Most of the time in regular commercial or industrial, the breaker will be some molded case thermal magnetic trip, not a current limiting electronic trip unit. In the large sizes like 600 amp 480 volt molded case, I never trust a breaker to trip fast enough without some type of damage, including damage to the breaker itself. You must have seen it, 480 volt breakers open under load or arcing faults and there's carbonization blown all over the breaker and sometimes coating the deadfront and panelboard cover.
The alternate choice to the molded case breaker is current limiting fuses, usually, not a current limiting breaker.
For semiconductors like a large inverter UPS output, protecting with a regular molded case breaker and paralleling, closing the inverter output into an unsynchronized condition, the IGBT's will blow out like fuses (going boom) but the breaker will not open. (Seen that, dangerous fakers). Semiconductor protecting fuses are very fast, probably the fastest available.
I've opened up a few spent molded case breaker with a hammer and the insides sometimes looks pretty hokey. In the large sizes like 600 amp, the breaker may see an arcing fault like a normal load and what trips is the upstream fuse, even the utility pole mounted fuse.
I generally credit the fuse with much greater sensitivity and calibration. In the same amp and volt rating you can get fast or slow fuses that are all current limiting, meaning they will open in less than 1/4 cycle before peak current. Very rare to see electronic trip current limiting breakers until you step up to the next class of equipment, like a Cutler Hammer DS, which are very impressive opening under load, but even those may have internal series fusible current limiters.
If you are comparing a non current limiting, non electronic trip breaker to a fuse, there's no comparison. They are different animals. Large molded case breakers can get pretty dangerous. The fuse is current limiting and much safer.
I expect a fuse to trip always, as specified, but consider myself lucky if the breaker is able to open without some type of catastrophic damage. The electronic trip current limiting breaker are pretty good, but the price will give the customer sticker shock.