CC and You!

Chaska

Chaska

New Member
So now we are facing Heroics in Cataclysm and There is a need for CC again. And I have found that people that aren't in my class have no idea how a druid CCs. As far as I can tell, if it isn't sheep or frost trap people haven't a clue what classes have for cc that isn't from their own class. I'll be honest, I'm in that group. I've heard that certain people have no idea how the cc works even within their class with a different spec. So I will now lay out druid does cc and invite others to post about their class so we can be informed :).

Hibernate:
We can put dragonkin and beasts to sleep. This (as far as I know) is most useful in Grim Batol. Damage will break the sleep.

Entangling Roots:
This immobilizes the target and slowly does damage. Damage has a chance of breaking the roots. Only really useful against melee targets. It has no slow effect and it is usable inside. For those who don't know, because the change was made YEARS ago, Roots used to be only usable outside. But if Alan doesn't know that that change has occurred, there may be others.

Cyclone:
Cyclone is a terrible CC in PvE. It lasts 6 seconds, aka not very long. There are rare exceptions to the rule that it is a bad choice in PvE. It also makes the target immune to everything so it doesn't break. Telling your druid to keep a target cycloned means you are killing that druid's dps/healing or your party if you ask the bear as they will be able to do little else.

Moonkin Special: Solar Beam
This is a beautiful thing. It is currently my favorite reason to be a moonkin. A 5foot radius beam of light comes down on the target of the moonkin and then remains stationary for 15sec. All enemies are silenced while within the beam. It has a 1minute cooldown. I have found that it takes about 1 minute to go from one pull to the next (including fighting time) at the game's current level of gear. Since this is the case, I feel that Solar Beam should be out for every pull with a caster in it. Call out to tanks: The solar beam is not something new that the enemies are doing so don't pull them out of it. I have found that you can usually burn down 1 1/2 casters before the beam disappears which is great for the tank.

So now you should all know what to do with a druid in your group. Obviously be kind to druids that are healing/tanking for you and only make them cc once at the beginning. Don't forget to post your class' cc.
 
Warlocks typically did not do much in the way of crowd control except on demons. With Cataclysm, however, Golias's fear becomes more useful. The Glyph of Fear now makes the mob "tremble in fear" in place instead of running around and attracting other nearby mobs. Like before it lasts for 20 seconds, but can be refreshed after a cooldown of 5 secs. So with some loss in dps it can be keep up indefinitely. As always damage will break fear.
 
"as always damage will break fear"

I have found with my Polymorph (Mages) that it is constantly being voided usually by an AoE of some kind; and being a frost mage I don't use AoE much at all anymore except Arcane Explosion when warranted. What I would like to know is order of proceedings. Is it possible for the ranged CC's to be implemented first, then the tank run in and attract the other targets away from the CC'ed enemies? Having a tank run in, pull the mob, and trying to CC at that moment seems too sloppy (I see how I could be wrong here) so would prefer, if CC'ing didn't immediately draw aggro, to fire Poly off first.

I actually now use Slow all the time too. It has made my main button rotation even though my spells have a 5% chance to slow the target on any damaging spell cast. I love it.
 
Yes, normally you have CC applied first, with the tank pulling very shortly thereafter (as the CC will cause aggro on all the other mobs). Since hunter traps have an arming time of 1-2 seconds, it is important that their CC is applied first, or else mobs are likely to simply run over the not-yet-armed trap, rendering it useless.

A good tank will also move the remaining mobs a safe distance from the CC'd targets, allowing for the use of aoe attacks without fear of breaking the CC.
 
Also, when possible the tank should try to LOS (line of sight) pull, especially to get the casters to come closer to the group. We used to have to do it all the time in vanilla, but hardly ever see it now.
 
vigilante said:
Also, when possible the tank should try to LOS (line of sight) pull, especially to get the casters to come closer to the group. We used to have to do it all the time in vanilla, but hardly ever see it now.
Click to expand...

Good point. When I played City of Heroes we used to actually call the 'LOS' concept a 'pull'. I still get a bit of a smirk when i see a tank typing 'pulling' and then realize that they aren't bringing the mob behind an obstacle, a.k.a. LoS.

And as much as it helps for understanding within the guild we just have to have the grace to teach gently in PUG's if the group needs a bit of prompting towards these methods. PUG'ing has definitely taken a beating as most people are trying to keep it all within their guilds.
 
Hunter - our CC is the Ice Trap. As one of the original 2 CC'ing classes, this has been around forever, however now we have a 'Trap Launcher' which allows us to place a trap from a considerable distance. The trap still must arm itself however, so this is not instant CC. It is still a very powerful and useful mitigator of incoming damage, so use it where possible.

If you are leading / marking / pulling - allow the hunter to pull using the trap. Unlike every other CC'er, the trap is a bit fickle and not easily targetable. Casters can macro their CC to a focus target, Hunters must do it by location, and then have 1 min before they can do it again.

Happy CC'ing
 
Ret Pallys can use a talent point to get a CC ability please note it is deep enough in the Ret Tree that only Ret Pallys will have this ability:

Repentance 20 yd range 9% of base mana 1 min cooldown Instant cast

Puts the enemy target in a state of meditation, incapacitating them for up to 1 min. Any damage caused will awaken the target. Usable against Demons, Dragonkin, Giants, Humanoids and Undead.
 
