Crowd control

Debuff — Tristana under the effects of Nasus' Wither

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, including being able to cast spells and issue movement or attack commands. Crowd control effects are essentially specialized forms of debuffs. However, because they directly hinder a unit's combat ability, crowd control effects are often considered significantly more important than normal debuffs in regular gameplay, resulting in their special classification.

Crowd control can take many forms, each of which is unique in the ways it impairs affected units and the ways it can be resisted, mitigated, or cleansed, if at all. Most champions can apply the same types of crowd control, although through various means. However, some crowd control effects are exclusive to a few champions.

Many mechanics require a unit to be affected by specific forms of crowd control in order to function.

Crowd Control Effects[]

Crowd control disabling properties — The HUD indicates disabled actions.

Crowd control can disable movement commands, attack commands, ability casting, summoner spell use, and item activation. Crowd control can also interrupt channeled spells.

Crowd control effects that inhibit casting will only disable the following summoner spells: Flash, Teleport, Hexflash, and Mark / Dash. Stasis and suppression are exceptions to this rule and will prevent the caster from using any summoner spell.

All crowd control effects, with the exception of blind or cripple, will count toward assist credit, even if the ability they were applied from did not deal damage.

Castable during Crowd Control[]

The following can be used even when casting is disabled by crowd control:

Most spells and abilities with cleansing effects (there are exceptional cases)
Annie's Summon: Tibbers recast
Elise's Rappel recast
Heimerdinger's UPGRADE!!!
Irelia's Defiant Dance's recast
Ivern's Daisy! recast
Karma's Mantra
Kennen's Lightning Rush's recast
K'Sante's Path Maker recast
Shaco's Hallucinate recast
Tryndamere's Undying Rage
Twisted Fate's Pick a Card's recast
Urgot's Fear Beyond Death's recast
Varus' Blighted Quiver initial cast and recast
Viktor's Chaos Storm's recast
Zoe's Paddle Star's recast

Types of Crowd Control[]

For the complete article, see Types of Crowd Control.

The following are the current forms of crowd control that exist within League of Legends:

Airborne: A unit that is airborne is unable to move, attack, cast abilities, or use item actives for the duration.
- Knock aside: A knock aside causes the unit to be made airborne in a direction perpendicular to the direction of cast.
- Knock back: A knock back causes the unit to be made airborne in a direction away from the point of cast.
- Knock up: A knock up causes the unit to be made airborne on the spot.
- Pull: A pull causes the unit to be made airborne in a direction towards the point of cast.
Blind: A unit that is blinded will miss its basic attacks for the duration. Miss occurs on-hit, and does not prevent attacks from being declared.
Cripple: A unit that is crippled has reduced attack speed for the duration.
Disarm: A unit that is disarmed cannot declare basic attacks for the duration.
Disrupt: A unit that is disrupted has its channeled and charged abilities interrupted.
Drowsy: A unit that is drowsy is gradually slowed over the duration, falling asleep thereafter.
- Sleep: A unit that is asleep is unable to move, attack, cast abilities, or use item actives for the duration as long as it doesn't get damaged.
Forced Action: A unit that is under the effect of a forced action cannot control its own movement or attacks and is unable to cast abilities or use item actives.
- Berserk: A unit that is berserk will attempt to basic attack a nearby unit for the duration.
- Charm: A unit that is charmed will move toward the source with reduced movement speed for the duration.
- Flee: A unit that is fleeing will move directly away from the source with reduced movement speed for the duration.^[1]
- Taunt: A unit that is taunted will attempt to basic attack the source for the duration.
Ground: A unit that is grounded is unable to activate mobility spells for the duration.
Kinematics: A unit affected by kinematics is dragged to a unit or location.
Knockdown: A unit that is knocked down has its dash or displacement interrupted and is placed on the ground.
Nearsight: A unit that is nearsighted has their sight radius reduced and loses their allied vision for the duration.
Root: A unit that is rooted is unable to control its movement or activate mobility spells for the duration.
Silence: A unit that is silenced cannot cast abilities or use item actives for the duration.
- Polymorph: A unit that is polymorphed is silenced and turned into a critter. The only example also applies disarm and reduces movement speed for the duration.
Slow: A unit that is slowed has reduced movement speed for the duration.
Stasis: A unit that is in stasis is unable to move, attack, cast abilities, or use item actives or summoner spells while being untargetable and invulnerable for the duration.
Stun: A unit that is stunned is unable to move, attack, cast abilities, or use item actives for the duration.
- Suspension: A unit that is suspended is stunned and pretends to be airborne.
Suppression: A unit that is suppressed is unable to move, attack, cast abilities, or use item actives or summoner spells for the duration.

