Quarterknocking

A perfectly timed quarterknock.

Quarterknocking is a technique used to reliably interrupt skills with very short activation 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 knock downs to quarterknock or using an interrupt after a knock down 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 knock down 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.

Common quarterknock timing

• Hammer quarterknocking: Using a 33% IAS and a Stonefist Insignia, one attack at normal activation can be made between knock downs. To correctly time the second knock down 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 knock down (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 knock down: This is based purely off the animation for a knock down and requires practice.
• Assassin quarterknocking: Assassin attack chains involving two knock downs with attacks in between that result in an automatic quarterknock. This may involve using or not using an IAS and using one or more attacks to time the KDs correctly.

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

Counter-tactics vs. quarterknock

• Lyssa's Haste, Fleeting Stability and Shield of Force can be used to prevent quarterknocking on oneself.

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".