Crowd control

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 - 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.

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.

All crowd controls, at the exception of Blind or attack speed slow, even the ones without any damage, will count toward assists.

Types of Crowd Control

For the complete article, see Types of Crowd Control.

• List
• Cheat sheet

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

• Airborne: A unit that is airborne is unable to control its movement, attack or cast abilities for the duration.
  • Knock aside: A knock aside causes the target to be made airborne in a direction perpendicular to the direction of cast.
  • Knockback: A knockback 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 ( Rammus' Powerball) to 1.5 ( Lulu's Wild Growth).
  • Knockup: A knockup 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 ( Rammus' Powerball) to 1.5 ( Lulu's Wild Growth).
  • Pull: A pull effect causes the target to be made airborne in a direction toward 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.
• Disarm: A unit that is disarmed cannot declare attacks for the duration.
• Polymorph: A unit that is polymorphed is Silenced and turned into a critter. All basic attack windups (including unstoppable basic attack ones) are cancelled. The only example also disarms and reduces movement speed for the duration.
• 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.
  • Charm: A unit that is charmed will move toward the source for the duration.
  • Fear: A unit that is feared move around randomly at reduced movement speed for the duration. There are currently no examples of this type that affects champions.
  • Flee: A unit that is fleeing will move directly away from the source with reduced movement speed for the duration.
  • 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.
• Knockdown: A unit that is knocked down is placed on the ground.
• Nearsight: A unit that is nearsighted has their sight radius reduced and loses their allied vision.
• Root: A unit that is rooted is unable to control its movement for the duration.
• Silence: A unit that is silenced cannot cast abilities or activate items for the duration.
• Drowsy: A unit that is drowsy is gradually slowed over the duration, falling asleep thereafter.
  • Sleep: A unit that has fallen asleep is unable to move, attack or cast abilities for the duration as long as it doesn't get damaged.
• Slow: A unit that is slowed has reduced movement speed for the duration.
  • Cripple: A unit that is crippled has reduced attack speed for the duration.
• Stasis: A unit that is in stasis is unable to perform any action while being untargetable and invulnerable. The duration is also unaffected by crowd control reduction.
• Stun: A unit that is stunned is unable to move, attack or cast abilities for the duration.
  • Suspension: A unit affected by suspension is considered airborne and stunned. It is also modified by crowd control reduction.
• Suppression: A unit that is suppressed is unable to control its movement, attacks, abilities or use spells. The duration is also unaffected by crowd control reduction.

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:

• Akali's Shuriken Flip
• Akshan's Heroic Swing
• Aurelion Sol's Astral Flight
• Bard's Magical Journey
• Caitlyn's 90 Caliber Net
• Camille's Hookshot
• Gnar's Hop
• Kalista's Martial Poise
• Kayn's Shadow Step
• Neeko's Inherent Glamour
• Quinn's Behind Enemy Lines
• Rakan's Grand Entrance and Battle Dance
• Rek'Sai's Tunnel
• Skarner's Ixtal's Impact
• Smolder's Flap, Flap, Flap
• Taliyah's Weaver's Wall
• Thresh's Dark Passage
• Yasuo's Sweeping Blade
• Yuumi's You and Me!
• Ziggs' Satchel Charge

The following interact with immobilizations and/or slows:

• Alistar's Triumphant Roar *
• Dr. Mundo's Goes Where He Pleases
• Fiora's Riposte
• Janna's Eye of the Storm
• Hwei's Severing Bolt
• Kai'Sa's Second Skin
• Lucian's Vigilance
• Nocturne's Unspeakable Horror *
• Samira's Daredevil Impulse
• Seraphine's Beat Drop *
• Volibear's Thundering Smash
• Yasuo's Last Breath *
• Fimbulwinter
• Force of Nature
• Solstice Sleigh
• Imperial Mandate
• Aftershock
• Approach Velocity
• Cheap Shot
• Electrocute
• First Strike
• Font of Life
• Glacial Augment
• Manaflow Band
• Phase Rush
• Unflinching
• Brittle

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	Ground
Suppression	Knockdown
Suspension	Nearsight
Stasis	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.

