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 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: , , , and / . 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)
- recast
- recast
- recast
- recast
- recast
- recast
- recast
- recast
- recast
- initial cast and recast
- recast
- 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.
- 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. 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
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 and ).
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[]
- Brittle is a status effect that can be applied by and . It temporarily reduces the affected unit's Tenacity by 30% and ends prematurely when they become immobilized.
Monsters[]
- Brittle for a total of -130% tenacity. has -100% tenacity, doubling the duration of crowd control effects applied to her. This stacks additively with
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
- *
- *
- and
- *
- *
The following units are immune to all forms of CC:
- Champion summoned units
- Monsters
- All epic monsters ( , , and pit )
- They do not resist stasis.
- Structures
- All structures and buildings (turrets, inhibitors, and Nexus)
Displacement Immunity[]
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 suppression effect of and , , and , which consequently causes these abilities to fail to attach the target to the caster.
and resist theThe following abilities provide immunity to displacement CC:
- Champion abilities
- and
- (recast)
- (recast)
- (recast)
- Other
- Catapult launch
The following units are immune to displacement CCs:
- Monsters
- wind up and leap attack
UnstoppableForceMarker[]
UnstoppableForceMarker is a marker buff which is preloaded for all displacement immunities as well as the immunities for , , , and .
, , , and 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.
- recast reel-in will be deferred to until the unit is no longer displacement immune.
- and 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:
- and
- and
- and
Slow Immunity[]
- Main article: Slow resist#Slow Immunity
Slow 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
Cripple 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[]
- root and silence. gains immunity to
- immobilizing effects. provides immunity to
- airborne displacements. provides immunity to
- knock ups. is immune to
- airborne displacements and silence. gain immunity to
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 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 , recast, and ). Suppression will disable all summoner spells, including .
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:
- (on the grabbed unit)
The following remove some or most forms of CC:
- airborne) (all CC except
- disarm, ground, nearsight, silence, and slow) (all CC except
- airborne, nearsight, and suppression) (all CC except
- airborne, blind, disarm, nearsight, and suppression) (all CC except
- Quicksilver (all CC except airborne)
The following remove slowing CC effects:
- (all slows and cripples)
- (all slows)
- (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:
- (versus champions he did not collide with)
- (until the third stone is thrown)
Self-Slow: The following abilities slow the caster:
- (only in the first second)
- (when taking damage from non-minions)
- (when hitting a target)
- (when attacking a target)
- after being charged for 1 second.
Self-Stun: The following abilities stun the caster.
- (when colliding with terrain)
- (when colliding with or )
Self-Ground: The following abilities ground the caster.
Ally-Silence: The following abilities silence an ally.
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[]
- champions to also play a sped-up version of their dance animation. causes affected
- cleanses himself and allies of crowd control. is the only ability that
- 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 in second place with five and and tying for third place, at four. Otherwise, if they are counted as shared, and possess the most, at four.
- airborne) are considered distinct, has six and has five.
- airborne) are considered distinct, , , and also have four. If is counted as a form of stasis, she also has four. If counts as a special version of a pull - carrying enemy champions through walls - he also has four.
- , , , , , , , , , , , , , , (otherwise), , , , (otherwise), , , , , , , , , (otherwise), (otherwise), and each have three. If the self-slow of is counted, then Galio also has three.
and (otherwise) possess the third-highest, at four. If Pull and Knock up (both classified as
, , , and possess the highest number of unique crowd control types, at five. If Pull and Knock up (both classified as - airborne) are considered distinct, , , and also have four. If is counted as a form of stasis, she also has four. If counts as a special version of a pull - carrying enemy champions through walls - he also has four.
- , , , , , , , , 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 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.
- Each type of crowd control effect applied by the following abilities has the longest base durations (persistent ones do not count):
- Airborne - (2 seconds)
- Berserk - (2.25 seconds)
- Blind - (3 seconds)
- Cripple - (5 seconds)
- Disarm - (2.25 seconds)
- Drowsy - (1.5 seconds)
- Charm - and (tied at 2 seconds)
- Flee - (2.25 seconds)
- Against non-champions, and (tied at 3 seconds)
- Taunt - (2 seconds)
- Ground - (2 seconds)
- Nearsight - (6 seconds)
- Silence - and (tied at 2 seconds)
- On allies, (4 seconds)
- Polymorph - (2.25 seconds)
- Sleep - (2.5 seconds)
- Slow - (5 seconds)
- Root - (3.25 seconds)
- Stasis - (5 seconds)
- Stun - (3.5 seconds)
- On allies, (4 seconds)
- Suspension - (1.5 seconds)
- Suppression - (3 seconds)