AI interrupters on crack - Could anyone from ANet please respond?

No you can't. If you use Migraine they aren't 1/4 anymore.

I'm not sure exactly how they do it, but they do it. I think it has something to do with the way the local and server-side information is processed. From experience and observation, I would guess that when you activate a skill, you're looping the action through ANet's server, but the action of interupting and other similar monster attacks and actions are mostly calculated (or originate) locally. So basically, it seems the lower your ping to ANet's servers, the less likely you are to get interupted.

Whatever the cause, it does seem like they have mega cheats some times, but I guess it's for the best, as AI does need some help. Heck, some monsters even have multiple elites! But as humans we have the ability to proactively think and overcome them.

I'd say it's pretty balanced.

They are 1/4 skills before I use migraine, which is why i said MIGRAINE FTW.

Where are you getting this info?

Based on the research at Guild Wiki, with a FC of 12 a .25 sec spell with take 0.14 sec. It sounds counter-intuitive for there to be a cap on FC effects when the whole point is to make it faster for interrupts. Unless you can find evidence showing it's not faster, I don't buy it. It should be easy enough to test it with a mesmer in the Isle of the nameless, with and without FC. should be able to tell the diff between .25 & .14 or .12 with a 16 FC.

The AI doesn't need to "cheat" on this because ANYONE can preemptively interrupt. I've seen mobs miss with an interrupt and I've interupted .25 sec spells with distracting blow, which is slow as hell.

I use

9 fast casting,
9 domination
8 insp
16 illusion


You just have to watch the opponent careful and be really quick with your fingers :P.

Meh, if it really DOES bug you, you could always bring an anti-interupt skill or something, or you could just ALT+F4 everytime you see an npc use an interupt.

this happens to me all the time. almost 95% of the time i get interrupted like right as soon as i cast my spell, not only that but ive had 3 spells interrupted in order within 2 seconds. happens most often while farming solo with my monk.

and to add to this. i hate mesmers, degen is way too much. same with necros. rot wallows are my newly despised enemy. 6 wallows= insta death for a warrior chest running. enemies are way too overpowered. if they are going to have lvl 23-30 enemies that have more attributes put into different categories giving them massive damage, (-236 dmg obsidian flame ftw! wtf?) why not let us players aquire level 30 then cap enemies and players with 30, or lower all enemies to 20 across the board. except only bosses? its rediculous. but im sure no one agrees, always someone to suck anet and say "but anet did this for such and such reason refer to this quote they made here blah blah" w/e
anyone who plays pve and/or farms knows what im talkin about.

I also remember something about fast casting being capped at 1/4 second but I just looked through the update archives and couldnt find anything. Guess a few of us had the same dream?....lol Or I just read right past it.

It is ok, I have been interrupted by kurzick green gate mesemer in fort aspendwood when performing a meteor shower with GLYPH OF SACRIFISE. At that moment, I realize... there are no such thing as instant cast.

Your "instant" cast counts as 1/16 casting time. Thats impossible for a human to get even with a mesmer. But bots. well its a game ^___^

AI doesn't HAVE a reaction time. It just casts its interrupts as soon as they become ready and an enemy casts a spell within their aggro range. Both spell and interrupt are activated at the exact same time, Fast Casting FTW

THAT is some blatant cheating. Something like this happened like this before and anet removed one of the mob's elites. It's not intended.

Also, warriors/rangers just spam their interrupts unless they are savage slash/shot. Like, i got interrupted doing my Spirit Bond by shiro'kens using disrupting stab, and no, I wasn't chain casting.

the only way i could even hope to interrupt something like 1/4 cast is out of pure luck , its impossible to do it consistently unless they are spell chaining.

Timing FTW. :P

im sure your 1/4 cast time spell or 1/2 cast time arrow can interrupt 1/4 cast spells without use of migraine, arcane conundrum,daze or natures renewal

just change your secondary to mesmer and bring mantra of resolve so you'll never have to worry about interupts again!

dont think so

with fastcast 9+ u can get instant cast on 1/4sec casttime spells, and if u have 20/20 wand and 20/20 offhand equipped u can get it even with lower fastcast att...

