Interrupt Build?

[mazeltov]

Keep in mind that anything the debuffs Resolve is also going to drop Concentration also.

 

Well, yeah, that's how most of the abilities I listed do it. Comparatively few target Concentration directly.

[Guest]

I only saw Con listed. There were no references to Resolve.

 

I don't have the time or inclination to bring up each of the spells to see if you were doing that translation already. A least some of the people who see your post weren't going to make that connection anyway. 

[mazeltov]

I don't have the time or inclination to bring up each of the spells to see if you were doing that translation already.

 

Only the two Druid insect spells and the Chanter Phrase target Concentration directly, everything else works through Resolve reduction. While most critters in the Bestiary have 10 or more Resolve, a few have less. In the latter case something like Miasma wouldn't grant the full -30 (unless attributes can be taken into negatives and continue to accrue penalties). This is balanced out by some of the more annoying enemies having 14 or more Resolve, so multiple sources of Resolve reduction would be useful in those cases (unless there's some weird reverse Suppression system where a larger stat debuff Supresses a smaller one).

 

Amusingly, even though I converted Resolve reductions into Concentration penalties, I didn't do the symmetrical thing and list Perception bonuses as equivalent Interrupt ratings. At any rate, it's -3 Concentration for Resolve reduction and +3 Interrupt for Perception increase, per point.

[LadyCrimson]

I've been wondering how much "interrupt" helped, in terms of considering starting attribute spreads for certain classes, at least...from this thread, appears to be "not much." Good to know.

[Guest]

I've been wondering how much "interrupt" helped, in terms of considering starting attribute spreads for certain classes, at least...from this thread, appears to be "not much." Good to know.

I beg to differ, but hey, to each their own.

 

EDIT: If you take a look at the attached combat log, you'll notice that (thanks to interrupts), the baddie I was fighting died before it ever got a chance to do any damage to any of my party members. This is early in the game, but it's also on Hard difficulty.

Edited April 16, 2015 by Achilles

[Infares]

 

I've been wondering how much "interrupt" helped, in terms of considering starting attribute spreads for certain classes, at least...from this thread, appears to be "not much." Good to know.

I beg to differ, but hey, to each their own.

Yeah, I'm actually strongly considering a build with 2 barbarians and 2 wizards, a Chanter tank and a Druid. 

 

General idea is to not really need a healer because everything's getting interrupted into oblivion.

[Epsilon Rose]

Hmm. I've heard Monks attack really quickly and barbs hit everything around them. I wonder how a monk+barb team-up focused on interrupts would work out. Maybe throw in a a rogue with an arbalist to support them.

[LadyCrimson]

 

I've been wondering how much "interrupt" helped, in terms of considering starting attribute spreads for certain classes, at least...from this thread, appears to be "not much." Good to know.

I beg to differ, but hey, to each their own.

 

I think you misunderstand. I wasn't saying there wasn't a point to an interrupt "build", only that sacrificing points elsewhere for high levels of Perception probably isn't all that helpful if you aren't going to be focusing your gear/skills etc. on interrupt.

 

I've been putting 14-15 in perception on some chrs. partly for the +reflex to go with their dex but also because I was curious about +interrupt. However I don't "build" around interrupt, nor do I min/max (I don't put attributes lower than 9) and frankly I don't see a huge difference on how often interrupts occur with my guys that have somewhat higher per vs. those that have the default (10). A little maybe but it's not massive. Putting the points in Might/Resolve or even Con (if a tankier type) seems more useful?

[KDubya]

 

I've been wondering how much "interrupt" helped, in terms of considering starting attribute spreads for certain classes, at least...from this thread, appears to be "not much." Good to know.

I beg to differ, but hey, to each their own.

 

EDIT: If you take a look at the attached combat log, you'll notice that (thanks to interrupts), the baddie I was fighting died before it ever got a chance to do any damage to any of my party members. This is early in the game, but it's also on Hard difficulty.

 

 

 

Looking at the log it looks like the initial sneak attack caused an interrupt. Everything following is your team's attacks and capped with a knockdown by Eder.

 

Without that initial interrupt would the spider ever gotten an action off before it was knocked prone?

 

How long/strong  was the interrupt?

 

I was expecting some kind of log showing an interrupt locked enemy that never got an action off. What you have is a spider getting killed quickly by a party and being knockdowned to boot.