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

Each mark reduces the target's tenacity by 30%. The duration of Airborne effects are also increased upon consumption of the mark.

Countering Crowd Control

Ragnarok causes Olaf to become immune to the knock up from Alistar's Pulverize.

Crowd control can be countered in various different ways.

Immunity

Units that are immune to crowd control will completely negate any attempt at its application on the recipient. This does not, however, necessarily mean the user is now also unaffected by crowd controls already applied (unless the ability had an innate cleanse effect). Immunities lasting for a short period of time will prompt that a particular unit "Can't Be Disabled!" or "Can't Be Slowed!" as well as "Spell Immune!" if crowd control is imposed.

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 during the parry.
• Galio's Hero's Entrance provides immunity to all forms of CC during the dash and for a moment after the landing upon impact.
• 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.
• Malzahar's Void Shift provides immunity to all forms of CC while active.

Bard's Tempered Fate putting Baron Nashor into stasis regardless of its immunity to crowd control.

• Morgana's Black Shield provides immunity to all forms of CC applied while the shield persists.
• Olaf's Ragnarok cleanses and provides immunity to all forms of CC applied in the duration.
• 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 during the dash.
• Volibear's Stormbringer provides immunity to all forms of CC during the dash and for a moment after the landing upon impact.
• Heimerdinger's H-28Q Apex Turret is 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 that may affect them with the exception of stasis.

Slow Immunity

Highlander causes Master Yi to become immune to the slow from Kog'Maw's Void Ooze.

Main: Slow_resist#Slow_Immunity

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

The following prevent the application of slows:

• Aphelios' Sentry
• Heimerdinger's H-28G Evolution Turret
• Master Yi's Highlander
• Nunu's Biggest Snowball Ever!
• Sejuani's Fury of the North
• Skarner's Ixtal's Impact
• Total crowd control immunity

Displacement Immunity

Unstoppable Force causes Malphite to be unaffected by the knockdown from Veigar's Event Horizon.

Unstoppables provide immunity to displacements, (including knockdown, Realm of Death and The Show Stopper) sleep, and in some cases to stasis. The effects of other types of crowd control and Fate's Call are deferred until the unit is no longer unstoppable, where their remaining duration may still affect them.

• Camille's The Hextech Ultimatum
• Corki's Special Delivery
• Ekko's Chronobreak
• Hecarim's Onslaught of Shadows
• Illaoi's Leap of Faith
• Jarvan IV's Cataclysm
• Malphite's Unstoppable Force
• Nocturne's Paranoia
• 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.
• Rift Herald's wind up and leap attack
• URF cannon

Spell Shields

Main Article: Spell shield

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 attached crowd controls if possible. Multiple active spell shields existing on the same unit simultaneously will break against a single hostile ability.

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

Removal

Karma activating Mikael's Crucible on herself to remove a crowd control debuff.

Most types of crowd control can be removed after it has been applied, with the ability or item in question being still castable while affected by the CC it removes, even if that CC normally precludes ability or item usage. Mikael's Crucible is an exception of this, but the target may still be able to cleanse CC-s affecting him if the item was activated ~0.2 seconds before the CC was applied.

Stasis effects cannot be removed as it prevents the usage of abilities entirely, including cleansing effects. Persistent area of effect grounding can be cleansed but is not reliant as the area checks and applies the effect continuously. 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.
• Olaf's Ragnarok removes all forms of CC.
• Rengar's Empowered Battle Roar removes all forms of CC.
• Kled dismounting removes all forms of CC.
• 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 nearsight, airborne and suppression.
• Quicksilver removes all forms of CC.
• Mikael's Crucible's active effect removes all forms of CC aside from blind, ground, disarm, nearsight, airborne and suppression.

Reduction

Main article: Tenacity

Crowd control reduction reduces the duration of crowd control effects by a percentage equal to its value. Sources of CC duration reduction will stack multiplicatively or additively with each other, depending on the source of the reduction. The statistical term is referred to as Tenacity.

