Crowd control

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, 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.

There are many different forms of crowd control, each of which is unique in the way it affects its target and the ways it can - if at all - be resisted, mitigated or removed. Some crowd controls can be exclusive or near-exclusive to certain champions or items, and different champions can apply the same crowd control in multiple different ways. A few specific mechanics (such as Yasuo's Last Breath) even require a catalyst crowd control to function.

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

All crowd controls, at the exception of blind or cripple, will count toward assists, even if the ability they were applied from did not deal damage.

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

• Most spells and abilities with cleansing effects (there are exceptional cases)
• Aurelion Sol's Celestial Expansion's recast
• Heimerdinger's UPGRADE!!!
• Irelia's Defiant Dance's and Flawless Duet's recasts
• Karma's Mantra
• Kennen's Lightning Rush's recast
• Twisted Fate's Pick a Card's recast
• Tryndamere's Undying Rage
• Urgot's Fear Beyond Death'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 target to be made airborne in a direction perpendicular to the direction of cast.
  • Knock back: A knock back causes the target to be made airborne in a direction away from the point of cast. The duration depends on how far the target travels, from 0.75 seconds to 1.5 seconds.
  • Knock up: A knock up causes the target to be made airborne on the spot. The duration depends on how high is the target thrown into the air, from 0.75 seconds to 1.5 seconds.
  • Pull: A pull causes the target 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 or charged ability 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.
  • 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.
• 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 perform any action 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 affected by suspension is considered airborne and stunned.
• 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	Disabled	Disabled	Disabled	Yes		No	with dash or blink and
Blind	Allowed	Parried	Allowed	No	None	Yes
Cripple	Allowed	Reduced	Allowed	No	None	Yes
Disarm	Allowed	Disabled	Allowed	No	None	Yes
Forced Action - Charm, Flee, Taunt	Uncontrollable	Disabled / Uncontrollable	Disabled	Yes		Yes
Ground	Partial	Allowed	Partial	See notes		Yes
Nearsight	Allowed	Partial	Partial	No	None	No
Root	Disabled	Allowed	Partial	See notes		Yes
Silence	Allowed	Allowed	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.
• 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, Rammus' Defensive Ball Curl, and  Galio's Shield of Durand) 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 end prematurely if the Source dies.
• 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, unstoppable basic attacks 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.
• The following mobility spells are special cased to be interrupted by immobilizations:
  • Aurelion Sol's Comet of Legend
  • Camille's Hookshot
  • Gnar's Hop bounce is prevented.
  • Quinn's Behind Enemy Lines buff is lost.
  • Rakan's Grand Entrance and Battle Dance
  • Shadow Assassin's Shadow Step's buff is lost.
  • Taliyah's Weaver's Wall
  • Yasuo's Sweeping Blade
  • Yuumi's You and Me!
  • Ziggs' Satchel Charge's explosion does not cause him to fly.
• Taunt is the only crowd control that could theoretically break stealth, as the status effect is interrupted by declaring attacks.

Categorization

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

Loss of Control

Crowd controls are grouped into one of two categories depending on whether or not the effect removes total control of the player's character.

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

Disruption

Crowd controls 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.

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

Immobilization

Crowd controls are grouped into one of two categories depending on whether or not they restrict movement. Hard CCs prevent all forms of movement, while soft CCs do not. This is how hard and soft CC is usually defined.

Hard CC	Soft CC
Airborne	Blind
Forced Action	Drowsy
Root	Disarm
Stasis	Ground
Sleep	Knockdown
Stun	Nearsight
Suppression	Silence
Suspension	Slow
	Cripple

Modifiers

Crowd controls are categorized by what their effects inhibit. Movement modifiers in some way inhibit the ability to move, while action modifiers in some way inhibit the ability to attack or cast abilities.

Movement Modifiers	Action Modifiers
Airborne	Airborne
Forced Action	Forced Action
Ground	Ground
Nearsight	Nearsight
Sleep	Sleep
Stun	Stun
Suppression	Suppression
Suspension	Suspension
Knockdown	Blind
Root	Disarm
Slow	Silence
	Cripple

Increasing the duration of Crowd Control

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.

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 this may not appear for some immunities.

Total Immunity

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

• Fiora's Riposte provides immunity to all forms of CC applied (except nearsight) during the parry. Does not resist self/allied crowd control.
• Galio's Hero's Entrance provides immunity to all forms of CC applied during the last 1.5 seconds of the channel. Does not resist self/allied crowd control.
• Karthus' Death Defied provides immunity to all forms of CC applied while in the zombie state.
• Kled's Dismount provides immunity to all forms of CC applied during the dismount and Chaaaaaaaarge!!! provides immunity to all forms of CC applied during the charge and the dash.
• Kog'Maw's Icathian Surprise provides immunity to all forms of CC applied while in the zombie state.
• Malzahar's Void Shift provides immunity to all forms of CC applied while active and for a brief period after it's triggered. Does not resist self/allied crowd control.

