@Riot: A deep discussion about CC

With the recent changes to QSS and a recent discovery I made, I thought an extended discussion would be welcomed. I'm not a native English-speaker so, please, be indulgent.

#What is a CC? Crowd Control is a weird thing. Is it a kind of debuff? Is it something else? What defines it, exactly? How do we sort the different CC? Let's see what the LoL wikia says about it:

> Crowd control (commonly shortened to CC) is a blanket term used in League of Legends to describe abilities or spells that remove or diminish the control a target unit has over aspects of itself - aspects such as being able to cast spells or initiate movement commands. As crowd controls impact a unit's combat ability, they are essentially more specialized forms of debuffs - however, this ability to directly hinder a unit's ability to fight means that crowd controls are often given significantly more importance in regular gameplay than normal debuffs, resulting in their special classification.

##list of CC according to the wikia

• Airborne
• Blind
• Disarm
• Forced Action
• Charm
• Fear
• Flee
• Taunt
• Grounded (to be added, not in the wikia)
• Nearsight
• Root
• Silence
• Slow
• MS
• AS
• Statis
• Stun
• Suspension
• Suppression

We could add Entangle and Pacify, but they are just compound CC and don't have the frequency of the Stun to justify being added.

##They are essentially more specialized forms of debuffs This is actually kind of an important point. If CC are debuffs, should we really put them in a special category? Are they really so different from the non-CC debuffs? Maybe not. But the fact that they have a special category is not a problem as long as we clearly identify what the category consists of. That's where we look at this other point.

##Remove or diminish the control This seems pretty clear, right? Well, not really. Let's be clear: it says diminish or remove control. Not power. Not strength. Not effectiveness. Then, why would slows be CC? It doesn't prevent you from moving, you're just slower. The same goes for AS slows: you still can attack, but your timer is bigger. It would almost feel like or are CC counters.

We could simply extend the definition to add the strength/effectiveness diminution. But then, another problem: would damage reduction be a CC? If we can augment the timer between auto-attacks, why couldn't we diminish the damage from abilities and call it a CC too? It's an effectiveness reduction as well.

Another solution is to restrict the previous statement to movement. MS slows are now included and the damage reductions are still out, but so are AS slows.

We could go further and say that it regroups as well timer modifiers. But since there is only one debuff to add and that there is no ability counterpart (like a CC that augments your cooldowns), it feels like the definition only serves to justify arbitrarily chosen debuffs.

##Slows: MS and AS are grouped?

I'll be direct: until recently, I didn't know AS slows were considered CC. I thought it was a simple debuff like damage reduction. Furthermore, I find it extremely unintuitive that AS slows are considered a type of slows and that slow resistance/immunity gives both MS and AS slow resistance/immunity! There is no gameplay connection. One is movement, the other is action, there is no reason to mix them.

Riot says they don't like hidden power, but damn, this one is extremely well hidden. I've mained support tanks for 5 years, with lots of in my builds, I've been following the game actively for 3 years, read all the pages of the wikia (it's a hyperbol) and I heard of this for the first time less than a month ago! Did anyone realize that countered ? Because I didn't.

##What is a CC: Conclusion A CC is not well defined, really. There is a clear definition with two intruders, or a moderately logical definition with one. If MS Slows feel by nature intuitive to add due the concept of "hinder a person's action", AS slows are more like a simple debuff to the damage output and shouldn't be considered a CC anymore. Secondly, the MS and AS slows being mixed feels terrible and gives a lot of hidden power to slow resistance.

#Classifying the CCs

CCs are often unofficially classified in two categories: soft CC and hard CC. But what exactly differs from those groups? There seem to be three ways to understand these terms:

##Complete or partial loss of control Can you still do anything while under the CC? If the answer is yes, it is a soft CC (slow, silence...). Otherwise, it is a hard CC (stun, taunt...). This one highlights how many CCs are just compounds of more simple CCs: stuns are just roots and silences put together.