Crowd Control	Movement	Attacking	Abilities	Interrupts Channels	Disabled Summoner Spells	Modified by Tenacity	Removal
Airborne (status)	Disabled	Disabled	Disabled	Yes		No
Blind	Allowed	Parried	Allowed	No	None	Yes
Cripple	Allowed	Reduced	Allowed	No	None	Yes
Disarm	Allowed	Disabled	Allowed	No	None	Yes
Forced Action - Berserk, Charm, Flee, Taunt	Uncontrollable	Disabled / Uncontrollable	Disabled	Yes		Yes
Ground	Partial	Allowed	Partial	See notes		Yes
Kinematics	Partial	Allowed	Allowed	No	None	No	None
Nearsight	Allowed	Partial	Partial	No	None	No
Root	Disabled	Allowed	Partial	See notes		Yes
Silence	Allowed	Allowed	Disabled	Yes		Yes
Polymorph	Allowed	Disabled	Disabled	Yes		Yes
Drowsy	Reduced	Allowed	Allowed	No	None	No
Sleep	Disabled	Disabled	Disabled	Yes		Yes
Slow	Reduced	Allowed	Allowed	No	None	Yes
Stasis	Disabled	Disabled	Disabled	Yes	All	No	None
Stun and Suspension	Disabled	Disabled	Disabled	Yes		Yes
Suppression	Disabled	Disabled	Disabled	Yes	All	No

Notes[]

Movement includes basic movement and mobility abilities (i.e. dashes and blinks, e.g. Ezreal's Arcane Shift or Shen's Shadow Dash).
- Ground does not impede basic movement, but existing sources will also apply a slow.
Attacking refers to a champion's basic attacks (by default right-click).
Abilities refers to a champion's castable spells (by default , , , and ).
Removal refers to cleansing effects that can remove the crowd control debuff.
Root and Ground will only interrupt channeled movement abilities.
Impaired movement refers to crowd control effects that inhibit the unit's movement, which includes all immobilizing effects as well as Drowsy, Ground, and Slow.
Immobilizing effects refer to crowd control effects that render the unit unable to control their movement, which includes Airborne, Forced Action ( Berserk, Charm, Flee, Taunt), Root, Sleep, Stasis, Stun ( Suspension), and Suppression.
Airborne, Knockdown, and Stasis are the only crowd control effects that interrupt dashes and displacements (airborne status while knocked up is not changed by stasis however).
Crowd control applied by one's self or an ally cannot be countered in any way (neither reduced, resisted, nor removed) unless otherwise stated.
- Self- slows (e.g. Pyke's Bone Skewer, Galio's Shield of Durand, and Varus' Piercing Arrow) will be reduced by slow resist.
Brittle is a debuff that reduces a unit's effective Tenacity by 30%. It ends prematurely when the affected unit is immobilized.
Forced action crowd control effects (excluding Berserk) end prematurely if the Source dies.
Berserk, Charm, Flee, and Taunt all individually apply the same debuff even from different ability sources.
- Forced action effects override each other when they're applied on the same target; an ongoing forced action will end prematurely when another one is applied.
All crowd control effects that inhibit attacking also interrupt attack windups. In terms of crowd control, basic attacks with uncancellable windups are interrupted by polymorph only.
All crowd control effects that inhibit casting will also disable abilities that can be recast, unless otherwise stated by the ability.
Spell shield blocks all components of an ability, including crowd control, unless the ability itself cannot be blocked.
Anivia's Glacial Storm and Samira's Inferno Trigger are special cased to be deactivated by all forms of crowd control that interrupt all channels.
Crowd control applications trigger a stack for Electrocute and Phase Rush.
Taunt is the only crowd control that could theoretically break stealth (due to it being interrupted by declaring an attack).

