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by Mike Schramm 
May 1st 2007 at 3:25PM
Crowd control is definitely helpful, that I'll agree. It's much easier to do a Shadow Labs run with two mages who know how to sheep. But I also have to agree with sydney over at WoW Ladies: CC is far from necessary. You can have a great group and still fight all of the mobs all of the time.Gear, of course, makes a big difference. If your shaman has a few epics on him, chances are he can take a few hits before the tank has a chance to grab a mob off. And a group with tons of DPS can do really well at tearing down a mob as they pull them-- I've played in groups where we never once bothered with sheeping. We just had so much DPS that when we pulled something off of the tank, we killed it before it could hit anyone.
Not to mention that even if you have a group without CC, there are plenty of abilities that you can use as CC. During my Heroic Slave Pens run this past weekend, we had me (a resto shaman), a prot warrior and a holy priest, a moonkin druid, and a warlock. Whoops, no sheeping or traps, right? Nope, but we did have cyclone, chain fear, my elemental pets, and mind control. Ok, well, my elemental pets did drop pretty quick (it was heroic, after all), but incredibly (even though we were a little undergeared for the instance), we made it far enough to pick up two Badges each. Yeah, the mind controller gave us a little trouble, but it was getting late anyway, so we called it.
CC helps, and you do kind of need the basics (tank, healer, and DPS, although it's true that even with those, you can make some subs that don't seem possible), but the truth is that the limit of your group is the limit of the players in it. All of the classes have some ability to keep mobs out of play (or just keep them busy for a little bit until you're ready to fight them). It's just up to players to think of creative ways to do so.
Filed under: Mage, Rogue, Warlock, Analysis / Opinion, Tricks, Instances, Classes
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Chris M May 1st 2007 5:29PM
@14 - Robert (and the general population)-
Allow me to be the warlock that jumps up and says that CC'ing with Seduce is no picnic. I've only played a mage up to 36- so no organized raiding with one, but in PUGs, idiots run rampant, and marking/identifying the mob to sheep is great, but as a general rule some people are just idiots. Breaking sheeping is terribly common.
The same goes for seducing, in my book (again, this is all personal experience). In a PUG, I can't be bothered with putting my Succy on seduce duty. We have too many mobs, and I seduce one (after marking and specifying it), then someone thinks it's cute to drop an AOE or similar effect that breaks my seduce, or specifically targets the seduced mob, and breaks it before I've even come close to the full duration. I see the floaty hearts stop- so I have to stop DoT'ing and recast seduce... Oh wait- succy's taking hits, recast is going to take too long...
Are you kidding me? In that kind of time and mana I could have (of all things) a blueberry OT'ing it, and have DPS'ed it down myself to halfway.
So Mike, your Warlock didn't suck, unless he was constantly summoning infernals as minions... alternate playstyles get the same thing done- isn't that what this post is about?
I've run numerous runs successfully without a mage CC. Granted, I'm a Warlock; I make my own CC, AOE suffering on a pack to take heat from a clothie, or DPS'ing something a mob down so fast it can't draw breath, let alone target me and attack. From my class standpoint, a mage on CC duty is somewhat 'wasted'. Or at least, when I'm in the group, I think it is.
This also goes to pulling... There are some instances with large groups of mobs - you can't help but pull 5-6 on your 5 man party. But more often than not, you're looking at errors in pulling that cause people to 'need' additional CC. A well geared and fluidly working party of people with good communication makes it's own CC. Whether it's chain fearing, the 'zerg it down' approach, or an off tank (sometimes an off-off tank), I think mage CC is somewhat overrated. You can cast polymorph, or throw down DPS in the meantime...
It's all a tradeoff really, like Mike said.
Chris
Karl May 1st 2007 6:51PM
@17 Gazoo...LOL You are telling us that a Hunter can out-CC a mage?...A mage has stuns, Front Nova and Sheep..I can buy the fact that you can set new traps down, but face it, they are resisted often. I am going to have to guess that you have points in Survival with you making such a bold statement.
