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Over time Blizzard has added more and more CC to the World of Warcraft.  Way back when WoW first launched there was in fact very little CC in the game and there were classes that did not even have significant CC.

Players complained though, and Blizzard listened, and now, pretty much every class has at least a few different forms of CC in the game.  Many classes also have several CC breaks which allow them to get out of CC.  This has lead to a really difficult situation in PVP where certain classes have huge advantages, while others are almost unplayable.  This situation gets even worse when combining classes into a team where you are almost forced to chose team composition by which class brings which CC and ensuring that they do not overlap.

Players have seemed to swing the other way on this over time and are now asking Blizzard to remove some CC from the game.  There is a desire to head back to some simpler times with less CC options.

Lore from Blizzard spoke up in the forums last week and offered some comments on the direction that Blizzard is going in Warlords of Draenor in regards to CC.

 


I think most CC needs to be removed from the talent trees. CC should be what makes a spec unique. Like wyvern sting, howl of a terror, shock wave, etc. If they are going to put CC on the trees, then it should weighted against other cc abilities, not damage or utility buffs.

Of just keep it how it is now and just tone things down a tad. ^^

Our current plans are to do a little of both. We do like CC in talent trees, particularly when they're put up against other CC's in the tier (as you mentioned). You still can only have one of the three, but you get to choose exactly which, and can tailor that choice to your comp, playstyle, raid encounter, etc. Choosing between a CC and a DPS cooldown doesn't always feel as meaningful, so part of our plans for talents in WoD include making those choices make more sense where we can.

Still, we think there's more needed than just shaking talent trees around a bit, so we're going through baseline CC's as well. Some will be left alone. Some will be nerfed. Some will be outright removed. Note that some CC breaks are likely to be nerfed as well in the process, as when there's less CC overall, the ability to remove whatever's left over becomes exponentially more powerful.

Please remember that the expansion is still very much in development, so anything could change at any time. But that's our current thinking.

Warlords of Draenor Key CC Change Notes

There are several comments in the above post that makes the changes potentially very interesting and game changing.

First off they are looking at both making players choose between CC types rather that between DPS and CC options at the same talent level.  This means overall there should be less CC as you will not be able to pick all of the CC options because they will be at the same tier rather than spread out in the talent tree.

Secondly, they are looking at pulling some CC from the base class abilities, which will reduce the overall CC levels significantly.  With so many different CC options in the game right now (and so many different abilities in general) this is kind of overdue anyway. 

Lastly, because there will be less CC in the game, they will be pulling some CC breaks out as well.  This is a smart idea, and one that could have easily been missed by accident.  After all, if you lower the number off CC options but keep the same number of CC breaks, you doubly nerf CC by offering a bigger percentage chance to get out of it.

Messiah’s Opinion on Warlords of Draenor CC Changes

One of the things that drives me nuts in PVP and away from it in general, is CC.  There are times when playing against a great comp that the CC just keeps coming and it feels like you are not even playing the game.  I understand the need for some CC, and the importance of it in controlling a PVP match, but I have always felt it should not be in play to such a degree that the player being controlled feels like they are not playing. 

To me, the magic number should be no more than 25% of the time are you able to be controlled, slowed, or interrupted.  By that 25% I mean total of all the things listed.  If in 60 seconds you are slowed for 12 seconds and have 1 3 second cast spell interrupted that counts as 15 seconds of CC and therefore is 25%.  I wouldn’t want to see any more than that happen to a single player, even if focused by 3 opponents.

When you are facing a strong arena comp team right now, it is possible to be under some form of CC (slow, root, interrupt, stun, etc) pretty much 100% of the time.  When that happens, why bother being there.

On the flip side, with no CC, pure DPS burst teams would rule the game.  There has to be some CC.  The problem right now is that CC rules and DPS has little chance.  I would love to see skilful use of a players 1 or 2 CC options make a difference in a match, rather than the chaining of 37 different CC controlling a players so much that a match is a 3 on 2 and it just drags on.

To be fair, there are other changes that are required as well in PVP to match the nerf in CC or the balance will shift to far the other way, so hopefully these are looked at as well.  By this I mean healing balance specifically.  Currently, even with all of the CC in the game some healers are insanely hard to deal with (Priests in MOP and Druids back in WotLK) and their healing levels will need to drop down significantly.

I sure hope that Blizzard gets it right.  Despite players arguing for equality over the years, I would far preffer to go back to the old days where some classes had CC, some classes had breaks, but not all classes did.  To me that make each class feel far more unique and different than each other.  That to me makes all of them better.  They don’t have to be equal in everything, they just have to have an equal chance of winning (or contributing to a winning team) but in different ways.

Comments

The Messiah has had his say on the pending CC nerf in Warlords of Draenor, what do you have to say.  Make your opinion known in the comment section below.


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

About The Author

Byron has been playing and writing about World of Warcraft for the past ten years. He also plays pretty much ever other Blizzard game, currently focusing on Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone, while still finding time to jump into Diablo III with his son.

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