Interactions with Crowd Control[]

The following mobility spells are interrupted / prevented by immobilizations, ground, polymorph and/or silence:

The following interact with immobilizations and/or slows:

Categories of Crowd Control[]

To facilitate easier communications, crowd control effects are usually described under one of the following systems:

Loss of Control[]

Total CC	Partial CC
Airborne	Blind
Forced Action	Cripple
Sleep	Disarm
Stasis	Drowsy
Stun	Ground
Suppression	Kinematics
Suspension	Nearsight
	Polymorph
	Root
	Silence
	Slow

Crowd control effects are grouped into one of two categories depending on whether or not the effect removes total control of the champion.

Total CC and partial CC are also colloquially referred to as "hard CC" and "soft CC," respectively.

Disrupting[]

Disrupts	Does not disrupt
Airborne	Blind
Forced Action	Cripple
Polymorph	Drowsy
Silence	Disarm
Sleep	Ground
Stasis	Kinematics
Stun	Nearsight
Suppression	Slow
Suspension	Root

Crowd control effects are grouped into one of two categories depending on whether or not the effect disrupts a channeled ability (such as Karthus' Requiem and Katarina's Death Lotus).

Note that Disrupt will have the same interaction as hard disruption CC towards channels, but does not have a duration and thus is not a status effect. Ground and Root only interrupt channeled movement abilities.

Disruptive crowd control effects are also referred to as cast-inhibiting crowd control, which are those that disable casting.

Immobilizing[]

Immobilizing	Non-Immobilizing
Airborne	Blind
Forced Action	Cripple
Root	Disarm
Sleep	Drowsy
Stasis	Ground
Stun	Kinematics
Suppression	Nearsight
Suspension	Polymorph
	Silence
	Slow

Crowd control effects are grouped into one of two categories depending on whether or not the effect inhibits movement commands. Immobilizing effects prevents the ability to control movement. Non-immobilizing effects do not have an effect on the ability to control movement.

Disarming[]

Disarms	Does not disarm
Airborne	Berserk
Charm	Blind
Disarm	Cripple
Flee	Drowsy
Sleep	Ground
Stasis	Nearsight
Stun	Polymorph
Suppression	Silence
Suspension	Slow
	Root
	Taunt

Crowd control effects are grouped into one of two categories depending on whether or not the effect disables basic attacks.

Note that Berserk and Taunt only inhibit attack commands from being issued. They do not disable attacking altogether.

Impaired Movement and Actions[]

Impairs movement	Impairs actions
Airborne	Airborne
Drowsy	Cripple
Forced Action	Disarm
Ground	Drowsy
Root	Forced Action
Sleep	Ground
Slow	Polymorph
Stasis	Silence
Stun	Sleep
Suppression	Slow
Suspension	Root
	Stasis
	Stun
	Suspension
	Suppression

Crowd control effects are grouped into one of two categories depending on if they impair movement or impair actions. Movement-impairing effects inhibit movement in some form, whereas action-impairing effects inhibit acting, such as moving, attacking, or casting, to an extent.

Increasing the duration of Crowd Control[]

It is possible for a unit to have negative tenacity, this causes crowd control to last longer. The following gameplay elements reduce a unit's tenacity:

Champion abilities[]

Brittled unit screenshot — A unit with Brittle.

Brittle is a status effect that can be applied by Ornn's Bellows Breath and Call of the Forge God. It temporarily reduces the affected unit's Tenacity by 30% and ends prematurely when they become immobilized.

Monsters[]

Rift Scuttler has -100% tenacity, doubling the duration of crowd control effects applied to her. This stacks additively with Brittle for a total of -130% tenacity.

Countering Crowd Control[]

Crowd control can be countered in various different ways.

Immunity[]

Crowd control immunity completely negates any attempt at application of CC on the unit. Becoming immune does not prevent already-applied crowd control from imposing their effects, unless they were explicitly removed.

A unit with the immunity status will indicate that they "Can't Be Disabled!" or are "Spell Immune!" when they resist a crowd control effect, or specifically "Can't Be Slowed!" upon negating a slow or cripple effect with slow immunity. This indicator may not appear for some immunities.

Total Immunity[]

All crowd control debuffs currently in League of Legends can be prevented with total CC immunity.