My anti-hunter remarks are meant as jabs towards my friends who play hunters, so take a couple minutes and breathe easy.
Hunters are temp-CC because your main job should be DPS. Currently, hunters are easily out-DPSing many classes. It is the only class (err...fire mages too)that can out-DPS me consistently without the player having to have a lot of skill in it. Call it easy button, whatever...I don't care. It's nice to have good DPS at my side, so don't get me wrong.
Bottom line, you should lay a trap in front of the healer at the beginning, and then DPS your little heart out. If the priest pulls aggro from the Tank, fire your tank first, then make those other classes I listed in my post do what I said. It's nice of you (if you have time) to drop another trap to keep the healer up, but you should be FOCUSED on your DPS. A hunter's ability to Thrash a mob and feign death to drop aggro are invaluable to a good group. Also, misdirection, ranged damage safe from melee sweeps, and other abilities make you a great FIGHTING class, not a CC class. So, if you are running around like a chicken with your head cut off laying down traps, you are failing to do your job. Don't waste the group's time trying to do everything. Focus on your job. If you have time, toss the helping hand.
Natet May 1st 2007 6:56PM
Every group I have been in has had a mage...me... It really doesnt take too much away from DPS if the mage/other dps can pay attention to the mob they had sheeped/seduced/trapped/etc and others don't hit the CCed mob. With decent addons like natur's enemy cast bar and TW focus, keeping you're eye on the CCed mob and staying ahead of the CC game is pretty easy, it only gets hard when, as the above hunter poster pointed out, AOE/click happy/indiscriminant DOTers start to hit the CCed mobs. stop hittin the sheep for gawds sake!!
Rich May 1st 2007 7:38PM
As a lock, I hardly pull out the Succy for Seduce. I can't trust the people (especially the last couple of warriors I've grouped with) not to throw down AoE's and break it. The only time I use it is if I absolute trust the group or I have a target far away from the rest of the group.
Juliah May 1st 2007 8:02PM
We all view the game through the lens of our class, to one degree or another. However, as one who has one of each class over level 25 (many 40 or above), and a priest as my highest level character, may I respectfully offer a different perspective?
For my priest, crowd control is absolutely essential, and, by proxy, it is thus essential for the group I am in, especially a five-member team in which I am, nine times out of ten, the only healer. A mage is a priest's best friend next to a tank: their class helps me help you, my fellow party members, by making a crucial difference in the pacing of the battle, and thus, my mana regeneration. (I also have a level 42 Restoration druid, and the same holds true.)
While having the water to regenerate mana between combats is very helpful, in combat, I want mage crowd control for multiple reasons:
1) Neutralizing a mob that is almost as strong as the boss in a fight prevents damage to the party. That's damage that I don't have to heal: that's mana that I don't have to expend during combat.
2) Being able to cast polymorph as needed during the combat extends the pacing, allowing more time for me to regenerate mana for healing party members.
Certainly, I always carry potions with me, but in big fights, having a mage just to create that extra time makes a profound difference. Healing is a stressful job with a lot of responsibility, and having a mage's crowd control truly matters in making my role a lot more enjoyable, and, by proxy, improving the health bars and well-being of the team.
I've played healing classes as my primary in multiple games. If I'm the healer in your group, I'm going to be more grateful for a mage in the party than a rogue any day of the week (and I say this with a level 37 rogue of my own).
Kalandrah May 2nd 2007 4:29AM
Uhm... a good hunter only loses 1 steady shot to lay down a trap and CC 1 add. Then there's the fact that there's no restriction on freezing trap, while many of the other CC's do. Fearing can be done, but can be risky in closed quarters.
A hunter's freezing trap, especially a Surv.spec Hunter, can pretty much keep 1 mob trapped until eternity without any significant loss in dps.
Ana May 2nd 2007 7:51AM
Crowd control? Ha, I laugh in the face of crowd control.
Go go Paladin tanks!