Rogues of course have sap. It lasts for 1 min. and is broken by any damage. It can also only be used from stealth and on targets not in combat, so obviously it has to go down before the pull, and it can't be reapplied. Not being able to reapply it means it is usual best to break it first since you can always resheep something and the like, but Jatt has a glyph in his PVE spec that makes it last 2.33 min., longer than most pulls, so it can easily be the last thing broken if necessary. It can be used on humanoids, beasts, dragonkin and probably a couple other things as well; basically, anything with a brain we can bash.

We don't have any other long CC methods, but we have several in-combat ones. Gouge incapacitates a target for 4 seconds, and Blind disorients for 10, but both are broken with damage. Since we rouges would normally only use these on mobs that get out of control somehow (CC broken early, whatever), they're not very useful since out of control mobs usually get smacked pretty quickly.

This isn't CC per se, but a useful ability I've found not many people utilize is Smoke Bomb. It drops a cloud of smoke that doesn't let enemies target into or out of. What that means for PVE is corners are no longer necessary for LOS pulls. A rogue can just drop a smoke bomb, and as long as everyone stands inside it the mob will move forward. In one of my runs a couple people stood outside it, thinking you had to be behind it for the mob to not target you, and the mob just kept casting at them. Be aware: you must be INSIDE the cloud. It puts a little debuff on you saying that you are inside it, so if you can see it, you're good. It lasts 10 seconds, but in patch 4.0.6 that's dropping to 5, which sucks. That shouldn't really affect PVE a ton, but it's terrible for PVP for reasons I won't go into now since that's not the topic of this thread. :p
 
Shamans have gained CC with Cata. I don't know what they were like before TBC since that is when they became available on alliance side but we now have 2 different CC spells.

Hex
Hex is similar to polymorph. It has a relatively short cast time (1.5 seconds I believe) and transforms the target into a frog. The advantage of Hex is that damage does not immediately break the effect. A hexed target can jump around in a consecrate or D&D for a few seconds before it will break. The disadvantage is it has a long CD (30 seconds). Recently they changed the CD, decreasing it so the duration of hex is longer than the CD so a target can be chain hexed as needed (if it doesn't break early)

Bind Elemental
This is a new spell that was added for Cataclysm. I don't know what level it is trained at but a shaman will know it by level 80 for sure. Obviously this is only usable on elemental targets, and for this one, any damage will break the effect.

Will also talk about CC on my main...
DK's do not now and probably never will have any real CC (chains of ice does not count)

A note on tanking with CC:

When I am tanking a dungeon group I actually prefer that the pull be done with CC. Since I can not charge it is easier for the caster to CC his/her target then as the mobs run over I will put down my death&decay and take agro as all the mobs run through it. For this reason I also tend to CC caster types or use my deathgrip as needed to bring them to me. DK's also have a range silence effect so even when DPSing I use this to help bring mobs to the tank.

PS. Shame on Alan for posting TWICE and not saying anything about shamans and their CC abilities
 
Priests have shackle (only on undead) as a CC, mind control (humanoid targets) could be considered a cc as well.

Shackle puts an undead in chains for up to 50 seconds (not sure why it sometimes breaks early, perhaps level?). A priest can only shackle one target at a time, it only has a 1.5 sec cast and no cooldown so chain shackling is an option (although the law of diminishing returns applies here). It can be difficult to manage healing at the same time as chain shackling if there is a lot of damage going on so healing priest would appreciate you killing the shackle high on your list of priorities.

Mind control allows a priest to take over a humanoid, controlling its actions. It increases the time between the target's attacks by 25% and lasts up to 30 seconds (good for up to lvl 88) This can be used to draw aggro, in effect using the m/c target as the tank. This can drastically reduce the target's health (or even kill them) at the same time as reducing another mobs health (the one the mind control is beating on). Again, this is difficult to do while healing, so if you ask the healing priest to mind control, consider allowing the mind controlled target to do everything while the rest of the party waits until the m/c either breaks (which causes aggro to the priest) or dies..at which point the tank can take aggro and the priest can go back to healing.

Priests do have one more "cc" ability..the psychic scream which scares nearby enemies to flee in fear..it's generally not used as a cc ability in instances, more of a last ditch effort not to die. It is very useful in pvp type battles.
 
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Jason covered shaman cc (hex/bind) which btw can both be used per pull in Grim. (Bind 1 and frog another) Our pets and roots (If you specced in earthbind roots) can also be a form of emergency CC.

I think you will find that while CC is back, once your gear level rises you don't need it as much. I'm 347 and the majority of pugs I run with use it very sparingly in certain instances, if at all. It's not "Hey lets use all our cc" It can also depend on group makeup (If you have 2 classes that can throw heals)

When I started heroics it was used quite a bit. (Not just because of gear lvl but also because of lack of familiarity)
 
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Pretty much what Danny said. There are still certain pulls in certain heroics that you really need to CC, because the incoming damage on the tank is just retarded.
 
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