The following abilities provide immunity to all forms of CC:

Champion abilities

The following units are immune to all forms of CC:

Champion summoned units

Heimerdinger's H-28Q Apex Turret
- Does not resist stasis.
Kalista's Sentinel
Zac's Bloblets
- Does not resist stasis.

Monsters

All epic monsters ( Dragon, Baron Nashor, and pit Rift Herald)
- They do not resist stasis.

Structures

All structures and buildings (turrets, inhibitors, and Nexus)
- Turrets do not resist stasis.

Displacement Immunity[]

Unstoppable example — Path Maker causes K'Sante to become immune to the pull from Nautilus' Dredge Line.

Displacement immunity provides immunity to all airborne effects in addition to suspension, knockdown, kinematics, sleep and stasis.

The immunity is also special cased to prevent the dimension swap from Mordekaiser's Realm of Death and resist the suppression effect of Skarner's Ixtal's Impact and Impale, Sett's The Show Stopper, and Tahm Kench's Devour, which consequently causes these abilities to fail to attach the target to the caster.

The following abilities provide immunity to displacement CC:

Champion abilities

Other

Catapult launch

The following units are immune to displacement CCs:

Monsters

Rift Herald's wind up and leap attack

UnstoppableForceMarker[]

EditUnstoppableForceMarker is a marker buff which is preloaded for all displacement immunities as well as the immunities for Chaaaaaaaarge!!!, Infinite Duress, Soaring Slam, and Unstoppable Onslaught.

Devour, Fate's Call, Realm Warp, and Tempered Fate all interact with UnstoppableForceMarker.

Notes[]

Displacement immunity only affects displacements and other effects that are cased to be resisted by it.
- This means that displacements that are not cased to interact with the immunity will ignore it and successfully impose their forced movement on the target.
Urgot's Fear Beyond Death's recast reel-in will be deferred to until the unit is no longer displacement immune.
Aftershock and Glacial Augment will not trigger against displacement immune units.
Some abilities that apply airborne and stun simultaneously will not apply their stun against displacement immune units. These include:

Slow Immunity[]

Main article: Slow resist#Slow Immunity

EditSlow immunity is a status effect that prevents the application of slows.

The following prevent the application of slows:

Cripple Immunity[]

Main article: Slow resist#Cripple Immunity

EditCripple immunity is a status effect that prevents the application of cripples, also known as attack speed slows.

The following prevent the application of cripples:

Other Immunities[]

Aphelios' Sentry gains immunity to root and silence.
Dr. Mundo's Goes Where He Pleases provides immunity to immobilizing effects.
Ekko's Chronobreak provides immunity to airborne displacements.
Shaco's Jack in the Box is immune to knock ups.
Zyra's Plants gain immunity to airborne displacements and silence.

Spell Shields[]

Main article: Spell shield

Spell Shield example 2 — Banshee's Veil preventing Orianna from being affected by Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab.

While not specific to crowd control, spell shields can be considered to provide pseudo-CC immunity against a single spell, but this is not guaranteed - abilities that do not interact with spell shields (such as Karthus' Wall of Pain) will still apply any crowd control effects if possible. Multiple active spell shields existing on the same unit will break simultaneously against a single hostile ability that does not apply a crowd control effect.

The following provide immunity to CC applied with the first instance of an applicable hostile ability:

Champion abilities

Items

Removal[]

Most types of crowd control can be removed once they have been applied, with the cleansing spell itself not being disabled even while under the effects of cast-inhibiting crowd control (excluding Kalista's Fate's Call, Yone's Soul Unbound recast, and Mikael's Blessing). Suppression will disable all summoner spells, including Cleanse.

Stasis effects cannot be removed by cleanses, and will also disable cleansing effects for their duration. Persistent crowd control effects cannot be cleansed. The disabling effect of airborne can be removed by cleansing effects, but their forced movement cannot (which can be overridden by another displacement or a dash or blink).