@sLiceR - i think mobs in fow have 2 elites since prophecies beta, get over it, they're cheating, but they're still an easy kill

During the nightfall preview I put cry of frustration and a few other mesmer interrupts on all my non-mesmer heroes, and without fast casting, they still interrupted flawlessly. It also made the game stupidly easy. If they don't nerf at least hero interrupts, nightfall is going to obsolete human players entirely, since everyone will eventually just figure out to use the ranger hero and put mes secondaries on everyone else.

The reason why AI mesmers can interrupt 1/4 second casts is because they have fast casting. Their interrupts only take 1/8 seconds to cast (with 16 fast casting.)

Mesmer secondaries interrupt at the same time as you can cast something. Raners can only interrupt 1/4 second casts if they're close enough for their arrows to have zero air time.

Sure... unless your stance is busted instantly.

The scales there on the beach also carry Grenth's Balance as well as Life Transfer. I don't think it is unintended for that fact. But then again, think about how many times you have capped a skill and went on to continue playing with 2 + elites.

It didn't use to, there is a patch that made it 1/16 and I hate it. I can no longer run and use an instant cast spell. Believe me it makes a difference as you experience aftercast even at 1/16 speed, but you don't have any if it's truely instant cast.

We know Mesmers have Fast Casting!
We know Chaining attacks is bad for us!

These are the retard replies to any topic involving interrupts.

I have no problem with AI interrupting 1/4s casts, they're computer controlled after all. I know fast casting makes the cast time on the interrupt lower than the cast time of mine, i don't mind (however annoying it may be) it adds another dimension to the game.

What pisses me off is when AI interrupt spells/skills so quickly they would have to have pre-empted it and begun casting first. Savage Slash = 1/2s, Interrupted a 1/4s + fast cast Epidemic a few days ago. its 10e 20 recharge, they don't spam it.
Reversal of Fortune been interrupted, fair enough. Reversal of Fortune been interrupted almost before you started casting, no, thats where it gets lame. Unless these enemies have 3000 in fast casting there is no way in hell they could interrupt spells within 0.05s of them been attempted to be cast.

Its not like Shiro'ken Assassins or Grasping Darkness. We all know they spam the crap out of interrupts, thats not the point, its annoying but i'll live with the fact a 1/4s spell was interrupted by spamming (its not as if it doesn't happen both ways). Spam interrupts aren't the problem, pre-emptive targetted interrupts is where it gets stupid, when that happens it goes from been a bit irritating to just plain lame.

still nothing from anet on this...

today i would swear that this problem has gotten worse...

I used to solo the Queen in the desert with my vrit... the first mention of the interupt problem i was still able to farm her... after the event this weekend and over farming my other locations i decided to hit her up for a few good drops... much to my dislike i was taken out like a newb over and over as if i was a pancake run over by a 4x4...

the scarab nest builders were interupting everything... i even started precasting the entire Vrit setup before agroing and sadly that just ment id get interupted using my echoed vengfull was and trying to recast my stance... yea thats right my stance was even interupted every time... and NO i do not que my spells anymore when farming which is what i thought was the problem before... that they knew what i was going to cast...

nope now them damn Nest Builders are throwing off interupts between their normal attack speed... they are rangers i know this... and rangers have an attack speed their interupts are attacks not spells meaning the interupt can only be done if their attack is ready to go off... yet they would attack like normal and be interupting in between their normal attack speeds not even fazing the attack cycle... meaning they where getting extra attacks by using interupts...

I also witnessed several times them interupting me while they where laying down a trap...

ITs probably just the AI update malfunctioning. Or maybe it was intended. I often see may AI casters that actually wait out Backfire sometimes like real players.

The OP didn't know about this, so people were telling him about it in their posts.

Still no evidence that it's ever happened.

