The “Breakbar”, or “Defiance Bar”, is an indicator located beneath a target’s health bar that shows whether or not they are immune to crowd control effects. Every Guild Wars 2 player should understand how the Breakbar works because it plays a critical role in solo and group combat.

Why is the Breakbar important?

Successfully “breaking” an enemy’s Breakbar can stun them or prevent a number of devastating attacks. Certain bosses cannot be defeated without coordinated group control of the bar, if for no other reason than time management. Effectively destroying a target’s breakbar means you’ll be able to defeat them much faster than through blindly spamming attacks.

How does it work?

The Breakbar has three states that are designated by the colors blue, grey and brown. Blue indicates that the Breakbar is active, and grey means that it is inactive.

The Breakbar turns orange when it is regenerating.

Sometimes the bar will only be active for a short period of time and will reset if it is not broken quickly. Other times the Breakbar will act similarly to the health bar and you can slowly drain it down until it breaks. The behavior of the Breakbar depends on the type of enemy you are fighting, and is generally present for high-level targets.

So how do I break the bar?

To drain the Breakbar you need to use Crowd Control (CC) effect skils. There are two basic types of CC effects, hard CC and soft CC. Hard CC effects deal instant damage to the Breakbar, while Soft CC effects deal damage over time.

• Hard CC Effects: Stun, Daze, Knockback, Knockdown, Pull, Sink, Float, Launch
• Soft CC Effects: Weakness, Taunt, Immobilize, Blind, Chill, Slow, Cripple, Fear

What about after the bar has been broken?

After the Breakbar has been completely drained you should begin laying on the damage since the enemy target will be in their most vulnerable state. There is no need to continue applying CC effects after the bar has been broken.