 

My understanding and experience on hard with interrupt is that it really does not make that big of a difference, especially not enough to go out of your way to spec for it. The enemies action still occur just slightly delayed if you hit, beat the interrupt check and had it happen during an interruptible action.

[LadyCrimson]

My understanding and experience on hard with interrupt is that it really does not make that big of a difference, especially not enough to go out of your way to spec for it. The enemies action still occur just slightly delayed if you hit, beat the interrupt check and had it happen during an interruptible action.

I've been mostly playing on Normal, vs. Hard, but that's pretty much what interrupt seems like to me too. Even with a lot of interrupts (say if 3 members get one in one after another) it does not = some kind of stunlock or something. The resulting delay in their action is not much of a delay. (edit) not that I've any serious testing or anything....

[b0rsuk]

You want fast attacks and high Interrupt rating. High perception for starters.

 

You can interrupt enemy spellcasters very well. I have a monk with 16 base Perception, he's a great interruptor. People say Interrupting Blows talent, which I also took, is currently bugged and does nothing. IB bonus is likely additive and benefits from fast attacks.

 

Sagani is good at interrupting.

[KDubya]

I find death is the best interrupting ability

 

For taking a spell caster down a fighter is better served with knockdown, the pull ability or just killing with a two handed weapon with style,spec and mastery bonuses. A monk would do better with a FoA for a ten+ second prone or a massive damage torment.

 

A fast attack interrupt is only 0.35 seconds and the enemy's actions are not reset just delayed. A 3 second reload interrupted goes like this 1 sec reload + 0.35 interrupt + 1 sec reload +0.35 interrupt + 1 sec reload (3 total) and the enemy gets to shoot. In this example if you hit and made the checks you slow a 3 second action to 3.7 seconds. Nice when it occurs but hardly deal breaking.

[mazeltov]

 2 wizards, a Chanter tank

 

Das it mane. Just checked in game, and wand Blasts individually check for Interrupts, raising the specter of a mass wander carpet-bombing Interrupt build extravaganza. Really only one of the Wizards in such a group needs high Int (for debuff radius and duration) the others will be self-buffing and wanding, having sacrificed Int for Per. How about that +1 Per +1 Dex Wood Elf stat spread?       

 

Also the 3rd level Wiz spell Expose Vulnerabilities inflicts -5 DR, -10 Deflection, -10 Concentration (direct Concentration reduction), and it's foe AoE! Could any spell be be more tailor-made for an Imma-let-you-finish Interrupting wander?

 

Oh, and I forgot to mention in my reference post above that Insect Swarm is craftable as a scroll. 

 

For a PotD trial run of this, I'm contemplating 2 Chanter tanks and either 4 Wizards, or 3 Wizards and a Priest. Priest Accuracy buffs are always helpful, and later on +10 and +6 Per spells put a nice capstone on the build. If a fight runs long, the Chanters can summon Odin and Bahamut to finish off any stragglers. One interesting question will be whether enemy Concentrations are inflated 50% on PotD, like their Defenses.

 

Edit: Don't want to overdo it sacrificing Int on the wanders, though, since Blast radius is also tied to it.

Edited April 16, 2015 by mazeltov

[Kaigen42]

Note for interrupting tankers: I just noticed in my current game that Shatterstar, the +1 engagement war hammer you can buy from Igrun in Copperlane, has the same stronger interrupt rating as morning stars. As though your high Perception tank needed another reason to grab that as soon as you hit Defiance Bay.

[forgottenlor]

Just for the record, I am 8 hours into the game with an interrupt Barbarian. She has a 16 perception (17 from a helm), Morning star, weapon focus-knight and interrupting blows. She is currently level 5. I find the combination to be utterly devestating to some opponents. For example trolls almost never got an attack off on me. On the other hand against some opponents like shadows it was utterly worthless. They attack too fast, and its much more effective to dual wield (in my case with a sword and axe-my off hand weapon set) so I'd say its a viable build, but not overly powerful and somewhat situational. If you want to play the most powerful character, you'd probably be better with a pure damage build, but I'm having a lot of fun with it on normal difficulty, and I think it works decently.

Edited April 16, 2015 by forgottenlor

[Guest]

@LadyCrimson

 

To your point, I don't think there's much of an argument for putting a lot of points into Perception if that isn't a Highly Recommended/Recommended stat for your class. To my point, a class that does favor Perception, like Fighter, is better off rolling higher Perception than Might. For instance, my PC build is 13, 15, 10, 14, 10, 16 (Might = 13, Perception = 14).