Now someone gets to explain what an interrupting attack is. (not me)

I didn't think this would still be going... Anyways:
I did know (http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showp...3&postcount=18). People just refuse to read the whole thread (or even the whole first page) and as a result, we have the same information posted so many times that I could practically make a dancing picture show out of those words. Now, since we are hopefully over the fastcasting argument, which only accounts for a portion of the incidents, I still want someone to explain to me in a logical fashion how the AI can interrupt 1/4 second skills with other 1/4 second (or longer) skills that are NOT AFFECTED BY FASTCASTING and NOT BEING SPAMMED RANDOMLY. So far, the best explanation I've seen was the one about serverside tables calculating cast times, but even then I don't think I really explains how a 1/2 second skill can interrupt my 1/4 second skill when I'm NOT CHAINING SKILLS and NOT FALLING INTO A RYTHM.

All I know I will be abusing this bug untill anet nerfs it again... 3 interrupter Heroes FTW!

nope just like there is no evidence the game is running right now... besides that people are playing it... there was definately a change in the AI... people aren't imagining things here... when you play the game enough and something changes that dramatically changes how you can play the game its noticable...


when i play my ranger and i use the skills that the AI uses against me to interupts i have to wait for my attack cycle before my interupt even activates... the AI doesn't anymore they are interupting in between their attack cycles... interupting stances (yea not removing them, i get the click click and im not chaining skills)... and even interupting while they are already activating other skills such as traps...

their interupts are going off instantly anyone who pays attention will notice these things... not sure what proof you expext here

because Fast casting affects everything even when they aren't mesmers duh

*sarcasm*

A screenshot? A picture is worth a 1,000 words?

I can't say that the AI doesn't interrupt 1/4 sec casts with 1/2 sec skills since I haven't really noticed either way. But I have seen mobs miss late with interrupts, particularly Distracting Shot, plenty of times. So they're not perfect.

or people could just stop shooting off their mouths and go look for themselves... screenies can be fudged and only tell half the story... vids can be edited and im not looking to spend the time makeing them so someone can combat me on that alone...

the game is up and running.. all people have to do is pay attention... in groups it doesn't happen all to much because their are up to 7 other players in your group that are being targeted through... solo however you would notice... but then again if the people argueing against it havent solod before to know the game mechanics of solo farming then they wouldn't notice a difference if they went now to check it out...

This will become ridicoulos after NF, with Mesmer and Ranger heroes in Hero's Ascent. I foresee 1 Psichic distraction hero in every team : O
[email protected]

So, in summary:

1. I don't want to post a screenshot or a video because people will claim that I edited them.

2. So, because of that, everyone needs to take my word for it.

3. And anyone that can't replicate it in game must not know how to play the game right.

I'm sorry sinican, but the burden of proof is on the poster who makes a claim.

Interrupting sucks in general. It sucks to be interrupted and it sux to miss your interrupt.

Anet needs to fix it so you can either:
a) spam your skill button but the interrupt wont trigger unless you hit it when it is an interruptable skill
b) click the button but the skill will be "pending" an interruptable skill

Interrupting = Fastcast - Reaction Time - Computer Processing Time - Ping

With 300ms ping, how am I EVER going to interrupt a 1/4 second skill with anything? I can barely interrupt a 1 second cast due to my reaction time and ping.

Honestly though, having worked in a previous life on network software, I think the idea of a time-based interrupt in an online game is pretty silly. Until we all have a GigE connection at home, it makes very little sense at all...

I mean, to make it really work, not only do you have to taking into account of things like the spell duration + reaction time, you also have to take into account things like network latency + asynchronous behavior on the server vs. client (only server side count).

It gets even worse when AI gets involved, since the AI actions is likely to be on servers and their effect registers instantaneously (as oppose to the players).

Here is a trivial example of why this is silly: suppose we are talking about a skill that takes .25 sec and an interrupt skill that takes .125 seconds.

