Friday, March 18, 2011

Using Crowd Control doesn't mean you're "weak"

I heard a tank say the other day in a heroic PUG "Do we need CC or is the healer good?"

Excuse me, what? Whether we need CC or not has some to do with me, but it is not the only criteria? How about:

  • Can the DPS manage to all hit the same thing the tank so only one person is tanking?
  • Can the tank manage to keep aggro on multiple mobs at once?
  • If there's fire or poison or something else nasty on the floor can everyone avoid standing in it?
Let me just come clean right now and say that not using CC doesn't make your epeen any larger. Especially the particularly "easy" to apply (and re-apply versions) like sheep or trap? (Yes, I'll forgive you for not putting anyone through the exercise of CCing via Seduction with a Succubus.)

It honestly doesn't matter whether I "can" or "cannot" heal through the lack of CC. It's sort of like Pascal's Gambit. Either you need CC or you do not need CC. Either you will wipe or not. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that using CC when it's needed will assure us of success. The choices work themselves nicely into a table.

Pascal's Gambit of Crowd Control
CC Used?CC Needed?Result
NoNoSuccess*
NoYesSuccess*
YesNoWIPE!
YesYesSuccess*
* Success means probable success. Bad things can always happen.

The only time you're going to assuredly wipe is when your group (not just the healer) needs CC and you don't use it. You don't lose ANYTHING (other than maybe a little time) using CC when it's not required.

I know on fights where CC isn't used, I'm much more likely to burn a cooldown (BOP/LOH or the like) and then not have it available for the boss fight in 30 seconds. So. Please people. If you have CC in your heroic groups and there's a question about its necessity. Play it safe.

P.S. Don't know how often I'll post here, perhaps just when I'm moved. But I'm still around.