Quarterknocking

From Guild Wars Wiki

Quarterknocking is a technique used to reliably interrupt skills with very short cast times, including 1/4 second cast time spells. It is based off the time that a skill will start to activate if it was queued to be cast while the caster was knocked down. It exists primarily in two forms, chaining knockdowns to quarterknock or using an interrupt after a knockdown to quarterknock a skill. It requires a reasonable level of practice to achieve reliably, with it probably being more difficult to quarterknock off someone else's knockdown than your own. Quarterknocking is effective because when someone has been knocked down for 2-3 seconds they are often under a lot of pressure to get off one of their defensive skills and may try to sneak the cast through hoping that a quarterknock will not be attempted or will fail.

[edit] Common quarterknock timing:

• Hammer quarterknocking: Using a 33% IAS and a stonefist insignia one attack at normal activation can be made between knockdowns. To correctly time the second knockdown to interrupt a skill there must be a pause in attacks, either by canceling an action or quarterstepping.

• Axe quarterknocking: After Bull's Strike, two axe attacks with normal activation speed can be used under a 33% IAS before using a 3/4 cast knockdown (such as Shock or Iron Palm) or a normal activation interrupt such as Disrupting Chop to quarterknock. Faster activation interrupts such as Distracting Strike or Agonizing Chop require a cancel as for hammer quarterknocking.

• Interrupt quarterknocking off someone else's knockdown: This is based purely off the animation for a knockdown and requires practice.
• Assassin quarterknocking: Assassin attack chains involving two knockdowns with one attack in between automatically quarterknock without an IAS.

The Master of Healing has several skills with 1/4 second activation and is an excellent place to practice this technique before attempting it on real players.

[edit] Notes

• Quarterknocking with a specific skill is often noted as q<skilltype>; quarterknocking with Disrupting Chop, for example, is a qchop, as doing so with Shock would be a qshock.