Case 1: Assume that you are doing the interrupt and that you have perfect reaction time. Also assume that network latency is a marvelous .005 s (better than most enterprise networks), here is the chronology of events:
t = 0.000 AI starts the skill
t = 0.005 You see that the AI is using a skill, you start the interrupt
t = 0.010 Server receives your interrupt signal
t = 0.135 Interrupt takes place and AI's skill is interrupted on the server
t = 0.140 You see that the AI's skill is interrupted

Case 2: Now assume that the AI is doing the interrupt and that you are doing the skill, otherwise, same assumption as Case1.
t = 0.000 You start the skill
t = 0.005 Server receives the signal that you are starting a skill at t=0.0
t = 0.005 AI starts to interrupt at t=0.0 (it react at backward time)
t = 0.125 Interrupt takes place and your skill is interrupted
t = 0.130 You see that your skill is interrupted

So far, so good, now let's jack up the network latency to .1 s

Case 3: same as Case 1, with latency at .1 s:
t = 0.000 AI starts the skill
t = 0.100 You see that the AI is using a skill, you start the interrupt
t = 0.200 Server receives your interrupt signal at t=0.100
t = 0.250 AI's skill completes
t = 0.375 Your interrupt happens, you do not get to interrupt the skill

Case 4: same as Case 2, with latency at .1 s:
t = 0.000 You start the skill
t = 0.100 Server receives the signal that you are starting a skill at t=0.0
t = 0.100 AI starts to interrupt at t=0.0 (it react at backward time)
t = 0.125 Interrupt takes place and your skill is interrupted
t = 0.225 You see that your skill is interrupted

I am located in California and I've just tried to ping something in Oregon on a fast enterprise network, and it's about .030s. So a network latency of .100s is certainly possible (pinging Japan - which "might be" somewhat comparable to pinging Seattle from Florida - is ~.120s).

So it's easy to see that when it comes to interrupts, even without "cheats" the cards is stacked on the AI's side already...

Its fine as is. I don't mind the AI interrupts, keeps things realistic. Or do you want the mobs to not carry any interrupts at all? Guarenteed casting for you? I've had 1/4 sec stuff interrupted by humans before, so no reason the AI can't do it.

As for it happening all the time... How many of you are solo farmers? Think about it, there's one of you, and a mob of about 5+ of them. All spamming interrupts. What do you think is going to happen? And why do you think that's unfair? Take 5 humans with interrupts and have them all gang up on one guy trying to get off prot spirit, see what happens.

And if you're complaining that its impossible, you've forgotten the fact that YOU hitting the button makes it longer than 1/4 sec. If they've buffered in the interrupt, taking away the time to push their button, then their's comes out exactly 1/2 sec, and yours comes out 1/4 + whatever time it took you to press the button.

absolutely incorrect...

Summary is... its happening go check it out... otherwise without supporting argument that it isn't hapening you have about as much claim as I do except that more people are experiencing this than not...

Majority Rule... LOL

No seriousely you know as much as I that no matter what supporting screenies or vids there are there is nothing more convincing than actually having it happen... I also know that if I did have Screenies or Vids up they would just get picked apart anyways because the naysayers are never wrong and will fight anyone they already disagree with for eternity... So no i wont waste my time trying to convince people that disagree that there is something wrong because they dont want to be convinced anyways they just want to disagree....Besides I don't have to convince anyone on these boards in the first place because it is Anet that needs to do something about it and id like to see them recognize there is a problem or at the least deny there is one...

but for now we have people once again agrueing actual hapenning through theorizing what they think they know of the game mechanics... people aren't just making this shit up and i know for damn sure anyone one here feels pretty damn offended when they post what has actually happened and someone just denies the claim because they think its not possible... again based off of what they think is going on not off of what actually is going on...

its not like this it a fluke random thing happeing in certain areas... its happening everywhere and is completely easy to replicate because there is no choice otherwise... Rampant AI you can check it out or you can sit there and argue that its not happening without doing so... your choice and i really don't care