##Channel interruption A classification that is more specific to the game is whether it interrupts a channel. In my opinion, it feels more arbitrary than the first one since it consists on using the first classification then putting the silence is the hard category. A CC interrupting a channel is specific to the game and furthermore situational (most abilities have a cast time, not a channel).

##Blocks movement Can you still move during the CC? Positioning is really important; preventing someone from doing so is powerful. It is complicated to determinate whether this classification is better than the first or not. The only change is the root, which becomes a hard CC.

##Too situational Roots, silences and disarms/blinds are the most complicated CCs to sort, since they depend on what you want/need to do and on who you use them. They can't really be classified in strict categories. Yasuo hates roots, Vel'Koz hates silences and Vayne hates blinds.

##Classifying the CCs: Conclusion If some CCs can easily be placed in a category, some other are more subject to context and don't really belong to one. You can classify them but realize that it really depends on the point of view. #Duration and effectiveness CCs have one shared component: the duration. Every CC has a duration that can be reduced by tenacity. But some have another component:

##Airborne Knockup, knockaside, knockback, pull. The other component is the vector of displacement: where you are going. The vector can't be changed or canceled by the player with cleanse abilities. However, if you have the possibility to remove CC while in mid-air, you can then use any mean in you possession to override it with a movement ability. Something weird: If you are cleansed of a knock, you are no longer stunned. You can't move however but still use movement abilities so you are like rooted but anti-grounded. It highlights that roots are another compound CC of grounded and what prevents you from moving normally, which I will call "snare". So if you cleanse an airborne effect, you remove the silence, the grounded, but not the snare nor the displacement.

##Slows Both MS and AS slows have an intensity. Slows can be powerful by duration or intensity. This one is the most obvious, since there even are items and a mastery to counter them. Don't forget however that the minimum MS you can have is 110 with a 100% slow.

##Forced Actions The forced action itself is the additional component. It can't be mitigated. It is removed along with the CC, however. ##Tenacity Most CCs are affected by tenacity, which reduced their duration. Some are not:

• Airborne
• Nearsight
• Stasis
• Suppression

Why is that? There is a clear explanation: logic.

Airborne can't be reduced since the goal of the knocks is to put you on another place. You can't reduce the duration without either reduce the distance or accelerate the movement. None of these effects are positive. You couldn't be partially pulled by Blitz nor be pulled faster. It would make the effect clunky and unnatural to use. The exception is the knockup, which could easily be reduced like the suspension.

Stasis is particular in the sense that it can be either positive or negative. Stasis has untargetability on top of its suppression mechanic. Making it subject to tenacity could make tenacity itself unattractive.

Suppression is a kit concern. Effects that suppress people can't be reduced because the spell has to ensure a full CC duration to work properly. In these cases, the champion that suppresses often gets himself in some animation that doesn't let him play and needs the target to stay unable to do actions.

Nearsight is weird, I think. There is no reason it can't be reduced. If, for balance purpose, it needs to get the full duration, it can have an exception, like Galio's ult. Apart from it, it should be considered like a normal CC.

##Duration and effectiveness: Conclusion CCs that get another component are a bit more complex. They need to have their own rules and itemization. Tenacity immunity has a purpose, though it should be rethought on some points, like nearsight.

#Compound CC Most CCs are technically composed of multiple simple CCs. I'd like to make a list of compound CC and what they should have as components.

##Components Blind, Disarm, Grounded, Silence, Snare, Slow

##Compounds

• Airborne
• Disarm, Silence, Grounded, Snare (+displacement)
• Forced Action
• Disarm, Silence, Grounded, Snare (+action)
• Root
• Grounded, Snare
• Pacify
• Disarm, Silence
• Entangle
• Disarm, Grounded, Snare
• Stasis
• Disarm, Silence, Grounded, Snare (+untargetability)
• Stun
• Disarm, Silence, Grounded, Snare

##Silence and Grounded You'll note that Grounded is present wherever Silence is, except for pacify. I'll get to that later.

