Talk:VPBE/@comment-24951773-20150208193816/@comment-1330314-20150210001500

Knockups and knockback are functionally the exact same thing. Any kind of displacement, vertical or horizontal, counts as making the target airborne, and that's what's being talked about when people mention knockup creep ('s ultimate is a knockback, which is why he fits into this).

While Riot definitely is capable of making clear stuns (Gnar has two, has one and so does ), the issue with crowd control on a lot of old champions boils down to outdated visuals:, for example, has this unique crowd control effect that is very poorly conveyed (it's a stun where you still get to cast spells), and making it more readable would likely involve giving  a visual update. , on the other hand, gave clear indications to his crowd control even before his VU, because getting punted around is clear visual feedback in itself.

I think there's a pretty deep problem with crowd control in general in that it's fairly outdated and unclear at its core (remembering which effect is affected by what is often a matter of book-keeping, rather than clear and immediate indication), and until Riot overhauls that system it's always going to just be easier to implement knockups. Tenacity factors into this as well, because it devalues most kinds of crowd control and can become really abusive when stacked (see ), but also because it's led to some really inflated effects, whose duration is really long just so that the champion in question (e.g., , ...) can function even against an opponent with Tenacity. Airborne effects have the advantage of locking a target for just the right amount of time, regardless of who the opponent is or what they're building, which is also why they're popular on champions who are supposed to have limited but powerful CC.

The whole issue of there being fewer stuns and silences is also a red herring. Sure, high-burst champions like and  lost their silences, but that was an issue of counterplay, not visibility (silences coupled with high burst prevents the victim from fighting back in the short window of time they have before they die). Meanwhile, 's silence became AoE, and snares enemies in the right conditions. Several recently released champions have stuns. You're focusing on the wrong changes and ignoring their context, which is why it feels like Riot's trying to remove stuns and silences when they're really not.