How to Avoid Being CC Chained Into Oblivion

General Discussion
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While not every CC chain is 100% avoidable, it seems there are a few denizens of the forum who believe that there is no counterplay to CC in HotS. This thread will be a description of the various ways to minimize your risk, especially in QM, so when the next inevitable complaint comes up, there is a resource to which they can be directed. As always, feel free to chime in with your thoughts!

Before the Gates Drop

While the teams are loading in, take a good look at what you are facing, what you have available on your team, and which map you are playing. Does your team have a tank? A cleanse? CC of their own? Which talents should you take to synergize with who is on your team, and to counter what the enemy wants to do to you? Are there obvious gank spots, and safe rotation paths?

You should always be evaluating each match before it starts, and planning your strategy accordingly. Yes, you do need to be flexible and willing to change things up as the game plays out, but having a plan in place can make it easier to respond to enemy actions.

In the First Fight

Most maps feature a mini-ARAM in the middle lane right as the match starts, and often for good reasons. Use this fight to analyze how coordinated people seem to be, and what playstyle they prefer. Is your tank super aggressive? Be ready to follow up on his or her engagements immediately. Is your tank super defensive? Use the space and time they are creating to get some damage in and stacks built, even if the only safe target is the enemy tank. If your tank doesn’t seem to want to engage, it is fine if you do so, but make sure you have a Plan B in case things go sideways.

The same tips apply to evaluating your healer and assassins. Try to keep their playstyle in mind when positioning yourself. If you are the tank, make it clear when and how you plan to play the match, and do try to indicate a focus target when you go in. Often the best way to avoid a CC chain is to kill them first!

Positioning

This is always critical no matter which hero you are playing, or the comps and map. If you are playing a back line hero, is your flank exposed? Where are you in relation to your front line? Are you in range of your healer in case you need help? One thing I always stress about positioning, especially as the tank, is to keep track of minion waves, as they can be free protection from skill shots. Garrosh, Muradin, and Stitches can all be foiled easily by keeping a minion or two between you and their most dangerous weapons.

As a ranged hero, letting your tank eat the CC for you is the best bet in most cases, so try to watch the line between the enemies that can threaten you and your tank. For ambush heroes, such as Valeera, try to stay in the middle of things and within arm’s reach of your tank/healer, so even if they get a jump on you, help is at hand.

Rotations

At some point, you will have to go somewhere, and the path may be treacherous. Always check the mini-map before moving and see if you can spot the enemy heroes. If you cannot account for all 5 of them, try to guess where they may be and what they are doing, and plan your route accordingly. If you cannot account for any of them, take the safest path possible, even if it means going well out of your way to do so.

Bushes are never safe, so always let the tank go first, or even better, scout with a cheap spell, preferably one that can also set up a counter-gank. For example, if you are playing Kael’thas, throwing a Gravity Lapse into the suspicious bush may waste mana and a CD, or it could secure your team a key kill, or at the very least, do unto them before they do unto you. Wasting mana and CDs isn’t good, but dying is even worse.

Defensive Talents are Good

If you are playing an assassin, your job is to kill people, but it is hard to do that if you are dead yourself. While taking a defensive talent may be a net DPS loss, dying is a bigger DPS loss. If you are playing Valla into a mage-heavy comp, Gloom may be a good idea. Diamond Skin on Li-Ming can potentially save your life when the enemy tries to dive on you (or if you are diving them with Calamity!). Don’t be afraid to take talents you normally skip if it will make the difference in who comes out of a fight alive.

Use Abilities Strategically

While this should be obvious, and something done regularly, not just to counter CC, it becomes even more important when the enemy team has ways to lock you down before killing you. Movement abilities, such as Barrel Roll on Falstad, can definitely secure kills, but they can also be used to avoid skill shot CC, or to reposition quickly if you are targeted by one of the more telegraphed abilities, such as a Varian or Butcher E. Always try to save yourself an escape plan when facing CC heavy comps, and evaluate whether or not your abilities can help with that.

Know What You are Facing

While this again applies to all heroes for all aspects of the game, at the least, take the heroes you have problems facing into Try Mode to get a feel for yourself what the range and CD is on their scariest abilities. Most CC has a fairly short range, certainly shorter than most abilities from the glass cannon heroes, so understand how close is too close and apply that to your matches.

In addition, most CC or displacement abilities have a relatively long CD, so practice watching for those, and exploiting the window of opportunity they can present. For example, Varian’s Taunt has a CD of 16 seconds. If you see him use it, you know you have some time to be aggressive where he isn’t a threat to you. Although it may not be possible for you to remember every single CD from every ability or talent in the game, remember that you will almost always have at least 10 seconds of “safe” time to attack.

