I personally think the biggest reason CC/DRs became so looked down upon is that people started treating CC as the main problem, when a huge part of the issue was how much the game changed around it.
I actually want CC → setup → burst to exist. That’s a huge part of what makes arena fun. The problem is when burst, sustained damage and healing are so high that getting caught in a setup feels like an instant checkmate. When the game was slower, getting CC’d didn’t automatically mean you were dead. Big cooldowns could swing a game, but normal abilities, mobility and defensives could still buy you time to make another play.
That’s why personally, I’d rather see the CC/DR changes reverted. I don’t think CC itself was the problem. I think the game changed around CC to the point where the same interactions became much more oppressive because everything happens so quickly and baseline damage/healing is so high.
I’m not saying the game should simply be slowed down. I want different ways of playing to actually coexist. You should be able to build around rot pressure, burst, defense, or a mixture of them. A Warlock should be able to bring sustained rot pressure, a Mage should have strong burst setups, a Ret can provide defensive utility and survivability, and you should be able to combine those archetypes into different compositions and win conditions.
The problem is that the current levels of passive damage and healing make everyone increasingly similar in throughput. I’d rather have more of that power tied to actual decisions, niche abilities and class-specific strengths.
That’s where examples like DH come in: lots of instant CC combined with high damage leaves very little room to respond. Ret is almost the opposite extreme, with huge amounts of immunities, CC, off-healing and survivability. I’m using these as examples of how extreme the current design can become, not because I think those classes shouldn’t be viable.
And this isn’t just about cooldowns. Niche abilities and unique win conditions are good for PvP. I want multiple classes and compositions to counter each other. You don’t need every off-meta comp to be equally strong, but having that “4th team” that can counter one of the major comps makes the entire ladder more interesting and gives people room to play with their friends without taking a massive disadvantage.
I don’t want less PvP interaction. I want more viable ways to interact. Rot, burst, defense, or combinations of all three should be able to exist — with CC, mobility, positioning and resource trading actually helping define which strategy wins.
So for me, the answer isn’t “remove CC because CC is unhealthy.” Revert the CC/DR changes, then bring the damage/healing and passive throughput into a place where those CC interactions can exist without every setup becoming an instant checkmate.