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
) 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.
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 ( ) to 1.5 ( ).
- 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 ( ) to 1.5 ( ).
- 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.
- 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.[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.
- 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 (occasionally referred to as a snare).
- 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 (including ). 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. or ).
- 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. , , and ) 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.
- channels. and are special cased to be deactivated by all forms of crowd control that interrupt all
- Crowd control applications trigger a stack for and .
- 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:
- and
The following interact with immobilizations and/or slows:
- *
- *
- *
- *
- 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. Hard CC completely removes all control of a character, while soft CC only partially removes it.
Hard CC | Soft CC |
---|---|
Airborne | Blind |
Forced Action | Cripple |
Sleep | Disarm |
Stasis | Entangle |
Stun | Ground |
Suppression | Knockdown |
Suspension | Nearsight |
Root/Snare | |
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 and ). Hard CC will disrupt all channels, while soft CC will not.
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.
Hard CC | Soft CC |
---|---|
Airborne | Blind |
Forced Action | Cripple |
Silence | Disarm |
Sleep | Entangle |
Stasis | Ground |
Stun | Knockdown |
Suppression | Nearsight |
Suspension | Root/Snare |
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 |
Entangle | Cripple |
Forced Action | Disarm |
Root/Snare | Ground |
Stasis | Knockdown |
Sleep | Nearsight |
Stun | Silence |
Suppression | Slow |
Suspension |
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 |
Entangle | Blind |
Forced Action | Cripple |
Ground | Disarm |
Knockdown | Forced Action |
Nearsight | Ground |
Root/Snare | Nearsight |
Sleep | Silence |
Slow | Sleep |
Stun | Stun |
Suppression | Suppression |
Suspension | Suspension |
Increasing the duration of Crowd Control
Brittle is a status effect that can be applied by and .
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
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.
- provides immunity to all forms of CC applied during the parry.
- provides immunity to all forms of CC during the dash and for a moment after the landing upon impact.
- provides immunity to all forms of CC applied in the duration.
- provides immunity to all forms of CC while active.
- provides immunity to all forms of CC applied while the shield persists.
- cleanses and provides immunity to all forms of CC applied in the duration.
- provides immunity to all forms of CC applied in the duration.
- provides immunity to all forms of CC during the dash.
- All epic monsters (e.g, , ) 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 ).
- Turrets ignore any potential forms of CC that may affect them with the exception of stasis.
Slow Immunity
See also: Slow_resist#Slow_Immunity
Slow immunity always prevents slows, and in most cases cripples too.
- cleanses and provides immunity to slows and cripples for the buff's duration.
- (as )'s cleanses and provides immunity to slows and cripples for the buff's duration.
- provides immunity to slows and cripples while active.
- cleanses and provides immunity to slows only while channeling.
- cleanses all crowd control, then provides immunity to slows only for 2 seconds.
Displacement Immunity
Unstoppables provide immunity to displacements (including knockdown, and ) and in some cases to stasis. The effects of other types of crowd control are deferred until the unit is no longer unstoppable, where their remaining duration may still affect them.
- The channel may still be interrupted, removing the immunity.
- wind up and leap attack
- URF cannon
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 ) 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.
- provides immunity to CC applied with first instance of ability blocked in the duration.
- provides immunity to CC applied with first instance of ability blocked in the duration.
- provides immunity to CC applied with first instance of ability blocked while passive is ready.
- provides immunity to CC applied with first instance of ability blocked while passive is ready.
Removal
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. 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).
- removes all forms of CC.
- removes all forms of CC.
- removes all forms of CC.
- removes all forms of CC.
- removes all forms of CC.
- (as )'s removes all slows and cripples.
- removes all slows and cripples.
- removes all slows.
- removes all slows.
- nearsight, airborne and suppression. removes all forms of CC aside from
- The Quicksilver item active removes all forms of CC.
- blind, ground, disarm, nearsight, airborne and suppression. active effect removes all forms of CC aside from
Reduction
- Main article: TenacityCrowd 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 and the move block part of 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.
- (with a champion)
- (when attacking a target)
- Self-Stun: A champion that stuns itself is unable to control its movement, attack, or use abilities.
- (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
cast while channelling , 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.
- 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.
- Channeled Self-Root: These abilities will remove the caster's ability to control their movement and issue movement commands (included forced actions, such as fear).
- (for the first 1 second of the duration)
- 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.
- (for the first 0.5 seconds of the duration)
Trivia
- champions to also play a sped-up version of its dance animation. causes affected
- If abilities that share cooldowns or are unique to different forms are counted separately, then possesses the highest number of crowd control abilities in the game, at six, with and tying for second place, at four. Otherwise, if they are counted as shared, and possess the most, at four.
- stasis, she also has four.
- , , , , , , , , , , , , , , (otherwise), , , , , , , , , , , and each have three.
, , , and possess the second-highest, at four. If is counted as a form of
, and possess the highest number of unique crowd control types, at five.
- stasis, she also has four.
- , , , , , , , , , and are the only champions in the game that can activate an ability while disabled. Of these, , , and can also remove the disabling effects.
- , , , , , , and are the only champions in game without any sort of crowd control inherent to their kit.
- 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.