Cautiously cracking crowd control
by Amanda Rivera 
Oct 27th 2007 at 8:17PM
First, there is the concept of threat. Each method of crowd control angers a monster to varying degrees. Add to this the other abilities a crowd controller might have used previous to controlling the mob -- a hunter plinking away at the mob a few times to get its attention, for example -- and the CC'ers threat is pretty darn high. The monster, once they are free, will have eyes (and claws) only for the group member that kept them tied down in the first place. It makes sense, honestly. I know if someone shackled me to the ground for a minute or so I would be pissed.Because of all this build up of threat, Karthis says that just breaking the crowd control will not be enough to pull threat off the CC'er, and they will end up clobbered on for a few seconds before you get their attention. Instead he recommends that you use Growl, or a similar taunt ability, to move yourself up the aggro list to be equal to the person that performed the CC on the target. Being that he is, after all, a bear tank, he then says use a Mangle or Maul and you're good to go.
As a mage I see this process from the other side. While a good tank goes a long way toward keeping us alive, it's important that the CC'er does his/her part as well. When you perform some method of crowd control, it is then your job to do what you can to drop threat. For mages this means Invisibility, for hunters Feign Death, priests Fade. As much as I love mage tanking in low stress situations, in the end the death of a squishy means the group has to work a lot harder to bring down the mob. Crowd control is all about control, and if the crowd begins to control you, then something needs to change.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ghen Oct 27th 2007 8:28PM
sheep and shackle I can usually get agro without using growl, but hunter traps I always growl first and then break it. Your growl will even last through a banished mob, so if you have the banish timer growl with 1 second left and you'll always have the mob no matter what the warlock did to it.
Jack Spicer Oct 27th 2007 8:30PM
The order in which you break the various crowd control is also important, as is getting a group consensus on this before you start an instance.
Generally, I would suggest breaking sap first, then freezing trap, seduce, shackle and sheep. If you're hunter is really on the ball, there isn't as big a need to go after their freezing trap target so quickly, but I always break sheep last. Depending on the warlock, going after the seduced target first might also be a good idea.
Sherp of Ahrotahntee Oct 27th 2007 8:44PM
Invisibility is great, but you hate to waste it on standard sheep pull. As a Mage, I've found that Blink has saved my life more than once. Big angry mob comes out of Sheep Form and comes barreling towards me--wait until the mob is just about to rip into me, then look at the tank and Blink. Keep running past the tank; any competent tank will be able to grab a mob running past them as long as you didn't do a Fireball pull or anything stupid like that.
Neil Oct 27th 2007 9:30PM
I like to Shield Slam to break a sheep if I have the rage for it. Otherwise (and sometimes even with a Shield Slam) I just open with a taunt and go into my regular threat building routine.
One thing I'd like mages in particular to realize when sheeping a caster. Once the sheep breaks or we're ready to break it, casters will generally start casting. If the mob is near other mobs, I can't always run up to shield bash to get him to stop. Counterspell! That way the mob will usually start running toward us and away from all his buddies. It surprises me that there are mages out there that don't do this, but I guess it shouldn't.
Kurdon Oct 27th 2007 9:48PM
It should also be noted that most tanks don't realize how easily they can take care of this problem without even bothering to taunt. If you have a mouseover macro for sunder and are close enough to the CC'd mob, you can stack some sunders on it without breaking trap/sheep/seduce/shackle. ;)
Ghen Oct 27th 2007 10:15PM
Sherp, I wish more mages ran towards the tank.. that'd be pretty sweet ;)
Nyx Oct 27th 2007 10:49PM
Please always break sheep last. Hunters can retrap - but we have a 30 second cooldown on our traps, and they can be resisted, and somehow there's always someone dragging a mob across the trap RIGHT when it drops [yes, even when I stand 20 yds from the group]. Polymorph is much easier to throw down.
Zyrashana Oct 27th 2007 11:51PM
In high-risk situations (mobs that could potentially one-shot clothies), I normally start with a Concussion Blow to stun the mob, Taunt to make sure I'm at the top of the mob's threat table, and Shield Slam to give me a comfortable margin above everyone else. Then, I start hitting the mob as I would normally. Using this strategy, I've been able to safely break CC without a single exception.
Jack Oct 28th 2007 1:54AM
The CC'er shouldn't have to drop aggro on the mob they've cc'd. The crowd-control spell causes so little threat that a single attack from the tank will generally give him/her aggro. This Karthis is wrong.
OnlyOneKenoobie Oct 28th 2007 2:42AM
On my hunter, when I'm assigned a traping job I usually pull with distracting shot. This normally supplies enough threat so that if a squishie accidentally breaks the trap with some form of AOE(doesn't happen very often at all if the trap is positioned in the right place) I still have aggro and can try and keep the mob busy while I either trap again or wait for the timer to finish cooling down, rather than have the squishie get two shotted. Using distracting shot may cause a reasonable amount of threat but I've never encountered a decent tank who couldn't pull the mob off me almost immediately once its time to kill the mob. My point is that Karthis not wrong in my opinion, and sometimes a tank may have to make a little more effort to catch the attention of a CC'ed mob.
Fai Oct 28th 2007 9:43AM
Invisibility doesn't really seem the best option for mages - it's a longish cooldown and it's not instant either (which a lot of people seem to forget).
An easier option is just to frost nova the mob before it gets to you (sheeps should normally be the last cc broken anyway) or counterspell+frost nova if it's a caster mob.
Also with my warrior i've found that if you break the sheep with a shield slam you tend to have aggro of it straightaway.
Kabira-Fenris Oct 28th 2007 12:27PM
@ 11 - true, invisibility isn't instant, but each tick of the fade before the actual invis also reduces your threat.
Alkahn Oct 28th 2007 3:27PM
The best tip for any kind of tank (well, those that use rage) is to not overdo it on the current target before it's time to hit the next one. I usually stop doing threat moves for the last 25% of the current mob to bring my rage up over 30 if I can manage it. At 5% it's time to break the next target.
Best case scenario - revenge is up (for warriors), and you break with revenge + heroic strike simultaneously. Followed by a shield slam. Very few forms of crowd control will give aggro to the CCer if you do that (mind control and hunter traps come to mind, but that's it). For those high-aggro forms of CC, taunt should come first.
For either warriors or druids, your best bet is burst threat to break CC is using a global cooldown ability and a next-swing ability in tandem. It insulates you against one being parried/dodged, and it's more threat than you can do with either one or the other. Knowing what order to break things in (sheeps are last, saps are first, etc) is also important.
AngelFlavor Oct 29th 2007 1:55AM
If you have a paladin tank, then you don't need CC. Well that solves that problem.
Brauun Oct 29th 2007 10:16AM
And now a comment from a fellow tankadin. «What's a CC?» :P