This is a subject I’ve thought about a good bit before, and in general seems to be something the PvP community takes as common knowledge, but I’ve never seen it openly discussed in a dedicated thread. That is, how do we value the various forms of crowd control? Which are the most desirable, and which are less effective?
In addition I’m very curious to see if people think that the various crowd controls should be balanced against each other, or if greater disparities allow for easier balancing for characters?
So I’ll start off with how I personally view each form of CC. Mind you these are opinions I’ve formed from as close to a vacuum as I can, meaning I’m trying to ignore character specific abilities that make certain CCs more effective for that character than others, and just aiming for as generalized a hierarchy as I can figure.
So here’s the list:
S Tier
Stun - This should have been obvious, crowd controls are more useful the more they can remove a player’s ability to, well, control their character. I’ll include Alani’s Geyser in here as it functions very similarly to a Stun but doesn’t really need to have its own spot, even if it may actually be better than a normal Stun. I’m also including any knockback effects that can result in a stun from hitting an obstacle.
A Tier
Pull - This one is too hard to put in a vacuum, because if you do, it would be placed far lower than it deserves to be. So I’ll just say that while it removes the least amount of player control out of the CCs, with the exception of knock back, this is a game where player positioning is extremely important and the ability to put a player out of position is very strong.
Knockup - Basically a Stun, but harder to immediately capitalize on with additional damage. It also has a set time on it, unlike Stuns whose time can vary. As a trade off, Knockups are a signal flare to the rest of your team to gang up on an incapacitated opponent.
B Tier
Slow - I would have placed this a tier higher before attack speed was normalized on slowed targets. Even so, it’s still a pretty strong CC, and also the second most commonly available. I’m also lumping slow effects together of varying strengths, their general utility is still enough to place them in this tier.
Blind - Probably the CC with the highest skill requirement to effectively use, nonetheless blinds can deprive the target of almost every piece of information vital to their survival, most importantly how close they are to being dead. Most players will be reluctant to blow escape skills or retreat blind the way they came in those crucial moments, assuming they haven’t been taking too much damage, aren’t suddenly outnumbered, or haven’t lost their target. If a team is well coordinated and can focus targets on a moment’s notice, a blind will be all it takes to get your foe to make a fatal mistake.
C Tier
Silence - This CC also requires a lot of finesse to use effectively. Ideally you can use it to interrupt an incoming skill or ultimate that is in effect, or to prevent an opponent from fleeing by using escape skills. However, both of these can be accomplished by any of the CCs in S and A tier, in addition to their other powerful effects. A silenced character can still use their own natural mobility, defensive secondary fire, or non-skill related damage output to escape or force the enemy away.
D Tier
Knockback (No Stun) - Controls the enemy position less than a pull. There’s not a lot here, but then again, every character in the game has access to at least one knockback!
Well, this is what I think, and as I said I was trying to consider them in a vacuum as best I could. Many characters can take greater advantage of each of these based on the rest of their kit.
Moving on I just wanted to put out my thoughts on the state of balance of CCs. In my opinion, all crowd controls (with the exception of knockback) ought to be balanced roughly the same. At this time, they definitely are not. Most of that comes down to the fact that most CC effects have a time duration associated with them, and nearly all of those that do have roughly the same duration, generally a window of 1-2 seconds. I think this is a good duration for some of the more desirable CCs that have them, and far less so for some. As an example, I think Silences and perhaps even Slows should have a higher average duration than 1-2 seconds. Now it’s important to clarify I am talking about an average - CC effects from high-cooldown skills or especially ultimates should be more rewarding. In the end, durations should be considered on a case by case basis. But currently it seems like they are looked at in a sort of reductive fashion, starting at 2 seconds at the most and then reducing effectiveness universally from character to character.
Anyways, that’s all I’ve got to say on it for now, but I created this thread to hear what a lot of the community thinks about it. Am I mostly on point in my assessments here, or do you have your own hierarchy when it comes to CCs?
