Power Return

If I was going to interrupt these I would want to use something that would heavily punish them before moving to other targets while slamming the clock on my desk to beep before their recharge is done.
That's short term thinking.

High damage seems like a good idea, but you can't just plan for the first spell. As a necro, I throw out random skills when I think I'm going to be interrupted. I'll toss rend enchantments or something that takes a while to interrupt. Sure I take the damage, but it now costs that person how many seconds to recharge that interrupt? My next skill can be something just nasty, since I allowed an interrupt on a throwaway (or useless at the time).

With Power Return, if they interrupt me, I don't take damage. Infact, I may not realize I've been interrupted for a second b/c most people look for damage during interrupts. It's a bit more psychology and math than more skills.

Consider also the quick recharge on it. Once again, I can take an AOE nuker and kill their Meteor or other long recharge skills just by tossing power return at them.

I will grant you this much, Power Return isn't as useful as Shivers (either) for interruptions, but it does have many benefits for the non-necro interrupter.


BTW, notice the costs of interruptions. 5 isn't half bad (IMO).

Someone earlier stated that Power Return could be used on a non-interrupt build. Honestly, I could see a W/Me using Power Return as a quick interruption for a caster or just foe that wishes to heal from being attacked. That means they have a backup if their Savage Slash or distracting blow has already been used.

If you think outside the box, Power Return is a pretty sweet skill.

What to do about the SS? Shatter hex it of course!
Even with its "fast recharge" power spike is only 3 seconds away; and I would use that to kill the nightmare. About the Shadow monk; of course I would spike it, I want it dead asap so it doesn't receive a heal area or WoH from one of his friends.

^_^ How does power return prevent the use of the spell for the next ten seconds? You must be thinking of a different interrupt. I'm sorry. I forgot you live in a world where Recharge times are non-existant for non-mesmer skills. Perhaps this will refresh your memory 'Spiteful Spirit, 10 seconds Recharge'. I know EXACTLY what interrupt i'm thinking of.

Honestly, you seem to be thinking that these opoonents are up against a team consisting entirely of interrupt mesmers. There are at least another 4 other members of the team doing damage.
1. You COULD interrupt the SB/Infuse attempting to cast SB on the monk your team is going for with Power Spike. You do, they take 107 damage. Now you go back to the monk your team is after, they cast Healing Touch as there health drops and you interrupt it with... Power Leak? Hurray the monk will now die with 0 energy....... Oops that SB/Infuse just infused the target and now he's back to health and kiting off.

2. You use Power Return on the SB/Infuse instead. You interrupt his SB and go back to the monk your teams after. Instead you Power Spike his Healing Touch, causing an instant 107 damage and he drops dead. Look back at your SB/Infuse, he just happens to be mid-way through healing the monk that just died and failed.

The way your looking at it is you seem to want these interrupts to cause death to opponents. If they don't, they suck. Its a utility interrupt, you don't use it for killing off targets do you, you use it to make things recharge without getting cast that could help a team. Your entire arguments about the net energy loss are entirely based on 5 cost skills. The cost of your interrupts do not change. The cost of the skills you interrupt do.