Guild Wars: The Guide to a Good Interrupter

Becoming an experienced Ranger interrupter takes a lot of practice, and also some natural talent. But after reading this article and putting into practice some of the points, you may find yourself more experience than some of your top Guildies.

The first thing about being a good interrupter is having the correct build and armor. As far as armor goes, you should always carry a recurve bow, because it allows the arrow to reach your target the fastest. Now for skills, there are many different builds, and skills that can be used as an interrupter, but the two most commonly used are Magebane Shot, and Distracting Shot. Let me show you the build that I use as an

Ranger / Monk

Debilitating Shot Magebane Shot Distracting Shot Hunters Shot Apply Poison Natural Stride Remove Hex Resurrection Signet

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Here are a few quick overview points I will go over:

-Never stay on one target an entire game

-Spread poison

-Don’t spam your interrupt skills

-Run around a lot

-Don’t make killing your main goal

-Interrupt non-casters

-Debilitate the Healer

-Don’t wait, react

Never stay on one target an entire game. Really, you don’t want to. If your sticking on one target the entire game, it allows the rest of the enemy team to go do whatever they want, without fear and no distraction. Also if you stick on one target, and they have some sort of defense against ranged, or interrupts, your basically useless. If you stay on the monk the whole game, the Mesmer on the other team could be totally annihilating the monk on your team with VoR, Backfire, and Shame. If you stay on one target the whole game, you waist an enormous amount of time while the target your sitting on is doing nothing, and some other player may be casting a spell. This point also ties into spreading poison, because by going on multiple targets you spread poison, thereby spreading pressure. By switching targets, your opponents will not be able to anticipate your interrupts and you will be able to shutdown practically the entire team. A good rule of thumb is switch targets after 1-2 interrupts.

Don’t spam your interrupt skills. This is one of the worst habits that can come from trying to be an interrupter. Use focus and reaction time to interrupt, not luck. Spamming interrupt skills is not nearly as effective as trying to interrupt and you will also get off less interrupts and develop a bad habit. When spamming, you will basically use an interrupt as soon as it recharges, thus wasting the interrupt immediately, this means that if an easy 3 second cast comes up, you may not even have an interrupt to use on it. Use your reaction time, focus on where the cast bar is, an as soon as something comes up, hit an interrupt. You will learn to not do this with 1/4 casting, because they are virtually impossible to interrupt on reaction time, without luck. Eventually, you will be able to interrupt all 1-second casts, and some 3/4 casts!

Run around a lot. This is a minor point but still important. While your not interrupting someone, run around, don’t sit and attack someone, get up close to a target and wait for an interrupt. Use natural stride as a speed boost. Trying to interrupt while not attacking can sometimes be faster than interrupting while trying to attack.

Don’t make killing your main goal. This is not what you are trying to achieve, you are not a ranger spiker, you do not have a vast amount of damaging attack skills, you are there to shutdown the team. Disable them and make them helpless. Use hunters shot, not for damage, but for a condition to pressure.

Interrupt Non-Casters. This is very key, although somewhat unknown to the average player; you are able to interrupt attack skills. If a ranger is trying to use debilitating shot, interrupt it, you could save your monks energy. If a warrior is trying to use Earth Shaker to knock your team down, interrupt it; you could save your whole team.

Always Debilitate the Healer. Out of an entire team, energy is most valuable to a healer, if a healer has no energy, then it has no way to heal the team. No healing for the team means easy kills. If you can use Debilitating Shot on the healer as often as it recharges, the opposing teams healers energy will drop fast, and stay down, allowing your team to wipe the enemy out with a breeze.

Don’t wait, React. This is probably one of the most important things about interrupting, is using your reaction time. Don’t always look at the skill being used, look at the activation bar, you will be able to discern what is a 1/4 and what is a 1 second cast soon enough. After a little practice of course. When you see that 1 second cast, press on the interrupt skill as fast as you can. Now this takes reaction speed, and reaction speed is not something easily improvable. The only tips I have for improving reaction speed are as follows. Practice, exercise, and juggle. Practice will eventually become the key to improving your reaction speed. Exercise to stay in shape; this naturally improves your reaction speed. And juggling is helps it because it takes a lot of coordination and concentration.

That is what I have for being a good interrupter. I hope you liked the guide, and I hope it helps you learn to how to interrupt. If you have any questions or feedback you can contact me in game. X Rune Hunter X