Stun breakers with cast times

Can we get rid of this? It's dumb. I want to dodge after a stun and keep seeing my stun breaker get interrupted by CC.

Are not all stun breakers instant? They don’t grant immunity to being restunned.

@"Brother.1504" said:Are not all stun breakers instant? They don’t grant immunity to being restunned.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Darkrazor%27s_Daringhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pain_Absorptionhttps://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_PowerThese are some of the stun breakers that have cast times.

they should all at least have stab coverage. 2 stacks at 1 sec.

@Hiki.9310 said:

@"Brother.1504" said:Are not all stun breakers instant? They don’t grant immunity to being restunned.

Don’t they break the stun at the beginning of the cast?

i thought every stun break works instantluy but just add silly skill animation wich locks you in it, for example the new blinding powder change (which is really dumb btw) breaks stun the moment you use the skill, but the 1/4 cast time is just for the rest of the tool lip (blind/stealth/blast)

@Brother.1504 said:

@Hiki.9310 said:

@Brother.1504 said:Are not all stun breakers instant? They don’t grant immunity to being restunned.

They do, however the utility on which it's attached tend to be wasted right away after stun breaking. You usually stun break to GTF out of the threatening thing, not to stand idly and waste your health points to cast an utility.

I agree with OP. Stunbreakers with cast times are a bad idea since they create situations where an RNG interrupt robs you of the rest of the skill right after you break stun.

Skills like this tend to have a focus on the casted effect, and the part where it breaks stun was like an afterthought, and just added in at the beginning.

DH actually had this problem with shield of courage (their f3) at HoT launch where you could break stun, then get interrupted before the shield or stability/aegis/protection came up since there was a 0.25s cast time. The solution was shifting the stability to the beginning of the cast time which I think is fair for every stunbreaker in the game that has a cast time.

I think a lot of those abilities got stun breaks later to facilitate viability of different builds. I would agree that all stun breaks should activate instantly and at the beginning of the cast if there is a cast time.

If you ever wanted a bigger sign that the developers are more focused on PVE than PVP, this is it. It's completely ridiculous that so many stun breaks have a cast time. It shows that they are not really playing the game and instead balancing based on spreadsheets and formulas. On paper, XYZ cast time may "balance" ABC ability, but they don't factor in that the ability is a stun break and, by definition, needs to be instant or whatever value they gave to a "stunbreak" is actually now worthless.

@"SPESHAL.9106" said:If you ever wanted a bigger sign that the developers are more focused on PVE than PVP, this is it. It's completely ridiculous that so many stun breaks have a cast time. It shows that they are not really playing the game and instead balancing based on spreadsheets and formulas. On paper, XYZ cast time may "balance" ABC ability, but they don't factor in that the ability is a stun break and, by definition, needs to be instant or whatever value they gave to a "stunbreak" is actually now worthless.

No. This serves a purpose. If you have a stun break skill that also has a decent offensive / additional effect you want that skill to still break a stun, but not be able to be cast while using other skills or dodges, this is the way to do it. And limiting how much a player can do while dodging and casting other stuff is important (Mirage pretty much breaks this concept completely and you can see how much people like it).

The stun break function of these skills works instantly - the stab protects the casting of the skill, but you don't have to complete casting the skill to break the stun. So you already have the instant stun break you expect and prevent skills from performing too strong instant damage/cc by giving them a little cast time. There are some examples of bad balance decisions in GW2 but this isn't one. It's actually quite the opposite.

@Silinsar.6298 said:

@"SPESHAL.9106" said:If you ever wanted a bigger sign that the developers are more focused on PVE than PVP, this is it. It's completely ridiculous that so many stun breaks have a cast time. It shows that they are not really playing the game and instead balancing based on spreadsheets and formulas. On paper, XYZ cast time may "balance" ABC ability, but they don't factor in that the ability is a stun break and, by definition, needs to be instant or whatever value they gave to a "stunbreak" is actually now worthless.

I still think it's a bad balance decision. The power creep has reached a point where it feels like every stun is the prelude to an ability that can one shot me, so if I have to complete a cast instead of dodging, my defensive utility is just going to get me killed. Also, if this was meant to stop some stun breakers with offensive uses from being to strong, they made some bad choices. Look at revenant's pain absorption in demon stance. It is a stun breaker with a 1/2 second cast time, no stability, no offensive uses, and can waste your energy if you get interrupted.

