Interrupt

Interruption prevents an attack or skill activation from completing. When an attack is interrupted, it will not trigger effects that happen on attack and the attack will not hit, miss, be blocked, be dodged, or fail. When a skill is interrupted, its normal recharge begins. The energy or adrenaline cost of the skill will not be refunded but there will be no aftercast. The actual interruption is due to the fact that these skills Knock down their target. If you watch very, very closely, whenever you use a interrupting skill on a target they will get knocked down for a split second. The knock down that causes the interruption does not count however, as an official knock down in that it will not activate skills such as Bed of Coals and will not be extended from extended knock down mods.

Attacking or activating a skill are collectively called "actions." Some interrupts will interrupt any action, some will only interrupt skills, and some will only interrupt spells. For a list of interrupts, see the interrupt skills quick reference.

Interrupt prevention
The only guaranteed way to prevent interruption is to use a skill which explicitly does so. Against interrupts which are attacks, staying out of range of melee attackers, out of line of sight of ranged attackers, or causing attacks to miss or be blocked can be effective. Against interrupts which are spells, the only indirect defense are skills such as Spell Breaker which will prevent you from being targeted.

See Prevent interrupt skills quick reference for a list.

Related:
 * Persistence of Memory makes your interrupted spells recharge instantly.

Tips on interrupts

 * When trying to interrupt, watch the Skill Monitor. When the enemy starts using a skill, the skill's icon appears with an activation bar that shows the skill's activation progress.
 * If an opponent is using a skill that takes a very long time to activate, it may be in your interest to wait until the last second to interrupt the player. In this case, more of the enemy's time will be wasted.
 * Some skills have no recharge, so interrupting them immediately only allows the player to begin recasting the spell right away.
 * It is best to study (and perhaps play as) other professions to truly understand what is the best way to interrupt each class.
 * Certain skills do not have an activation time. These skills cannot be interrupted.
 * An interrupter should not try to deal damage as well. Often, you can be casting damage skills on an enemy, when they use a skill which you try to interrupt, but your interrupt will not come through for 0.75 seconds, due to aftercast. In many cases, this will lead to being unable to interrupt.

Easily interrupted
Some skills are easily interrupted (including all traps). Characters activating these skills are interrupted if any attack hits, even without the use of interruption skills. While a character is dazed, all of their spells are easily interrupted.

These skills are easily interrupted:
 * Barbed Trap
 * Dust Trap
 * Flame Trap
 * Healing Spring
 * Precision Shot
 * Spike Trap
 * Viper's Nest
 * Snare
 * Smoke Trap
 * Tripwire
 * Barbed Arrows
 * Ethereal Light

Other forms of skill disruption
Knockdowns, disabling skills, and skill failure can also be used to prevent a successful activation of a skill (and knockdowns can disrupt normal attacks as well). However, none of these mechanics cause the target to be "interrupted." See the related articles for more information.

Related articles

 * Dazed
 * Disable skills quick reference
 * Fail skills quick reference
 * Interrupt skills quick reference
 * Knockdown
 * Prevent interrupt skills quick reference
 * Skill failure