Tanuviel May 2nd 2007 8:45AM
Well... I have recently wrote a whole piece on CC in my blog (http://tanuvieladventures.blogspot.com/2007/03/instancing-crowd-control.html). In summary, CC may be avoided but it is still very useful. In general, for harder instances, you might get away without it, but still it is a very useful tactic tool that each group should master.
Tanuviel
Kahja May 2nd 2007 10:36AM
No single class is needed for anything.
When I play my mage I'm an asset to the party because I'm there.
If I'm on my warrior it's the same thing.
Every class brings their own stuff to the party. No single class is the be all end all of anything in this game. That's how they made it.
eMarkM May 2nd 2007 10:41AM
I find hunter trapping to be a very misunderstood art, even by a lot of hunters, regrettably. Yeah, gotta mage and humanoid targets, sheep is priority. Got undead, shackle is the way to go. But when pugs I'm in insist on taking out my trap before a rog's sap in one of those Lab six pulls, that's just wrong. It's not temporary CC, good hunters can keep a mob down the whole fight. Sure, our DPS is paramount, but taking a couple seconds out of DPS duty to re-trap a mob can be much more important to survival than the extra steady shot or two I may miss. I can also trap two mobs for the first 30s to begin a fight (lay trap, wait for cooldown to expire, pull, lay 2nd trap, 2 mobs iced) and with one other form of CC like a mage it makes a big pull trivial. I don't think any other class is capable of that (OTOH, most hunters don't know they're capable of it either).
Once I hit 70 and had finished much of the Outland quests I respecced to a 0/41/20 build so I have all of the good trapping talents since it's so important in high level instances, and especially heroics. So now as a hunter with Clever Traps (trap cooldown expires about the time the mob pops) and 2pc Beast Lord bonus (trap cooldown 26s) it's pretty easy for me to drop a trap between me and the mob while it's still trapped and still keep up consistent DPS on the current target. I hardly miss a beat on DPS. This is an important goal for hunters in heroics as you don't really want to get hit and possibly crit-one-shotted. Yes, there are trap resists (though Trap Mastery helps there), but I can usually kite with scattershot, turn on AotM, hit Deterrence until the cooldown is up again (tougher in heroics, admittedly). I'm far more valuable to my parties with this strong trapping than just laying a trap in the middle of a fight, trapping some random mob, and hoping no one breaks it. Hunters get a bad name because too many of them do just that.
Karl May 2nd 2007 1:57PM
@30...eMarkM
Thanks for actually offering insight on your remarks as opposed to stating that Hunters are the ultimate CC without validation.
Yes, I should have rethought my remarks about how long it takes for you to lay traps for keeping a single mob CC'd. My point with the Mage was that a Mage can Ploy a mob, and then Frost Nova a group. So, you can effectively stop a ton of melee hitters from thrashing your group.
A good Hunter (and I would guess that you fit this catagory) can stop a mob effectively, but I still see it as difficult to choose which mob actually gets frozen before the fight begins. Example: 6 man pull, and you need to take out the Shadow Priest in the group. They are all standing close to each other. Now, you can Silence Shot pull the priest, but it isn't exactly certain that you will freeze that priest before another (possibly easy-to-kill) mob trips that trap. A Mage in this example can sheep that specific mob without the same issue.
Would you agree with this statement?
Robert May 3rd 2007 3:53PM
I can understand warlocks not bothering with seduce in a sloppy PUG. But saying seduce is not a valid PvE CC, well, that makes you a terrible warlock. And not using it in, say, a heroic where your group is wiping due to mass humanoid pulls - that just makes you a dick.
Hunters are awesome at CC and I get the feeling people who say otherwise only run with PUGs. (In fact its the same vibe I get from warlocks who never use seduce.) If people are breaking CC accidentally, use target icons and have the hunter stand ~15 feet away from the rest of the group so its perfectly clear which one is running at him and which ones are being tanked.
I mean really, it comes down to the very basics of not being terrible at the game. Why group with people who are?