The following remove all forms of CC:

Alistar's Unbreakable Will
Briar's Certain Death
Gangplank's Remove Scurvy
Kalista's Fate's Call
Kled's Dismount
Olaf's Ragnarok
Rengar's Empowered Battle Roar
Syndra's Force of Will (on the grabbed unit)

The following remove some or most forms of CC:

Milio's Breath of Life (all CC except airborne)
Yone's Soul Unbound (all CC except disarm, ground, nearsight, silence, and slow)
Cleanse (all CC except airborne, nearsight, and suppression)
Mikael's Blessing (all CC except airborne, blind, disarm, nearsight, and suppression)
Quicksilver (all CC except airborne)

The following remove slowing CC effects:

Master Yi's Highlander (all slows and cripples)
Garen's Decisive Strike (all slows)
Nunu's Biggest Snowball Ever! (all slows)

Reduction[]

Main article: Tenacity

Tenacity reduces the duration of crowd control effects by a percentage equal to its value. Sources of tenacity will stack multiplicatively or additively with each other, depending on the source of the tenacity.

Airborne, drowsy, nearsight, stasis, and suppression are not affected by tenacity and will always apply for their full duration.

Potency Reduction[]

Main article: Slow resist

This unofficial stat is unique to slows; slow resist reduces the effectiveness, or percentage, of slowing effects. Although it does not affect flat reductions in movement speed.

Self/Ally-CC[]

The following effects are comparable to crowd control, except that the effect is caused voluntarily and affects the user/an ally rather than an enemy.

Self-Disarm: The following abilities disarm the caster:

Camille's Tactical Sweep
Darius' Decimate
Samira's Blade Whirl
Garen's Judgment
Wukong's Cyclone
Kennen's Lightning Rush
Rakan's The Quickness (versus champions he did not collide with)
Renata Glasc's Handshake
Ryze's Realm Warp
Skarner's Impale
Taliyah's Threaded Volley (until the third stone is thrown)
Thresh's Death Sentence
Vladimir's Sanguine Pool
Xayah's Featherstorm
Yuumi's You and Me!
Zac's Let's Bounce!

Self-Slow: The following abilities slow the caster:

Blitzcrank's Overdrive
Galio's Shield of Durand
Nunu & Willump's Biggest Snowball Ever! (only in the first second)
Ornn's Bellows Breath
Pantheon's Comet Spear
Poppy's Keeper's Verdict
Pyke's Bone Skewer
Quinn's Behind Enemy Lines (when taking damage from non-minions)
Rell's Ferromancy: Mount Up
Renata Glasc's Handshake
Samira's Inferno Trigger
Tahm Kench's Devour
Thresh's Death Sentence (when hitting a target)
Urgot's Purge (when attacking a target)
Varus' Piercing Arrow
Vi's Vault Breaker
Viego's Spectral Maw
Vladimir's Tides of Blood after being charged for 1 second.
Xerath's Arcanopulse

Self-Stun: The following abilities stun the caster.

Sion's Unstoppable Onslaught (when colliding with terrain)
Taliyah's Weaver's Wall (when colliding with Wind Wall or Blade Whirl)

Self-Ground: The following abilities ground the caster.

Tahm Kench's Devour

Ally-Silence: The following abilities silence an ally.

Kalista's Fate's Call

Cast Times and Channels[]

The casting time of an ability cannot be canceled by any means except death and prevents the caster from performing any other actions until the cast time is complete, unless otherwise stated. Certain summoner spells and item actives can be used during almost all cast times.

The channeling time of an ability, by contrast to a casting time, can be cancelled by disruptive CC. Channels can prevent their caster from performing certain actions and/or being able to cancel them, which is case by case. See Channel Interactions for more details.

Crowd Control Score[]

Crowd Control Score is a post-game statistic that indicates how much crowd control a player has inflicted on enemy champions in the game. Each type of crowd control effect applied grants a certain number of point(s) that contributes towards this score per second of the debuff duration.

The following list includes the number of points that can be earned for each CC type:

1 point

0.5 points

0.166 points

Trivia[]

