Interrupts - how do they work?

[Aiteal]

ok a light tank was a bad example specially if ur fz hit after he using BL interupts, but i still say u will have a good chanse against a heavy tank if u get a first critshoot.

Heavy Tank invariably means a shield
Shield = why did I spec bow again?

Now people say that PA is the hardest style in the game to get off, which I guess is true, but I've found that the more I practice my PA, the better I get at it obviously.
However, getting of a critshot is not so much dependant on your ability to play the archer class, as it is on your opponent making the mistake of standing still in an rvr zone with no shield or bubble.

But honestly, have you ever played a bow specced archer outside of the battlegrounds?

 

[Thlauni]

1. The 0-50% of the cast goes for the spell currently casted. If the caster is half trou it the spell will fire. The caster will still not be able to cast for a certain time afterwards.

2. A bowshot can be interrupted at any point.

I am not sure what you are on about with insta-drawing. But if you mean that after you get attacked once you can not draw your bow for a certain time, then that is the actual interrupt. Casters suffer the same penalty.

About drawing and firing: Tap your bow icon once for the initial draw. Then tap it twice to release and reload. So to fire continiously you double tap your bow icon each time an arrow goes off.

I am pretty sure I am harder to interrupt once bow is drawn. So if I just draw and wait, then I can actually take some damage, then shoot that predrawn shot. Sometimes it works, sometimes I am interrupted.

And what I meant to hightlight with the draw and redraw steps were that it is often really difficult to match the button pushing while rapid firing. Whereas I when I play a mage just spam one button till I start casting.

One more question for the wise ones out there concerns what determines the time period you are interrupted.
Is it the attackeres weapon/spell that determine the interrupt time, or the defenders?

 

[Elrandhir]

Heavy Tank invariably means a shield
Shield = why did I spec bow again?

Now people say that PA is the hardest style in the game to get off, which I guess is true, but I've found that the more I practice my PA, the better I get at it obviously.
However, getting of a critshot is not so much dependant on your ability to play the archer class, as it is on your opponent making the mistake of standing still in an rvr zone with no shield or bubble.

But honestly, have you ever played a bow specced archer outside of the battlegrounds?

true as you say, and yes Critshot aint used that often atall, in some cases sure, but only if they stand still and if a caster it's no point as he will have BT up more or less 100% of the time.

 

[Jeriraa]

One more question for the wise ones out there concerns what determines the time period you are interrupted.
Is it the attackeres weapon/spell that determine the interrupt time, or the defenders?

Not quite sure. For casters it was once claimed to be the actual time you need for swinging your staff once however I couldnt verify that. For archers I have absolutely no idea but would guess that it is connected to the speed of the bow.

 

[Jeriraa]

Critshot aint used that often atall, in some cases sure, but only if they stand still and if a caster it's no point as he will have BT up more or less 100% of the time.

I only ever used Crits when teaming with other hunters and thats what people actually complain about... getting taken down in an instant by crits. What they fail to realize is that it takes 2-4 hunters for that and some coordination + uber timing. A single caster can almost always do the same.

 

[Gethin]

Alot of complaints come from the fact that archers team up (stealth zerg) and take down people. What alot of people maybe dont realise is that Archers do this out of necessity rather than choice.

 

[Elrandhir]

Alot of complaints come from the fact that archers team up (stealth zerg) and take down people. What alot of people maybe dont realise is that Archers do this out of necessity rather than choice.

I have more or less always soloed, but have been in a duo once or twice and that makes it hell of alot easier, so I can understand those that does.

 

[Gethin]

I have more or less always soloed, but have been in a duo once or twice and that makes it hell of alot easier, so I can understand those that does.

I am the same, i always solo.

 

[Rolv]

heh, I know how to play the ranger mate, I have already considered things like this when doing previous comments and it dosent change nothing.

And, nope it wont make you win, but to have a chance of doing so you need to be strategic ofc.

The only times I lose against a archer is when I dont know where the arrow comes from, archer is to far away to face, and im so stressed that I fail to see what direction the arrow sticking in my body point towards. - Or if I get zerged ofc. So using terrain etc I think would be something to consider...

 

[Flimgoblin]

Ignoring the whole archers are rox/archers are sux thing...

Answering the original question:

When someone hits you with a spell you are interrupted for 2 seconds.
When someone melees you you are interrupted for swing-length seconds.
When some banelord spams their abilities you seem to be interrupted for a week but I'm not sure what's going on there.

^^ supposedly this is correct but it's not tested. At any rate when you get hit by something that interrupts you you have an interrupt timer for X seconds. There was a patch note saying it was 2s for spells recently so I'll use that.

If you try to cast during these X seconds you get interrupted, and a recast timer = base spell cast time is applied. So if you try to cast a 3s casting spell (even if it takes you 1.5s to cast normally) you get interrupted and have to wait another 3s to try again.

If you try to fire during these X seconds you get interrupted - I'm not sure if bows have a recast timer or not.

The "half cast time" thing comes into play because the interrupt check for a spell is at the halfway mark. So if your initial interrupt lands after the halfway mark that first spell will still fire.
The next spell will be within the interrupt period though and will therefore be interrupted - someone casting multiple spells even at 1s casting speeds will be interrupted - however their first cast might not.

example:
Sorcerer with uberdex starts casting the omfgoverpoweredbaselinelajftap at 0s. He's overpowered and casts at 1s (whether any _real_ sorcs do this or not I dunno but for this example it's a 1s casting spell)

if the omfgovpoweredbanelord of doom hits his 10billion radius interrupt at 0.3 seconds the sorcerer gets interrupted on the first cast at 0.5 seconds.
He tries to cast again but gets "You cannot cast for another 3 seconds..."
After hammering at the nuke key in frustration at 3.5s he can start casting again - the banelord interrupt wore out at 2.3 seconds so he's fine to cast.

if mr banelord hits it at 0.6 seconds the sorcerer gets the first cast off - however at 1.5s he gets his second spell interrupted, his recast timer is set and he gets "you cannot cast for another 2 seconds". At 4.5s (3seconds after the first interrupted cast) he can cast again - the banelords interrupt ran out at 2.6s (however the sorc couldn't cast till 4.5s thanks to the recast timer)


If we use a longer casting spell (e.g. a shield):

Sorc tries to cast his shield at 0s, banelord interruipts at 0.9s, sorc gets "interrupted" at 1s, recast timer takes him to 4s before he can cast again.

If the banelord interrupted at 1.1s the sorc's spell would finish and if he waited till 3.1s he could cast without interruptions.

TBH I haven't a clue how it works for archers but that's how it works for spells:

To summarise:
There's a 2 second period after an interrupting spell lands on you when you are "interrupted".

If you get to the midway point of a spell when you are interrupted - the spell will fail.
Failed spells set a 3 seconds recast timer before you can start casting anything else.

 

[Elrandhir]

The only times I lose against a archer is when I dont know where the arrow comes from, archer is to far away to face, and im so stressed that I fail to see what direction the arrow sticking in my body point towards. - Or if I get zerged ofc. So using terrain etc I think would be something to consider...

yeah, well this is what you always have to try to do as bowspecced to have a chance.

 

[Thlauni]

Great Flimgoblin, that answered most of my question for now.