##Importance of having components The goal behind this is to give a clear vision of what does the CC prevent? It is important that CCs can be intuitively split in sub-CCs so you can say "if the component prevents this, the compound prevents it as well".

#Summoner's spells under CC Some CCs prevent you from casting summoner's spells. Summoner's spells are really powerful. They can save you in really difficult situations. One of their perks is to be castable under most CCs. You can cast Heal or Barrier to save yourself, Smite to secure the Nash or Cleanse to directly end the CC itself. Most CCs prevent you from casting and . But why? The most logical explanation would be that grounded prevents you from casting any movement ability, including summoner's spells related to movement. This seems logical until we see that silences prevent it as well. I could understand that silences would prevent the use of all summoner's spells, but why restrict it to movement spells? Since making silences prevent all spell casts would cause the CCs composed of it to do it as well (see above), it would make spells unusable most of the time. Silence is weird on that point, since it has no reason to prevent mobility. Movement-hindering CCs should, but not action-hindering CCs. That where grounded and silence diverge

As it is now, silence is a better grounded but one is against action and the other is against movement. It feels more logical that only grounded prevent mobility spells. That would cause pacify to allow flashes and teleports, which I think is fine, honestly, since it doesn't snare the target. The only other case where a non-snared target can't flash is when they're only grounded. It would make more sense for people that they can say "I'm rooted, I can't flash but if I'm only slowed, I can". The grounded is an exception that still feels natural, since it is made especially for it and can be understood easily.

##Nearsight and teleport Nearsight prevents only teleport, which is normal since you need to see the target to TP.

##Complete denial of spells Only the stasis and the suppression prevent absolutely all CCs. This is inter alia due to preventing cleansing.

Summoner's spells under CC: Conclusion

The spell denial feels logical for most parts, with the exception of the silence that should not prevent Flash/TP since its goal is not to hinder mobility.

#CC removal: it's a mess There are three ways to remove CC in the game, excluding champion abilities:

• QSS/Mercurial
• Cleanse summoner's spell
• Mikael's Crucible

##They are awfully not consistent While QSS can't remove airborne (sort of) and stasis (for balance purpose), the other two can't remove nearsight nor suppression, and Mikael can't even remove blind, for obscure reasons. Nearsight has no reason to be uncleansable, really. It prevents vision, therefore targeted abilities and should get logical counterplay. There is no kit that depends on it being active to function (at least, not more than other CCs). Blind should be cleansable by Mikael's Crucible. This is such an arbitrary limitation since only one champion can blind. Plus, you could then cleanse the tooltip itself, since it would function as the spell.

##The case of the suppression The suppression is the ultimate CC. Nothing is possible, no movement, no ability, no spell, no item, no cleansing possibility. Wait, there is one: QSS can cleanse the uncleansable. Suppression has logic by not being removable: The kit uses the CC to work properly.

QSS can cleanse knocks because it doesn't nullify the intent: displace. Suppression has as goal to ensure the completion of the spell and the prevention of any action from the target. Suppression comes from channeled abilities, except for Skarner, whose ultimate could easily change to a stun with tenacity immunity.

##Search consistency Nearsight and Blind removable by all, suppression by none. It's that simple.

#Global Conclusion CCs are not clear on many subjects: what they are, how they are grouped, how they interact with tenacity and removal. There are some remarks and suggestions I made in the article. Here is a list:

• AS slows should be simple debuffs, not CCs
• Hard and Soft CCs classifications are situational
• Most CCs are compounds of other CCs in ideas
• A clear and intuitive composition is important to understand the CCs
• Nearsight should be reduced by tenacity
• Silence should not prevent the use of Flash or Teleport
• The cleansing abilities should be identical
• Blind and Nearsight removable by all 3
• Suppression removable by none

What do you think of this? Leave a comment if you have a remark.