Sona's Crescendo causes affected champions to also play a sped-up version of their dance animation.
Milio's Breath of Life is the only ability that cleanses himself and allies of crowd control.
If abilities that share cooldowns or are unique to different forms are counted separately, then Gnar possesses the highest number of crowd control abilities in the game, at six, with Hwei in second place with five and Nautilus and Karma tying for third place, at four. Otherwise, if they are counted as shared, Nautilus and Gnar possess the most, at four.
Poppy, Renata Glasc, Urgot, and Hwei possess the highest number of unique crowd control types, at five. If Pull and Knock up (both classified as airborne) are considered distinct, Poppy has six and Nautilus has five.
- Maokai and Nautilus (otherwise) possess the third-highest, at four. If Pull and Knock up (both classified as airborne) are considered distinct, Ornn, Xin Zhao, and Zac also have four. If Lissandra's Frozen Tomb is counted as a form of stasis, she also has four. If K'Sante's All Out counts as a special version of a pull - carrying enemy champions through walls - he also has four.
  - Aurelion Sol, Alistar, Bard, Blitzcrank, Braum, Camille, Cho'Gath, Gnar, Gragas, Ivern, Janna, Kled, Lee Sin, Leona, Lissandra (otherwise), Lulu, Morgana, Nami, Ornn (otherwise), Rammus, Tahm Kench, Thresh, Sejuani, Sion, Skarner, Syndra, Vel'Koz, Xin Zhao (otherwise), Zac (otherwise), and Zyra each have three. If the self-slow of Galio's Shield of Durand is counted, then Galio also has three.
Akshan, Ezreal, Kai'Sa, Katarina, Lucian, Master Yi, Nidalee, Samira, and Sivir are the only champions in game without any sort of crowd control inherent to their kit.
Malphite is the only tank in the game that lacks hard crowd control on his basic abilities.
Most Marksmen and Slayers lack hard crowd control. This is to balance their high damage dealing kits. The few champions in those classes that have hard CC, tend to have one that is a skillshot, has a long cooldown, and/or is tied to their ultimates.
- In contrast, almost every support and tank has hard crowd control. This allows them to still be relevant in the late game, despite their damage falling off. They use their hard CC to set up advantages for their damage focused allies.
Each type of crowd control effect applied by the following abilities has the longest base durations (persistent ones do not count):
- Airborne - Kalista's Fate's Call (2 seconds)
- Berserk - Renata Glasc's Hostile Takeover (2.25 seconds)
- Blind - Teemo's Blinding Dart (3 seconds)
- Cripple - Nasus' Wither (5 seconds)
- Disarm - Lulu's Whimsy (2.25 seconds)
- Drowsy - Lillia's Lilting Lullaby (1.5 seconds)
- Charm - Ahri's Charm and Evelynn's Allure (tied at 2 seconds)
- Flee - Nocturne's Unspeakable Horror (2.25 seconds)
  - Against non-champions, Aatrox's World Ender and Darius' Noxian Guillotine (tied at 3 seconds)
- Taunt - Rammus' Frenzying Taunt (2 seconds)
- Ground - Poppy's Steadfast Presence (2 seconds)
- Nearsight - Nocturne's Paranoia (6 seconds)
- Silence - Cho'Gath's Feral Scream and Malzahar's Call of the Void (tied at 2 seconds)
  - On allies, Kalista's Fate's Call (4 seconds)
  - Polymorph - Lulu's Whimsy (2.25 seconds)
- Sleep - Lillia's Lilting Lullaby (2.5 seconds)
- Slow - Nasus' Wither (5 seconds)
- Root - Karma's Renewal (3.25 seconds)
- Stasis - Syndra's Force of Will (5 seconds)
- Stun - Ashe's Enchanted Crystal Arrow (3.5 seconds)
  - On allies, Teleport (4 seconds)
  - Suspension - Nami's Aqua Prison (1.5 seconds)
- Suppression - Tahm Kench's Devour (3 seconds)

References[]

↑ Wiksy describes Flee

Gameplay Elements

[1] Wiksy describes Flee

[1]

Targeting Types	Auto (Passive · Self) · Direction · Location · Unit · Proximity · Vector (Collision · Radius)
Unit types	Champion · Minion · Monster · Pets · Structures (Turret · Inhibitor · Nexus)
Effect types	Ability effects · Attack effects (On-hit) · Area of effect · Damage over time · Heal · Multi-hit · Redirected damage · Shield · Single-targeted
Ability types	Attached · Aura · Blink · Buff · Channel · Combat status · Crowd control · Damage (Ability · Basic · Magic · Physical · True · Nexus Obelisk · Execution) · Dash · Debuff · Invulnerability · Pet · Projectile · Sight · Spell shield · Stealth · Tether · Untargetability · Ward