Crowd control

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Crowd Control refers to spells and abilities which limit an opponent's ability to fight, and is abbreviated CC. CC abilities are used to reduce the number of mobs that the group fight at once. Because most groups cannot tank more than a certain number of elite mobs at a time, crowd control is often essential to prevent a group from being overwhelmed.

Types of CC include Charm, [Dazed], Fear, Root, Sleep, [Slow], Snare, Incapacitate, Disorient and Stun.

Basics of Crowd Control in instances

In most encounters where a standard party faces multiple elite mobs, the basic strategy will be to have the tank hold the attention (aggro) of an enemy target while the dps classes kill it and the healing classes keep the tank alive. All additional enemies who are active must thus be crowd controlled in some way to keep them from attacking the non-tanking classes, or overwhelming the tank. In a certain sense, the tank is exercising a form of crowd control itself: it's keeping a mob occupied so that it cannot attack party members with less health and armor. However, while tanks, backed up with a good healer, can often 'survive' the attacks of more than one monster, it gets increasingly difficult to keep additional mobs focused on the tank while the rest of the party is building threat with all other monsters.

Most non-tanking classes/specs have at least one crowd control ability, though they range wildly in effectiveness and duration. The key to good crowd control is to time when the ability will "break" (meaning the monster is then free to charge and attack a member of the party) so that it can either be crowd controlled again, or so the tank is free enough to pick it up and gain its aggro. It is also very important for party members not to use abilities that will break crowd control effects before their natural duration: generally this means not using any AoE attacks in the proximity of CC'd mobs, targeting them directly (and causing damage), or putting a DoT on them. There are a number of abilities that can be used on CC'd mobs without breaking the effect.

Comparison by class

Here is a breakdown on crowd control by class:

Druid

[Cyclone] was received in the Burning Crusade, which virtually enables the druid class to "banish" a target of their choice for up to 6 seconds with diminishing returns. The target is unable to take any action, as even the Mage's Iceblock spell or the Paladin's Divine Shield does not free them of this spell, and is also immune to all damage and all healing for the duration of the spell.

[Hibernate] is used to put beasts or dragonkin to sleep and works similar to [Polymorph], except that the mob remains stationary and does not get a heal effect; if anyone causes damage to the mob it will wake up. Many players do not even realize that druids have this skill. Alongside the hunter's [Freezing Trap] this is the only Crowd Control spell that can affect a dragonkin, which makes them invaluable in certain instances.

[Entangling Roots] can also be used in outdoor zones to keep a mob rooted in place for a while. This can last as long as polymorph but, damage done to the rooted mob (even damage dealt by the roots themselves) increases the chance of them breaking free early and this skill is subject to partial resistance.

[Soothe Animal] can also be used against beasts, which reduces the aggro radius of one beast without starting combat. This allows a body pull of a nearby mob without also alerting the affected beast.

[Feral Charge] is a Bear Form talent that has the potential to root a target in place for several seconds, and can be used as a ranged interrupt. It is also commonly used as a means of (very) swift transportation. A common problem with using this ability as any kind of CC or Oh-gawd-stop-the-runner ability is that once the druid reaches the target there may well be more mobs that are instantly proximity-pulled into the fight.

A druid also has tanking ability (taking damage and taunting) while in [Bear Form] and [Dire Bear Form]. The effectiveness of this tanking depends on the Druid's gear and talent build. Additionally, Feral Druids can Stun via the Bash ability, and root a target with the Feral Charge ability; however, the short duration and timer on reuse of these abilities limits their usefulness as CC in longer battles.

Hunter

The hunter has a huge array of crowd control abilities, giving the hunter the potential to be highly influential in altering the course of combat.

Incapacitate/Sleep Effect

• [Freezing Trap] is placed on the ground and freezes the first enemy to walk over it. The duration lasts up to 20 seconds and can be extended with the talent [Clever Traps]. This is effective on virtually every type of mob, even most minor bosses, e.g. Highlord Omokk and Shadow Hunter Vosh'gajin. Pulling a specific mob to his trap is a basic skill that every hunter must acquire. A skillful hunter can chain-trap at least 4 to 5 times no matter what spec or gear he has.
• [Wyvern Sting] is a ranged ability that puts a mob to sleep for 12 seconds. When the mob awakens, it will get a DoT that does Nature damage over the next 12 seconds. This is a tier 7 Survival talent; not every Hunter will have this spell. Because the DoT can break potential crowd control, the hunter can fire [Scorpid Sting] on the mob to remove the DoT effect, allowing the mob to be re-controlled.

Snare, Root, and Stun

• Frost Traps trigger an area of effect snare that slows movement of all enemies in the radius of the trap. It should also be noted that with the Survival talent Entrapment, all Frost, Immolation, and Explosion traps have a 20% chance to immobilize the target upon triggering.
• [Concussive Shot] - ranged attack that slows a target for 4 seconds, with talents it may be upgraded to give a 20% chance of stunning the target for 3 seconds.
• [Wing Clip] - melee attack that slows a target for 10 seconds. With talent points placed into Improved Wing Clip, Wing Clip has a Proc to immobilize the target for 5 seconds.
• [Scatter Shot] - short-ranged attack that disorients the target for 4 seconds. The effect is nearly identical to that of a Rogue's Blind ability. Requires 20 points in Markmanship.
• [Counterattack] - a Survival talent that causes damage and roots the target for 5 seconds.

