A Simple Guide on Crowd Control by Clue

Crowd Control is any ability or spell that reduces an enemies ability to fight. They prevent enemies from using abilities, items, or it limits movement.

Crowd Control is extremely powerful and essential in Vainglory because it creates a lot of interesting counters between heroes. Limiting the number of possibilities of outcomes in a situation for your enemies ultimately gives you more advantages in given situations.

Vainglory currently has eight different types of Crowd Control in game: Stuns, Silences, Roots, Slows, Knockbacks, Pulls, and the newest one added to Vainglory, Snares.

While the Crowd Control effect is happening, there will be certain things you can and cannot do. Here is a chart showing what you can do. (This chart excludes movement abilities such as Slows, Pulls, and Knockbacks)

	Movement	Abilities	Items	Basic Attacks
Silence	Yes	No	No	Yes
Snare	Yes	Yes/No	Yes	Yes
Stun	No	No	No	No
Root	No	Yes/No	Yes	Yes

Lets get more into detail.

When an Enemy is stunned they are unable to control their movement, abilities, items, or use basic attacks. Rendering them useless for a brief amount of time.

However due to the popularity of Triple Stun Comps (Pre 1.11), Reflex Block is the only item that can be activated while stunned.

Stuns are important because they allow for periods of times where you and your allies can attack or escape. They can also disrupt abilities that are being channeled, resetting the cooldown on your enemies abilities.

When an Enemy is snared they are allowed to move normally and use items but they are prevented from using movement abilities.

Snares are also the newest form of crowd control in Vainglory, Lyra being the first and only hero to get a kit that allows use for it. This is a great counter against heroes who rely on abilities to stay mobile, particularly dive compositions.

When an Enemy is silenced they are allowed to move freely and use basic attacks but they cannot cast abilities or use items.

Silences are particularly good against heroes who build Crystal power and rely on abilities and items. This is a great counter to mages and supports. However, Silences do not stop abilities that are already being animated.

When an enemy is rooted they are allowed to use basic attacks, abilities, and items but they cannot move, use movement items such as boots, or movement based abilities.

When an enemy is slowed they have reduced movement speed. This reduction applies to normal movement speed, boots, and movement increasing abilities.

Slows are important because they allow mobile heroes such as Blackfeather, Skye, and Ringo to kite their enemies. They're also a great counter against mobile heroes as well.

Slows are calculated by percentages. So if a hero has a move speed of 4 and they are slowed by 30% then they will be moving at a speed of 2.8 for a brief amount of time.

A Knockback is an ability that pushes away a target away from where it was cast.

Knockbacks can either be a great tool for ganking, initiation team fights, and knocking enemies away to escape unharmed. Glaive being the most notorious for his offensive Knockbacks and Lance for his defensive Knockbacks.

A pull is an ability that pulls a target towards the direction where it was cast.

Pulls are great because they're a great way to initiate fights when the enemies are far away. Phinn being the first and only hero with a pull ability, he's able to revolve the team fight around himself.

Reflex Block is an essential Defense item for any heroes' kit. It can block any form of Crowd Control for one second. Get an Aegis if you're needing some more defense, and a Crucible if you're needing to protect your team mates from any AOE abilities.

There are actually some abilities that negate crowd control. These abilities give heroes an advantage in certain situations in team fights.

Phinn laughs at (almost) all forms of Crowd Control, his heroic Perk Unstoppable prevents him from being stunned, knocked back, pulled, rooted, or snared. Instead he gets a moderate slow and he is silenced.

Blackfeather also has some tricks up his sleeve, when Blackfeather activates his Rose Offensive he's immune to negative effects including all forms of crowd control except Snares! He also gains a little bit of Fortified Health so he can be a big Nuisance.

Taka's Kaiten is one of the hardest abilities to use effectively, he's invulnerable to damage, debuffs, and crowd control for a brief moment. He can leave a fight untouched while an enemies ability is being channeled, making him a slippery assassin.

When Lance overdrives his Gythian Wall he will be able to ignore debuffs used against him. This makes him a pretty tanky guy because he can survive most forms of crowd control in the heat of any battle.

Imagine Vainglory without crowd control, it would just be a bunch of heroes shooting and damaging each other. Boring right? Hopefully I could have given you some helpful insight into the heroes of the Halcyon Fold and some of the interesting abilities they possess. If you have any suggestions or constructive feedback feel free to personally message me so I can make changes as needed!

This Guide is currently updated for the 1.20 patch.