• Morgana's Black Shield provides immunity to all forms of CC applied (except nearsight) while the shield persists. Does not resist self/allied crowd control.
• Olaf's Ragnarok cleanses and provides immunity to all forms of CC applied in the duration.
• Pantheon's Grand Starfall (second channel) provides immunity to all forms of CC applied in the channel.
• Sion's Unstoppable Onslaught provides immunity to all forms of CC applied in the duration.
• Warwick's Infinite Duress provides immunity to all forms of CC applied during the dash.
• Volibear's Stormbringer provides immunity to all forms of CC applied during the dash and for a moment upon impact.
• Heimerdinger's H-28Q Apex Turret is immune to all forms of CC.
• Zac's Bloblets are immune to all forms of CC.
• All epic monsters (e.g. Baron Nashor, Rift Herald, Dragon) are immune to all forms of CC with the exception of stasis.
  • The Rift Herald loses her immunity in summoned form (when spawned by the Eye of the Herald).
• Turrets ignore any potential forms of CC applied that may affect them with the exception of stasis.

Displacement Immunity

Displacement immunity provides immunity to displacements, (including suspension, knockdown, Devour, Realm of Death, and The Show Stopper), sleep and stasis. The effects of other types of crowd control as well as Fate's Call and Fear Beyond Death are deferred until the unit is no longer displacement immune, where their remaining duration may still affect them.

Aftershock will not trigger against displacement immune units.

• Camille's The Hextech Ultimatum
• Corki's Special Delivery
• Ekko's Chronobreak
  • Is only immune to airborne displacements.
• Hecarim's Onslaught of Shadows
• Illaoi's Leap of Faith
• Jarvan IV's Cataclysm
• Kalista's Fate's Call (the emerging dash)
• Malphite's Unstoppable Force
• Nocturne's Paranoia (recast)
• Ornn's Bellows Breath
• Rek'Sai's Void Rush
• Sett's The Show Stopper
• Shyvana's Dragon's Descent
• Vi's Assault and Battery
• Warwick's Jaws of the Beast
  • The channel may still be interrupted, removing the immunity.
• Yone's Soul Unbound (recast)
• Rift Herald's wind up and leap attack
• Catapult

Skarner's Impale is the only ability that will ignore the effects of displacement immunity and drag its target regardless, interrupting their otherwise "unstoppable" action in the process. Click "Expand" for more details.

Impale applies a small displacement to the target every 0.25 seconds whenever they are not close to Skarner. These displacements do not apply airborne and are not flagged as displacements, meaning that targets who are not immune to the suppression are also never immune to the displacement either. As a consequence, displacement immunity fails to ignore this movement. See the table below regarding Impale's interaction with abilities that grant displacement immunity.

Special interactions
The following dashes are interrupted and do not apply their 'on dash completion' effects (if they have one) when successfully impaled: Corki's Special Delivery Nocturne's Paranoia's recast Sett's The Show Stopper This ability attaches its target to Sett. Dragging him out will detach that unit from him. Shyvana's Dragon's Descent Yone's Soul Unbound (recast) Yone's very high dash speed makes it almost impossible to catch him during the dash. Skarner is required to be close enough to Yone and needs to have near-perfect timing with Impale's cast in order to successfully cancel the dash. If cast too early, the recast will be deferred to the end of Impale's duration, or if cast too late, Impale will be canceled as Yone is already too far away.
The following dashes are stopped likewise with the ones mentioned above, however, they do apply 'on dash completion' effects and when their dash is interrupted, the ability's effects are centered around their initial stopping point from Impale. Hecarim's Onslaught of Shadows Jarvan IV's Cataclysm The terrain that would usually be formed on impact is instead delayed until the forced movement of Impale ends. The displacement immunity is not removed. Malphite's Unstoppable Force
The following abilities do not have any special interactions with Impale other than being displaced during their cast. Illaoi's Leap of Faith Ornn's Bellows Breath The cast direction for this ability cannot be changed.
Rek'Sai's Void Rush has two different outcomes: Impale is cast before the burrow into the ground: Rek'Sai will not vanish while she's being dragged and her ultimate goes on a 10-second  cooldown after a brief delay. The displacement immunity is not removed in this case however, which ends when the ability cancels. Impale is cast after the emergence: Rek'Sai's dash is interrupted.
Vi's Assault and Battery behaves differently in contrast to the previously noted examples due to its uniqueness. The dash is not interrupted and the displacement immunity is not removed. Vi will continue to march towards the target while simultaneously being displaced by Impale and dragged to Skarner. Once Impale ends, she is free of the displacement and will perform the ability as normal. Enemies that come into range of her are still affected by entering her path. The primary target is dealt the ability's final effects if they move into the respective range of Vi, thus performing the ability successfully in spite of Impale.
Camille's The Hextech Ultimatum is impractical to test, as it renders her untargetable instantly the moment it's activated, which will always cancel Impale's cast, regardless of the timing.
Kalista's Fate's Call is not possible to test due to the target being vanished, rendering them unable to be selected for unit-targeted abilities like Impale.