[Fear]

• [Scare Beast] fears a beast for 10 seconds at rank 1, 15 seconds at rank 2, and 20 seconds at rank 3.

Kiting

• Often forgotten as a crowd control ability is the Hunter's ability to kite a mob, that is: to force it to chase the hunter while the hunter outruns it. While this generally means that the Hunter cannot deliver DPS to the main tank's target, it is often a very effective way of keeping a powerful melee mob away from the party until the full party is ready to deal with it. A skilled hunter can often deliver damage to the kited target as well as use slowing effects and increased run speed to evade its attacks.

Miscellany

• [Feign Death] - allows a hunter to drop out of combat. This allows a hunter to disengage from a poor pull and assuming no one else in the group has aggro ensure the group does not engage in fight that they could lose, also allows the use of hunter abilities that can only be used while out of combat.

• [Distracting Shot] - ranged shot that causes threat, typically used to pull aggro off another player. Can be used to lead mobs into traps. It is viable to combine it with Misdirection, to give the tank additional threat.

Pets

• Pets can essentially act as an off-tank, keeping a mob busy for as long as the pet can stay alive and/or retain aggro. Pets with a large amount of health (e.g. bear, boar) or armor (e.g. turtle) are better at this job.
• [Intimidation] - A Beast Mastery talent. Command your pet to intimidate the target on the next successful melee attack, causing a high amount of threat and stunning the target for 3 sec.

Mage

• Mages have the ability to [Polymorph] humanoid or beast enemies, turning them into sheep, pigs or turtles for up to 50 seconds at level 60. While polymorphed, enemies regenerate health quickly, at a rate of 20% HP per tick. Only one enemy can be polymorphed by a single mage at a time.
• [Frost Nova] roots nearby enemies in place for up to 8 seconds, and deals a small amount of damage. This spell is commonly used before using [Arcane Explosion] and other AoE attacks to maximize the number of targets hit, or to dramatically increase their critical hit chances with the [Shatter] talent.

Many of the Frost talent tree adds crowd-control-esque bonuses to frost damage spells, such as Frostbite and [Improved Blizzard]. Also there is frost talent [Ice Block] which will protect the mage from any damage for 10 seconds and will remove mage from aggro table for that period of time, but the mage can not move or cast spells. [Ice Block] has cooldown of 5 minutes. Experienced frost mages will likely have experience making use of these skills to control (and damage) large groups of weak opponents, as it is a key solo technique for such a mage.

Paladin

Paladins are a mixed bag of crowd control, with a variety of abilities to both control aggro and bubbles prevent their damage (see Paladin for more info on shields). A paladin has two direct Crowd Control abilities;

• [Turn Undead] is a medium duration Fear Effect (albeit only castable on Undead creeps; not players). As it only lasts 20 seconds yet has a 30 second cooldown, two Paladins are needed to keep an undead creep fully crowd controlled. Even so, there is still a chance that it will break on damage or before the timer runs out.

• [Hammer of Justice] is a stun ability with a 1-minute cooldown.

[Blessing of Salvation] is an indirect form crowd control, lowering the amount of threat a blessed party member generates. [Righteous Fury] does the opposite for the paladin's holy damage sources, increasing the threat they generate.

Paladins can also get [Repentance] as a talent from the Retribution tree. It is a 6 second sleep, has a 20 yard range and a 1-minute cooldown. Unfortunately, this works only on humanoid targets.

Paladins have, beginning at level 22, [Seal of Justice] which has a chance to stun the enemy for 2 seconds. The corresponding judgement prevents the target from fleeing. This judgement is helpful instances to prevent dying mobs from fleeing in fear to aggro further mobs.

Priest

• [Shackle Undead], which is effectively a sleep only usable on an undead mob (does not work on undead players).
• [Psychic Scream] is an instant-cast AoE fear with a 5 target limit at level 60. With a 30 second cooldown, it's the only escape spell available to priests in PvP combat. However, it is rarely, if ever, practical within an instance, because the feared monster will probably aggro more monsters.
• [Mind Control] (MC) is a channeled spell which transfers control of an enemy humanoid to the caster. During this time, the caster stands in place cannot use their own spells, and will lose channeling time if struck in combat. When the MC target is a mob, the caster gains access to select abilities that the mob may have. These can include standard attacks, buffs, or special abilities. Mind controlling an enemy player does not give access to any abilities other than auto-attack. MC on players is more commonly used to plunge enemies into lava in Blackrock Mountain or off of the cliff in the Arathi Basin Lumber Mill.

Rogue

Rogues have many short-term crowd control abilities at their disposal, primarily making use of stun effects at melee range.