@Hiki.9310 said:

@Silinsar.6298 said:

@"SPESHAL.9106" said:If you ever wanted a bigger sign that the developers are more focused on PVE than PVP, this is it. It's completely ridiculous that so many stun breaks have a cast time. It shows that they are not really playing the game and instead balancing based on spreadsheets and formulas. On paper, XYZ cast time may "balance" ABC ability, but they don't factor in that the ability is a stun break and, by definition, needs to be instant or whatever value they gave to a "stunbreak" is actually now worthless.

I'll admit I haven't personally tested stubreakers with cast times on other classes, but I'm fairly certain you can interrupt the cast time of just about anything in the game (save for leaps which take you off the ground) by dodging. So couldn't you cast Pain Absorption, then dodge immediately if say you were shield bashed and the warrior was about to follow up with Evis for example?

@Arcaedus.7290 said:So couldn't you cast Pain Absorption, then dodge immediately if say you were shield bashed and the warrior was about to follow up with Evis for example?Dodging would stop the cast and the stun would still break. The rest of the ability and the energy would be gone.

@Hiki.9310 said:I still think it's a bad balance decision. The power creep has reached a point where it feels like every stun is the prelude to an ability that can one shot me, so if I have to complete a cast instead of dodging, my defensive utility is just going to get me killed. Also, if this was meant to stop some stun breakers with offensive uses from being to strong, they made some bad choices. Look at revenant's pain absorption in demon stance. It is a stun breaker with a 1/2 second cast time, no stability, no offensive uses, and can waste your energy if you get interrupted.

@Hiki.9310 said:Dodging would stop the cast and the stun would still break. The rest of the ability and the energy would be gone.

In that case you use your energy to break a stun, wouldn't call that wasted. It's fine for an ability to not work 100% to it's potential, be glad it has multiple use and allows for more variety. Instead of "I use this when I get stunned, I use this other skill when I get want to have a different effect" you have to make a choice in which way you want to use a single skill. A lot of skills have multiple ways to make use of them and you repeatedly have to decide what grants the most benefit or will be needed in the future, this it what makes combat interesting, imo.

You can argue that certain skills that work like this should work differently (like Pain Absorption lacking the Stab common for those skills) but in general there's nothing wrong with the design of cast time stun breaks.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Brother.1504 said:

@Hiki.9310 said:

@Brother.1504 said:Are not all stun breakers instant? They don’t grant immunity to being restunned.

Not always true, you can counter right out of a stun break as well, and you can move while using those abilities, so you're not just idly standing there.

All Thief stun breakers should be on 1sec casting time :astonished:

The worst offender is the Jalis elite--Rite of the Great Dwarf.

Yeah, revenant is full of those

if you cast stunbreak(with casttime) and cast something else in that time you just pop only stunbreak on CD because that spell was interruped by you :D weeee

@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:i thought every stun break works instantluy but just add silly skill animation wich locks you in it, for example the new blinding powder change (which is really dumb btw) breaks stun the moment you use the skill, but the 1/4 cast time is just for the rest of the tool lip (blind/stealth/blast)

Blinding powder has stability though

@BeLZedaR.4790 said:

@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:i thought every stun break works instantluy but just add silly skill animation wich locks you in it, for example the new blinding powder change (which is really dumb btw) breaks stun the moment you use the skill, but the 1/4 cast time is just for the rest of the tool lip (blind/stealth/blast)

We all know this. Still would prefer it originally.

Same for the stunbreak/immunity on soulbeast while merged with a black bear for example. Feels so dumb when a stunbreak gets randomly (because there's no reason to daze/interrupt a stunned target) interrupted and it goes on full CD without applying the effects of it.

@Silinsar.6298 said:

@Hiki.9310 said:I still think it's a bad balance decision. The power creep has reached a point where it feels like every stun is the prelude to an ability that can one shot me, so if I have to complete a cast instead of dodging, my defensive utility is just going to get me killed. Also, if this was meant to stop some stun breakers with offensive uses from being to strong, they made some bad choices. Look at revenant's pain absorption in demon stance. It is a stun breaker with a 1/2 second cast time, no stability, no offensive uses, and can waste your energy if you get interrupted.

@Hiki.9310 said:Dodging would stop the cast and the stun would still break. The rest of the ability and the energy would be gone.

@"Hiki.9310" said:Compared to pain absorption, there are stun breakers with better utility and additional effects through traits that are instant cast. I don't understand how you can defend this when it feels so horrible to use.

I don't. Certain skills themselves maybe lacking, but there're valid reasons for (other) stun breaks to have cast times. E.g. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stomp really shouldn't be instant.