Interrupt

An interrupt is any action that prevents a foe from completing its current action. Skills which are interrupted have a 5 second cooldown before they can be cast again. Chains are reset to the first skill in the chain any time the player is interrupted. Skill activation can be cancelled by a player casting the skill, but is not considered interruption. When an interrupt occurs, the word Interrupt! appears on the screen.

Foes with a defiance bar cannot be interrupted except by breaking their bar. Skills, traits, and sigils that have bonus effects upon interrupting foes will activate on foes with defiance bars if an interrupt skill is used during an attack windup. There is a 3-second cooldown between each interrupt to prevent the same effect from activating multiple times during the same attack animation.

Effects causing interruption

Most interrupts are caused by control effects. As such, the stability boon provides immunity against interrupts. Stun break skills will recover from Interrupts. Targets that can take Fall Damage, i.e. PvP and WvW, can be moved off ledges or cliffs.

•  Daze – Disables all skills for a short duration.
•  Stun – Prevents movement and actions for a short duration.
•  Knockdown – Knocks the target on ground, preventing movement and actions for a short duration.
•  Pull – Pulls the caster to the target or the target to a specific location and disables them for a short duration.
•  Knockback – Knocks back the target away and on the ground, preventing movement and actions for a short duration.
•  Launch – Throws the target in the air over a short distance, preventing movement and actions for a short duration. Can move Downed targets.
•  Float – Causes the target to move upwards.
•  Sink – Causes the underwater target to move downwards.
•  Fear – Disables all skills and causes the target to flee directly away from the caster for a short duration.
•  Taunt – Forces the affected target to run towards the source of taunt with all skills except stun breakers disabled while using their auto-attack skill.

Related skills

Skills that benefit from interrupting foes

•   Disrupting Stab (increases daze duration)
•   Distracting Daggers (gives initiative on interrupt)
•   Polaric Leap (grants superspeed)

Related traits

Traits that improve Interrupt

• Moment of Clarity (Marksmanship) — Gain an attack of opportunity for you and your pet on interrupting a foe. Daze and stun durations that you inflict last longer. This trait can only grant an attack of opportunity against enemies with defiance bars once per interval.
• Pressure Striking (Trickery) — Enemies you interrupt are inflicted with torment. This trait can only affect enemies with defiance bars once per interval.
• Impacting Disruption (Daredevil) — Recharge steal and inflict a pulmonary impact when you interrupt an enemy. This trait can only affect enemies with defiance bars once per interval.
• Illusion of Vulnerability (Domination) — Inflict vulnerability when you interrupt a foe. This trait can only affect enemies with defiance bars once per interval.
• Furious Interruption (Domination) — Gain quickness when you interrupt a foe.
• Power Block (Domination) — Interrupts deal damage and inflict weakness while granting you a damage increase. This trait can only damage enemies with defiance bars once per interval.
• Duelist's Discipline (Dueling) — Pistol attacks from you and your illusions have a chance to cause bleeding. Interrupting a foe recharges pistol skills. This trait can only reduce recharge on enemies with defiance bars once per interval.
• Ineptitude (Dueling) — Interrupting a foe inflicts blind, and blinding a foe inflicts confusion. This trait can only activate on enemies with defiance bars once per interval.
• Chaotic Interruption (Chaos) — When you interrupt a foe, recharge one of your equipped-weapon skills at random. Only affects weapon skills that are recharging.

Related equipment

Upgrade components that trigger on interrupt

Relics

• Relic of Agony — Enemies you interrupt are inflicted with Agony of the Choir. This trait can only affect enemies with defiance bars once per interval.

Sigils

• Superior Sigil of Absorption — Steal 3 boons when interrupting a foe. (Cooldown: 10 seconds) (Cooldown against defiant foes: 3 seconds)
• Superior Sigil of Celerity — Gain quickness for 5 seconds after disabling a foe. (Cooldown: 20 Seconds)
• Superior Sigil of Draining — Steal life when interrupting an enemy. (Cooldown against defiant foes: 3 seconds)
• Superior Sigil of Rending — Inflict 5 stacks of vulnerability for 10 seconds when interrupting a foe. (Cooldown: 3 Seconds)
• Superior Sigil of Restoration — Gain health when interrupting a foe. (Cooldown: 5 Seconds)
• Superior Sigil of Ruthlessness — Gain 5 stacks of might for 10 seconds when interrupting a foe. (Cooldown: 3 Seconds)
• Superior Sigil of Severance — Upon interrupting an enemy, gain up to 250 precision and ferocity for 4 seconds, depending on level. (Cooldown: 1 second)

Trivia

The Guild Wars Wiki has an article on Interrupt.

• Interrupts as they existed in Guild Wars (see here) are not as prevalent in Guild Wars 2 because of their dependence on low network latency to be used effectively.