• [Sap] is a long-term (up to 45s) single-target incapacitate effect which may be used versus out-of-combat humanoids within melee range. Sap is one of the primary CC abilities used by rogues in instances prior to pulling a group that contains humanoids. Because it cannot be refreshed while in combat, the "sapped" mob is often the first CC'd mob to come permanently out of CC, meaning that it is generally the first which needs to be dealt with after the main tank's first target. It furthermore breaks on damage.
• [Cheap Shot] (which requires stealth), and [Kidney Shot]. are both short-term abilities may be used to eliminate the opponent's ability to move or attack.
• [Gouge] is a short term (4-5.5s) single-target incapacitate that is broken by damage.
• [Blind] is a disorient effect that disorients the target for 10 seconds. It breaks on damage.
• Stunlock refers to successive use of the abilities mentioned above (except sap) to keep a mob at stunned/disorientated state. A good rogue can keep a mob stunned/disorientated for a long time until it is picked up by the tank or killed by the group. Stunlocking generally requires the full attention of the rogue, as combo points must be built up for Kidney Shot.

Shaman

• [Stoneclaw Totem] summons a Stoneclaw Totem with a set amount of health that increases with higher ranks at the feet of the caster for 15 seconds that taunts creatures within 8 yards to attack it. Enemies attacking the Stoneclaw Totem have a 50% chance to be stunned for 3 seconds.Only available in PvE.

Warlock

• [Seduction] is used by the succubus pet and works much like [Polymorph], except that the mob stays put and doesn't get healed: Hit the humanoid mob and they drop out of seduction. Seduction only affects humanoids, and the succubus must channel this spell, meaning that the ability will break early if the succubus takes damage. This can be recast before the duration is over and the mob will be out of control for only a very short time.

• [Banish] can remove a demon or elemental from a fight for 20 seconds [Rank 1] or 30 seconds [Rank 2]. The demon will be immune to damage and other effects while banished so it can not be broken and it can not be re-banished. However, there is a chance that the banish breaks by itself. A warlock can only banish one demon or elemental target at a time.

• Enslave Demon can be used to charm one demon for up to five minutes, although doing so will cause any summoned pet the warlock has out to be dismissed.

• [Fear] only works on one target at a time. It can be used as form of primary crowd control (making the lock one of the only non-tanking classes to be able to effectively CC two mobs at once, using both this fear and seduce) however it carries significant risk in instances given that the feared mob will run randomly, potentially aggroing new groups of enemies. Generally when warlocks are asked to use this ability as a form of CC, parties will pull mobs back into sections of the instance that have already been cleared so as to avoid this problem.

It is possible for a warlock to control a feared mob by placing [Curse of Recklessness] on a mob when it flees towards another un-aggroed group. This will neutralise the fear effect (but not remove the fear debuff) and force it to come running back to the party. By switching Curse of Recklessness with another curse, such as [Curse of Weakness], it is possible to "ping-pong" a feared enemy, as they enemy will start fleeing again once the curse of recklessness is removed by the other curse. Be advised that doing this will almost certainly take all of the warlock's attention, so their dps on other targets will be lowered. Also remember to reapply the fear debuff as neccessary.

• [Howl of Terror] fears five targets from the warlock's vicinity for a shorter duration than [Fear].

• [Death Coil] is similar to a very short [Fear], but it is an instantaneous spell and not subject to Fear immunities such as Death Wish and Will of the Forsaken.

Warrior

Warriors lack any primary form of crowd control. Generally, warriors are instead tasked with tanking: holding aggro on a non-CC'd mob directly, and as with the druid feral forms or protection-specced paladins, their high armor and health make them ideal for this purpose. Warriors can, with help from the party, often keep up to two mobs focused on them at once. This is not technically a form of crowd control, as the monsters are still active and attacking at the time, but it does help reduce the number of targets that require CC from the rest of the party. There are a number of minor CC abilities warriors can use to temporarily stun or slow enemies:

• [Intimidating Shout], which is an AoE fear in which the warrior's main target does not run in fear but rather is briefly immobilized (however, any damage done will break the effect, meaning that the warrior must stop auto attacking or move out of range to avoid almost instantly breaking the effect on the targeted mob). The enemies that were sent running only have a chance to be unfeared on damage, while the initial target always is unfeared on damage taken (like druid sleep).
• [Hamstring] can reduce an enemies movement speed significantly, often preventing it from easily moving to attack other party members or run away. With Improved Hamstring, there is a chance that the target will be briefly rooted in place. Neither ability actually prevents the enemy from attacking.
• [Piercing Howl] is a talent-based AoE [Dazed] effect which reduces their movement speed by 50%. This is an effective AoE alternative to Hamstring as it can affect many enemies at once without directly targeting them.

Also available are the short term [Charge] and [Intercept] stuns, as well as the talent-based [Concussion Blow], [Mace Specialization], and Improved [Revenge] stuns, all of which are of fairly short duration.

Engineers

Goblin Rocket Helm, Various Bombs. Also they can control mechanical mobs by  [Gnomish Universal Remote] device. Engineers can also build net guns and trinkets with a polymorph effect, but both have a chance to backfire (Gnomish Engineering at its finest!).

Tailors

Tailors of at least skill 300 can make and use Netherweave Nets. This acts as an immobilization effect, but only for three seconds, and is suffers diminished effects versus targets above level 60.