There is a lot more that can be done in specific situations, and feel free to ask if there are any specific heroes you are having problems playing or countering, but this should be a good start. And as always, I look forward to seeing what other solutions people have!

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Very nice guide. Mind if i add to it? :stuck_out_tongue:

I talked about this before a while back but a good strategy for us ranged players is to imagine a range indicator around everyone with CC. Think about when and why that CC is dangerous and avoid entering the invisible range indicator when its not safe.

As an example, lets say there’s a diablo around. Every wall in his range and at the correct angle should be a no go zone because of shadow charge and the area immediately around diablo is a no go zone beacuse of overpower.

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Please do! The more tips people can give each other, the better. :slight_smile:

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First, I like how we’ll all probably know exactly who this guide is made for.

Second, CC counters CC, especially if it’s longer-ranged than the opposing CC. And I don’t mean this in the “lol just kill them first, 4-head”-meme way – even if you don’t have your own follow up, you can throw off a combo or stall for time. Silences postpones the incoming CC, giving you a chance to get to safety or your team to cover for you. Roots and Slows can make it so they can’t get in range to CC you at all, or if they do it can also prevent them from following-up on their CC. Stuns do all of the above.
Personally, I’ve saved my own :peach: hundreds of times as Zul’jin simply by slowing an incoming Tank with my W. If they can’t catch me to CC me in the first place, I don’t have to worry about CC chains as much.

Third, I’d also like to recommend baiting CC. This usually only works against lower-skill players, but if you can trick them into using their CC on your when they have no follow-up, then even if it lands you’re burning their CC when it isn’t actually useful.
This is especially effective against dive-Tanks, like Muradin or Anub’arak. Your average player will just jump/charge at you and press Q, but the Stun will wear off before the rest of their team arrives.

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Good guide, thanks for your effort Hoku. I make a short suggestion though:

Play Deathwing, but Johanna and Leoric works too.

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That is included in the bit about using your abilities strategically. If you have CC, you can use it to counter theirs, but even when you do not have any CC abilities, you can still use movement abilities, or even AoE damage abilities, to prevent them from getting the jump on you. For example, if you are playing Jaina and the enemy team has a Valeera, you can use Blizzard and Cone of Cold to make it much harder for her to open on you if you find yourself isolated and vulnerable.

Honestly, Uther is even safer. With JoJo and Leo, you have to time the Unstoppable to stop the chain before it starts, or you can still be locked down and die. With the right build, Uther doesn’t give a damn about CC, and is tanky as hell.

But to be fair to the people to whom this guide is directed, it is unlikely they will be playing the heroes that are naturally less susceptible to CC, which is why they find it problematic in the first place. I freely admit I have been abusing the heck out of short range swaps on Artanis, just for the Unstoppable. When the enemy has a Garrosh, charging right into his face, swapping him at point-blank range, and watching all of his CC go on CD never gets old. Garrosh players don’t really know how to handle a hero that is that aggressive around them.

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But it’s not really hard with Leo and since his W don’t get interrupted by CC I find him pretty easy against CC teams and he can stand against with his own sustain but especially because his deaths isn’t really impactful (except the exp the enemy gets from it). In fact, when a Leo dies it feels like Murky dies to me, because I know he is still there and will be back sooner than others.

That’s true.

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Unless you have a Chromie god on your team! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

This was on EU, and if I weren’t such a scrub with the timing on my Q, he might have died.

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2v1. That’s cheating, you don’t pay respect to 1v1. :crazy_face:

But it’s sad that you didn’t got him, because doing that wave while knowing there is Chromie and Artanis was sucidicial.

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I feel like this particular sentence deserves emphasis.

Also, have you ever seen the target of a Pyroblast die before the Pyroblast hit?
Do you think some zoning utility with Phoenix might’ve been more useful? What I’m saying is (glomming on Hoku’s point here) it’s actually possible to have too much damage, even if you’re perfectly safe to take a full damage build. Spells can get wasted, or mana might never get used. Doesn’t happen all the time, obviously. I’m just saying it’s something to think about.

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Letting your tank eat the CC is only part of it.
You also want to try to be in position so if the enemy wants to chain CC your tank (or any ally really) you’re able to punish them for it.
They can’t chain CC by throwing it all at once, they need to drop the next one as the previous one ends. That’s why being a nearby dps presence, or just any nearby hero with CC of your own, can discourage the chains, and make it so the tank absorbing the abilities isn’t doing so for no reason at all.

This isn’t a job for either player.
Both the tank AND the dps need to check their position in relation to each other.

