1 are becomming pretty useless. I wonder if this was meant to be. If not, some more balancing might happen in future. So enjoy the interrupts now!

I sincerly hope that they don't balance the game in such a way that interrupts (both Mesmer and Ranger) become weakened...granted the last update, they added that delay to the Ranger interrupts and nerfed the Mesmer's Energy Denial...so if they go further it seems to me you may be weakening Rangers and Mesmers too much and limiting the scope of there abilities.

Well you do have to be fast, but that's not really what I meant.

Previously you could fire off concusion, distracting, and savage really fast. Now there is a delay before you will even fire another arrow or use an attack skill. You only normally notice the delay when attacking normally if you are using rapid fire skills (like Tiger's Fury for example). I can't remember the delay exactly but I think it is 2 seconds or near there. So even if you are firing faster than that, and you use distracting shot, then there is a 2 second delay before you will be able to fire or use another interupt. Before this last update there was no delay.

In addition to the standard skills that prevent interupts another skill strategy is to sacrifice a spell and draw the interupt, then cast the spell you want to get off. Of course this isn't effective against multiple rangers or mesmers, but in the case of just one hounding you it can make them waste their interupt. With the delay, timing the interupts for the ranger requires some pretty good focus and timing reflex. Mesmer is clearly the interupt king at the moment. They are faster, not to mention the damage or energy denial they cost is much nastier than the ranger.

Well right after they nerf the living hell out of the entire mesmer class then. Because annoying is being permantly snared by hexes, or backfired, or fragged. This game is already caster heavy, god lets destroy the one class that is supposed to counter casters.

Hmmm. Regarding backfire, if I remember correctly, it works and deals damage only to the first spell that the one who is hexed casts, then backfire ends. So it is incorrect to say "every time the caster casts", it is only the first time (please correct me if I am wrong!).

Besides, backfire is not an interruptor. It won't stop the spell from being cast, it just punished the caster with damage. Backfire is also too slow to cast. So I haven't used backfire with my mesmer for quite some time now. I usually use cry of frustration and power leak which cast far more quickly and do stop the skill (cry) or spell (power leak) that is being cast.

I play ranger and mesmer quite a bit now, I love both classes, and I really don't know which can be considered the better interruptor. Cry and power leak are quick, but then they have a long recharge time; savage shot is also quick and distracting shot is not too slow either, but both recharge fairly quickly and cost not much energy to use (my experise is usually set to 12).

I love those interrupts! And I love interrupting warriors as well when I play mesmer: clumsiness and ineptitude are two of my current favorites.

This is a mite off topic, so please excuse my transgression eh?

Coolsti, backfire will remain for its full duration regardless of how many spells the target casts, and will punish the caster for any completed casts of spells during that duration. This means that interrupting a backfired player is kinda counterproductive... But on the other hand, a good player will only cast if it is strictly neccessary while under backfire, it being a powerful disincentive to cast.

That backfire behaves like this means it has one of three effects:
1. A bad player will continue spamming, oblivious to the massive health loss of each spell. Many will commit suicide this way.

2. A better player might cease casting altogether, meaning a virtually complete shutdown. Yay!

3. A good player will carefully watch the situation, and gauge the risk of casting through backfire as opposed to the loss of not casting.

It is only a player of type 3 that it can be productive to interrupt even while he/she is hexed with backfire - Every cast is likely to be of great import, either an attack of opportunity (meant to kill a teammate of yours) or a defense (meant to save a teammate of your opponent).

Blah. Already to verbose. Suffice to say, that interrupting (and spending time babysitting) a backfired player is more often than not a waste of time

Still off topic (please excuse, OP):

Wow, all this time I been playing Mesmer I never realized that about backfire! Guess I got to read the fine print. Anyway, that means Backfire would be an excellant choice against Monk bosses in the Ring of Fire missions! The problem here is that the Monk spells cast too quickly to be able to consistently disrupt them with ranger shots or mesmer disrupting spells. Cool!