 

@KDubya

 

There were two interrupts in that log. You mention that the first happened as part of a sneak attack as though that has some significance. It doesn't (Sneak Attacks don't offer any kind of bonus to Interrupt and Sneak Attacks can happen at any point in a fight, provided you're playing the Rogue correctly).

 

You seem to dismiss the value of Interrupt, which is fine, because the rest of your post makes my point for me:

 

Yes, the spider would have gotten an attack off - every other spider fight in that level started with my party being locked down by Binding Web. I have no reason to think this would have been any different. And if it had been a wizard casting Fireball, the point would still be the same.

 

The interrupt duration was Average (there aren't any Strong or Very Strong Interrupt range weapons). Obviously, longer would have been better, but even if it were Weak, it still would have (obviously) been enough.

 

In fact, that's exactly what you saw: an interrupt locked enemy that died before it ever got a shot off. Here's the replay - Interrupt, Graze, Hit/Interrupt, Miss, Graze, Miss, Graze, Hit/Knockdown, Graze, Graze, Graze, Hit. You're appear to be arguing that because Eder successfully rolled his Knockdown, the Interrupts don't matter. My argument is that without the Interrupts, he would have been disabled and only able to attempt a Knockdown had the spider walked up to him in order to be hit, rather than make a beeline for Aloth or my squishy hireling rogue.

 

"The enemies action still occur just slightly delayed". True. However, if you can string together multiple interrupts (like the log I posted), the enemy action can be delayed until sometime after it is dead. THAT'S the value of Interrupt.

 

And with that, I think I've said all that I can say in this thread.

[Exoduss]

The way i implement interrupts to my strategy is with Ranged characters(Marksmans be it rengo rogue or cipher doesnt matter) having high perception they are the only ones who can react fast enough to shoot that mage while he is casting , also ranged builds doesnt benefit much from other stats than Might and Dex so you can max Perception alongside and not loose anyting much 

[Infares]

Achilles: Those are just suggestions, though. If your build for a certain class isn't going to be tanky, then Perception is squarely for Interrupt. If you're going to be a DPS, you're probably going to max Might, Dexterity, and sometimes Intelligence, even if the "recommended" stats suggest otherwise.

[mazeltov]

Testing, one, two

 

 

Spells that claim to directly reduce enemy Concentration do not work. Tested the Chanter Phrase, Expose Vulnerabilities, and an Insect Swarm scroll. Target's Concentration remained the same with or without the effect applied.

 

Resolve reduction on the other hand does work. However, attribute scores cannot go lower than one, limiting the usefulness of -Res against some enemies. Against a town guard, for example, Miasma only lowered Concentration by 27, meaning the guard had Resolve 10 and the spell only drained nine. (Incidentally, I noticed Defenses can go into negatives, and actually add to the attacker's hit roll).

 

With Interrupting Blows presumably bugged, and direct attacks on Concentration not working, manipulating Res and Per, and going for crits (+25 to the roll) appear to be the only ways of influencing Interrupt attempts.

 

Concentration scores were the same on both Hard and PotD for Pasca at The Black Hound. Resolve 10 yields 75 Concentration score. Meanwhile Interrupt rating starts at zero (Perception 10) and works its way up from there.

 

 

[Infares]

Testing, one, two

 

 

Spells that claim to directly reduce enemy Concentration do not work. Tested the Chanter Phrase, Expose Vulnerabilities, and an Insect Swarm scroll. Target's Concentration remained the same with or without the effect applied.

 

Resolve reduction on the other hand does work. However, attribute scores cannot go lower than one, limiting the usefulness of -Res against some enemies. Against a town guard, for example, Miasma only lowered Concentration by 27, meaning the guard had Resolve 10 and the spell only drained nine. (Incidentally, I noticed Defenses can go into negatives, and actually add to the attacker's hit roll).

 

With Interrupting Blows presumably bugged, and direct attacks on Concentration not working, manipulating Res and Per, and going for crits (+25 to the roll) appear to be the only ways of influencing Interrupt attempts.

 

Concentration scores were the same on both Hard and PotD for Pasca at The Black Hound. Resolve 10 yields 75 Concentration score. Meanwhile Interrupt rating starts at zero (Perception 10) and works its way up from there.

