Have you ever been in a raid with less than stellar interrupts? I’ve seen it happen many times. A small number of players seem to have that confidence where they feel they can conquer just about any spells or abilities thrown their way. That is, until the encounter decides to throw a wrench in their plans. It usually sounds a little something like this:
“I got next inter—No, I’m trapped! I can’t do anything!”
If you’re lucky, there’s another player with an interrupt who can bail that player out. If not, the group may have just suffered a large setback. Having dependable interrupters on your raid roster is one of those little things that grant peace of mind to everyone. Your raid leader can rest easy knowing that certain abilities will be shut out. There have been times when I cursed because a key melee player had to run out or died due to some random ability.
From what I’ve seen, raid groups usually have a minimal amount of players for interrupts. This allows for maximum DPS time from other players because if don’t need to worry about catching key abilities, they can focus more on their DPS.
But the case I want to make here is for stability. Doubling up on interrupts can help cut down on the number of wipes due to unnecessary boss attacks going off.
Some examples include:
- Wind Shear: 6 second CD, 2 second lock out
- Shield Bash: 12 second CD, 6 second lock out
- Pummel: 10 second CD, 4 second lock out
- Kick: 10 second CD, 5 second lockout
This is just the start though. There’s a whackload of other classes with interrupt capabilities (Mages, Death Knights, etc).
How should you set teams?
Your interrupt teams will vary by encounter. A typical setup would involve two teams of 2. Preferably, the interrupters would share similar cooldowns and lockout times. Back in Burning Crusade, there was an encounter called Reliquary of Souls. You could find it in Black Temple. That encounter really brought out the necessity for skilled interrupters who could identify which skills to let go and which ones to shut down (like Deaden, Spirit Shock, etc).
A more recent example encounter would be Maloriak where Arcane Storms and Release Abberations need to be controlled.
Every interrupter should use macros to announce their interrupt skills. Actually, if you want to take it one step further, I highly recommend an addon called RSA. It’ll announce whether you were successful or unsuccessful with your interrupts. Or even if your kick got resisted or if the target is immune! Great to have!
If you have a skilled player who can carry interrupts on their own, then you can definitely disregard this post. I’ll raise my coffee cup to you on that. For the rest of us who sometimes struggle with blown interrupts, that safety net will do more in the long run.