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Hoku, nice subtle hint, XD. Anyways I do have one question though. I’ve experienced it with lots of teammates and its beyond frustrating when I am locked to tank 8/10 times. So I try to play adaptive with teammates, I do pregame analyze and look at my match ups and also whose going to need the most assistance from me as the tank i’m playing. However, even despite my efforts to work with the team and change they still do some stuff that’s questionable at best.

Often times I like to be an aggressive tank because I like dive comps. However, when I find myself with more defensive minded teammates, there becomes a struggle of should I even bother engaging? Like on garden of terror, I don’t mind letting go of an obj, but numerous times it seems i’ll be there fighting and even though they will agree we need it i’ll be the only one there. I’ll even ask before hand, so should I let the team engage first or typically should I lead the charge?

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Heh, this wasn’t actually addressed to you, but a serial spammer who comes to the forum about once a month to complain that they keep getting ganked. It was getting tiresome to keep giving them the same reply each time!

But regarding objectives, a 1v5 almost never ends well, unless your team has a substantial level lead, and you are playing a hero that can get away with it, like Imperius. One of the reasons I like playing tanks such as Johanna or Blaze on maps where an objective has to be channeled, such as Cursed Hollow, is that they have ways to stall almost indefinitely, until your team can drag their lazy butts over to join you.

With that said, if they aren’t dragging their lazy butts, or if you are playing a tank with little poke to speak of, just leave. There is no point in wasting mana, CDs, HP over a lost cause, and depending on your comp, sometimes it is easier to just defend.

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I always take defensive talents.

Love them.

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Necroing this so more people can see this. Its a big help.

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I’m not huge on this idea for two reasons.

  1. It would make everyone scared to do anything risky, which is usually good but it also means the enemies have control because they know if you get in their range, they’re going to regret it.
  2. I think it would baby players a little too much. Part of the game is learning the abilities of other heroes, not just the ones you like to play. Also, you should already know CC is dangerous when you get CC’d to oblivion. Hopefully next time you’re a little more cautious when you’re facing a lot of CC.

I wouldn’t mind this feature in modes like vs AI, or practice modes. But I don’t think QM, aram, or SL should have training wheels like that.

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It’s a commendable effort from Hoku, even though most will ignore it and keep whining for diminishing returns or whatever they call it.

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I mostly did it because another player made a thread about this game need disminishing returns on cc.

I mostly see this as a problem amoung low league players. They walk around alone, gets cc to death in a gank and then come here and make threads about. There are so many ways to avoid getting cc in this game but I guess those people would rather just take the easy way out and ask for heores who relay on cc to kill to get nerfed.

Imagine how trash tanks will become if cc gets nerfed becasue of that. Game would become even worse.

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I want to add an explanation about Drafting. Will speak as a healer.

Drafting versus CC

Half of healers have abilities to deal with CC and burst combos. Because of utility, some of them lack healing.
Because of that, you need to know when you need more healing and when you need more saves from CC.

Let’s take this game:
https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=11165521&battletag=DrLogan&region=2&replayID=43473449

In this game enemy team was banning blinds and picking AA heroes with little CC. My Uther would be ineffective because enemy don’t have CC and spam dmg. I would lose simply because we lose face too fast and can’t come close.

That’s why I had to pick Reghar (don’t like picking him but it worked). Why was he effective here?

  • enough healing
  • totem build
  • cleanse vs root
  • Bloodlust to go in or out

Next game was about defending my KTZ from enemy dive.
https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=11165521&battletag=DrLogan&region=2&replayID=43437995
In that game Uther was a good choice because enemy team had a plan to “go in and burst enemies down”. There were not some kind of spam to have problems with healing.

So why did we go Uther?

  • burst protection (armor, burst heal)
  • peel (CC)
  • can tank dmg instead KTZ
  • Cleanse
  • Divine Shield

I also reccomend to check this game. In this situation we defend backline and almost ignore our frontline.
https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=11165521&battletag=DrLogan&region=2&replayID=43465617

There are also games, when enemies have both CC and dmg spam. Who do you go for then? More heals or CC cancel with burst protection?

Let’s look at this game:
https://www.heroesprofile.com/Match/Single/?blizz_id=11165521&battletag=DrLogan&region=2&replayID=43472053

[Album] imgur.com

This game had both cases - CC lock and dmg spam. A lot of dmg.

Why do you take Uther here? Because no amount of healing can save from CC locks in most cases and it’s better to prevent CC lock or save from it to keep an ally alive.

If you ask why KT has Pyro - that’s because we were looking at each other from lvl 10 to 12-13 until KT gave up and picked Pyrobalstm what allowed me to go Shield. I would anyway go Shield but that was funny af

My burst healing + shield + Aba’s hat + Cleanse made Illidan and other teammates hard to kill. Deckard or Anduin wouldn’t do that easily.

If you have questions, please ask.

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Diminishing returns, and problem is solved.