Please make a bug report about this so they can get it fixed for 1.05.

[Exoduss]

It seems that alot of Skills , Talents and Effects in game are just there in writing and pictures but not really implemented into game mechanics ... thats.. i dunno strange?

[sunburnedcrow]

It seems that alot of Skills , Talents and Effects in game are just there in writing and pictures but not really implemented into game mechanics ... thats.. i dunno strange?

Interrupt mechanics were changed a few times. The developers may have forgotten to change some of the Interrupt/Concentration related talents amd abilities, similar to the case of Interrupting Blows being broken

[Guest]

 

It seems that alot of Skills , Talents and Effects in game are just there in writing and pictures but not really implemented into game mechanics ... thats.. i dunno strange?

Interrupt mechanics were changed a few times. The developers may have forgotten to change some of the Interrupt/Concentration related talents amd abilities, similar to the case of Interrupting Blows being broken

That's exactly what they pointed to when they acknowledged the bug.

 

Unfortunately, it looks like that fix is slated for May...at which point, I'll be playing Witcher 3

[mazeltov]

Even in their broken state, Interrupts have the potential to be devastating. Here's a sampling of Concentrations for some of the most hated/feared monsters:

 

Shade: 87

Spectre: 93

Ogre: 84

Ogre Druid: 87

Fampyr: 81

 

A few monsters approach 100. The important thing is that these Concentration levels are very exploitable, even without Interrupting Blows or direct Concentration decreasing effects.

 

Take the figures above and shave off 30 points for a Miasma graze. Consider a Blast Wizard, who, on at least an implement graze, triggers a full Blast attack vs. Reflex across a range of 1.25-2.25m or so, depending on Intellect. Each and every one of those Blast attacks that at least grazes rolls to Interrupt. A Wizard with 25 Perception (which can be relatively easily maintained after reaching Defiance Bay) averages 95 on (hit) Interrupt rolls, again, compared to the figures above -30. Carnage works in a similar way. This is rather terrifying when scaled up with multiple users and fast attacks.

 

Add +25 to typical Interrupt ratings if and when bug fixes go through. Not to be a Debbie Downer here, but it might be overkill.

[Ganrich]

Even in their broken state, Interrupts have the potential to be devastating. Here's a sampling of Concentrations for some of the most hated/feared monsters:

 

Shade: 87

Spectre: 93

Ogre: 84

Ogre Druid: 87

Fampyr: 81

 

A few monsters approach 100. The important thing is that these Concentration levels are very exploitable, even without Interrupting Blows or direct Concentration decreasing effects.

 

Take the figures above and shave off 30 points for a Miasma graze. Consider a Blast Wizard, who, on at least an implement graze, triggers a full Blast attack vs. Reflex across a range of 1.25-2.25m or so, depending on Intellect. Each and every one of those Blast attacks that at least grazes rolls to Interrupt. A Wizard with 25 Perception (which can be relatively easily maintained after reaching Defiance Bay) averages 95 on (hit) Interrupt rolls, again, compared to the figures above -30. Carnage works in a similar way. This is rather terrifying when scaled up with multiple users and fast attacks.

 

Add +25 to typical Interrupt ratings if and when bug fixes go through. Not to be a Debbie Downer here, but it might be overkill.

In a future game I am planning on making a party built around interrupt. I agree that faster attacks are better, but I am going to combine a monk (TR spam), wizard for blast interrupts, Druid for insects, and a 2 handed Barb for Big interrupts (1 second interrupt). The idea is the monk, Druid, and Wizard can keep enemies semi-interrupted long enough for the Barbarian to land those big interrupts. Dunno if it is optimal, but seems fun in premise. I might go Paladin and Priest for the other 2. Paladin for +accuracy aura to ensure hits. Priest may be swapped out... I believe some cipher spells have good interrupt properties. The idea is still in the works.

 

I was just finishing the mega-dungeon, and my monk had a 1v1 with one of the Animats. It only got its first swing in before it died. I interrupted it 3-4 times straight. Interrupts are incredibly easy to make OP if they buff them up too much IMHO.

 

EDIT: Actually, I will probably make the Paladin my PC (Kind Wayfarer), and couple it with a Chanter Tank instead of a Priest or Cipher.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Ganrich