A smart player would say "I have Backfire on me!" Then it's removed.

As a Mesmer I almost feel overpowerd when versing most casters, especially Elementalists and Necros. I always carry 4 or 5 spells that can interrupt a caster, 1 interrupt deals a small amount of damage, 1 deals a lot of damage, 1 removes a lot of energy, and one gives me a fair amount of energy.

I use backfire as a backup; incase I happen to miss an interrupt, or if my interrupts are recharging.

The only interrupt I use that's easy to avoid is shame/guilt (depending which one I carry), all you have to do is not cast a healing (shame) or attacking (guilt) spell. A lot of monks tend to carry mantras that make my interrupts almost useless, but backfire is still there as a backup.

I'll never forget the day in 4vs4 arenas when everyone but me and the enemy elementalist were remaining. We just stood there for a couple of seconds contemplating the situation, ie - He had no chance of winning, period. He could have easily killed me with his staff if he never tried to cast though.

Yup on the monk bosses there and the desert mission with the monk boss and priest I use backfire and power block. Power block keeps the boss from using any healing spells on the priest for 14 sec, then backfire damages the priest whenever he tries to heal himself...over and done in under 20sec!

As a ranger, I find I want to really get close to the enemy so that I can cancel them faster, as a mesmer, I can keep my distance and fire off backfire right away. After backfire I typically spam Wastrel's worry. If they uses a spell, backfire gets them. If they don't Wastrel's worry nails them.

while that may be true... Rangers can interupt skills and spells... mesmers can only interupt spells

this makes Rangers more valuable when it comes to arenas... interupting Rez Sigs and other skills really comes in handy

Also, Ranger interrupts re-charge a lot faster as well.

Slight correction:

Leech sig and Cry of Frustration both interrupt skills, though you are limited by either a 45 sec recharge or a 15 energy cost & 20 sec recharge.

Interrupt rangers are still the biggest pain in the butt in the game though

So not true...Cry of Frustration not only interupts the skill of the person you target, but all foes in the area, and they suffere damage. Combine this with Echo for 2 uses. There is also a signet that interupts skills and when used with a mantra, it instantly recharges.

For the enemy rangers and warrior, that use mostly skills we have a host of other spells like blinding them, or they loose health/energy when ever they attack, one that keeps them from gaining adrenaline...etc.

When in arena, the team should decide who needs to focus on who before a match so that each person knows what skills to bring with them.

Haha, as I look at your professions. Thats my favorite combo for my ranger. They just work so damn good together.

i may be sounding like a big ol baby, but IMO, casting is nerfed. we should all delete our casters for pvp and just have a smelly warrior-thon
nerfed nerfed nerfed nerfed nerfed

yeah... i take Mesmer secondary for Arcane Conundrum... if their foolish enough to cast... i can land a Concussion Shot... this is for Arena's tho... doesn't work if their are two monks cause the other one can just remove hex or condition so...

I went out with only henchies last night to the Hells Precipice mission with my Mesmer, to see how my various elite skills perform. I tried Panic, Energy surge (with arcane echo), crippling anguish, and ineptitude. And although each of these elites were great against the warrior types, I found that I generally faired much better with ineptitude. This is despite the fact that ineptitude only affects one foe at a time (causing damage and blinding). On the other hand, Energy surge, for example, causes damage to all surrounding creatures.

I don't know why this is the case; perhaps the combination of the fact that with henchies, all are targetting the same foe that I am targetting, and with ineptitude, this foe is then blinded and therefore helpless. So although ineptitude only affects one attacking foe at a time, I normally take this as my elite nowadays.

Anyway, the point is, when you consider "skill interruption" abilities of a mesmer, and if you consider the usual target of interrupting a skill (as opposed to a spell) to be a ranger or warrior foe, then the mesmer has more than just leech signet and cry of frustration. In effect, things like ineptitude and clumsiness are also extremely effective (although they don't actually stop a skill from occurring).