It is important to note that total immunity and displacement immunity are not distinguished by the in-game user interface to display statuses relating to crowd control above the health bar. Both read "Unstoppable" which merely only indicates the unit is immune to crowd control in some form. It should not be confused as being the same effect.

Shyvana is displacement immune during Dragon's Descent's dash, though not explicitly indicated.

Warwick is immune to all crowd control during Infinite Duress, though not explicitly indicated.

Slow Immunity

Main: Slow_resist#Slow_Immunity

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

The following prevent the application of slows:

• Master Yi's Highlander
• Sejuani's Fury of the North
• Nunu's Biggest Snowball Ever!
• Rift Scuttler (while not fleeing)
• Mikael's Crucible
• Total crowd control immunity

Cripple Immunity

Main: 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:

• Master Yi's Highlander
• Sejuani's Fury of the North
• Total crowd control immunity

Spell Shields

Main article: Spell shield

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 attached crowd controls if possible. Multiple active spell shields existing on the same unit simultaneously will break against a single hostile ability that does not apply a crowd control effect.

• Nocturne's Shroud of Darkness provides immunity to CC applied with the first instance of a hostile ability blocked in the duration.
• Sivir's Spell Shield provides immunity to CC applied with the first instance of a hostile ability blocked in the duration.
• Banshee's Veil provides immunity to CC applied with the first instance of a hostile ability blocked while the passive is ready.
• Edge of Night provides immunity to CC applied with the first instance of a hostile ability blocked while the passive is ready.

Removal

Most types of crowd control (CC) can be removed after they have been applied, with the cleansing ability or item remaining "castable" while affected by the CC it removes even if that CC normally precludes ability, spell, or item usage. Kalista's Fate's Call, Yone's Soul Unbound recast, and Mikael's Crucible are exceptions to this "castable" rule. Suppression will disable all summoner spells, including Cleanse.

Stasis effects cannot be removed through any means (excluding death) and will also disable cleansing effects for their duration. The capability to cleanse persistent crowd control is case by case and usually depends on the source of application. The stun component of airborne effects can be removed by cleanse effects, but their move block cannot, unless it's being overridden by another move block (i.e. another displacing effect, dash or blink).

• Alistar's Unbreakable Will removes all forms of CC.
• Gangplank's Remove Scurvy removes all forms of CC.
• Kalista's Fate's Call removes all forms of CC.
• Kled's Dismount removes all forms of CC.
• Olaf's Ragnarok removes all forms of CC.
• Rengar's Empowered Battle Roar removes all forms of CC.
• Yone's Soul Unbound (recast) removes all forms of CC aside from disarm, ground, nearsight, silence, and slow.
• Master Yi's Highlander removes all slows and cripples.
• Garen's Decisive Strike removes all slows.
• Nunu's Biggest Snowball Ever! removes all slows.
• Cleanse removes all forms of CC aside from airborne, nearsight, and suppression.
• Mikael's Crucible's active effect removes all forms of CC aside from airborne, blind, disarm, ground, nearsight, and suppression.
• Quicksilver removes all forms of CC.

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.

Displacements, 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-Slow: A champion that slows itself has reduced movement speed.
  • Blitzcrank's Overdrive
  • Ornn's Bellows Breath
  • Quinn's Behind Enemy Lines (when taking damage from non-minions)
  • Rammus' Defensive Ball Curl
  • Samira's Inferno Trigger
  • Tahm Kench's Devour (with a champion)
  • Thresh's Death Sentence (when hitting a target)
  • Urgot's Purge (when attacking a target)

• Self-Stun: A champion that stuns itself is unable to control its movement, attack, or use abilities.
  • Sion's Unstoppable Onslaught (when colliding with terrain)
  • Taliyah's Weaver's Wall (when colliding with Wind Wall or Blade Whirl)

• Ally-Silence: A champion that is silenced by an ally cannot cast abilities or activate items. This is currently the only example of an ability that applies crowd control to an allied champion.
  • Kalista's Fate's Call

Cast Times and Channels

The casting (sometimes "charging") of an ability cannot be canceled by the champion nor an enemy except by death. Forced action will have no effect for the duration of the cast, and using airborne effects to move the champion will not affect the trajectory of the skill - which will start from the point of the cast, not from the champion's current location, although it is important to note that some abilities will always cast from the current position. Summoner spells and most item actives can still be used while casting.

The channeling of an ability, by contrast, can be cancelled by hard CC, and will also automatically cancel should the champion attempt to perform another action (such as movement, casting another ability or attacking) - there do exist exceptions to this rule, such as Sion's Soul Furnace cast while channeling