Nearsight, stasis, suppression, drowsy and airborne are not affected by crowd control reduction and will always apply for their full duration.

Potency Reduction

Main article: Slow resist

This effect is unique to slows; potency reduction reduces the effectiveness, or percentage, of slowing effects.

Self-CC

The following effects are comparable to crowd control, except that the effect is caused voluntarily and affects the user rather than a target.

• Self-Slow: A champion that slows itself has reduced movement speed.
  • Blitzcrank's Overdrive
  • Pantheon's Aegis Assault
  • Rammus' Defensive Ball Curl
  • Tahm Kench's Devour (with a champion)
  • 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)

Cast Times and Channels

The casting (sometimes "charging") of an ability cannot be cancelled by the player or an enemy except by death. Forced actions (such as taunt) will have no effect for the duration of the cast, and using airborne effects to move the player will not affect the trajectory of the skill - which will start from the point of the cast, not from the player's current location. Summoner spells and most items can still be activated 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 channelling Decimating Smash, but these are usually specific coding allowances and not standard behaviour. Summoner spells and most items can typically be activated mid-channel without disrupting it.

Channeling and casting animations are generally not considered forms of crowd control, however disruptive they may be. There do exist several notable exceptions, however:

• Channeled Self-Pacify: These abilities cause the champion to lose access to cast their abilities and issue attack commands. The champion may still freely move and use other summoner spells during this time.
  • Gragas' Drunken Rage
  • Vi's Vault Breaker

• Channeled Self-Slow: These abilities will slow the caster for the duration of the channel. In all cases the champion may freely move while channeling but may not issue attack commands.
  • Galio's Shield of Durand
  • Nunu & Willump's Biggest Snowball Ever!
  • Pantheon's Comet Spear
  • Poppy's Keeper's Verdict
  • Pyke's Bone Skewer
  • Varus' Piercing Arrow
  • Vi's Vault Breaker
  • Xerath's Arcanopulse

• Channeled Self-Root: These abilities will remove the caster's ability to control their movement and issue movement commands.
  • Sion's Decimating Smash
  • Vel'Koz's Lifeform Disintegration Ray
  • Xerath's Rite of the Arcane (for the first 1 second of the duration)
  • Zac's Elastic Slingshot

• Channeled Self-Stun: The following abilities have channels that the user cannot voluntarily interrupt (contrary to most channels which will be interrupted if any attempt is made to move, attack, or use another ability). This is effectively comparable to a stun.
  • Caitlyn's Ace in the Hole
  • Fiddlesticks' Crowstorm
  • Karthus' Requiem
  • Malzahar's Nether Grasp (for the first 0.5 seconds of the duration)
  • Rek'Sai's Void Rush
  • Tahm Kench's Abyssal Voyage Abyssal Voyage
  • Twisted Fate's Gate
  • Warwick's Infinite Duress

Trivia

• Sona's Crescendo causes affected champions to also play a sped-up version of its dance animation.
• 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 Nautilus and Karma tying for second place, at four. Otherwise, if they are counted as shared, Nautilus and Gnar possess the most, at four.
• Nautilus, Poppy and Urgot possess the highest number of unique crowd control types, at five.
  • Maokai, Xin Zhao, Ornn, and Zac possess the second-highest, at four. If Lissandra's Frozen Tomb is counted as a form of stasis, she 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, Rammus, Tahm Kench, Thresh, Sejuani, Sion, Skarner, Syndra, Vel'Koz and Zyra each have three.
• Aatrox, Alistar, Cho'Gath, Gangplank, Heimerdinger, Jinx, Karma, Olaf, Rengar, Tryndamere and Zoe are the only champions in the game that can activate an ability while disabled. Of these, Alistar, Gangplank, Olaf and Rengar can also remove the disabling effects.
• Ezreal, Katarina, Lucian, Master Yi, Sivir, Nidalee, and Kai'Sa 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 Marksman 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 have hard crowd control. This allows them to still be relevant late game, despite their damage falling off. They use their hard CC to setup advantages for their damage focused allies.

References

Gameplay Elements