CHAPTER 4: CROSS CC

CROSS CC INTRO

Welcome to our next course in our crowd control series and this one is going to focus on Cross CC. The absolute strongest kill windows in PvP are created by using Cross CC to put your team in 3v1 situations.

Now I know what you're thinking here, isn't that impossible for most comps? Well, impossible?

No. Hard?

Well, maybe. But PvP really ain't easy for anyone here and we're here to make things just a little bit simpler for you by breaking down Cross CC targets in three different priority levels.

So be sure to stay tuned to learn how to craft the deadliest setups in PvP.

DO THIS TO GUARANTEE KILLS! (BEST TARGETS TO CROSS CC)

We've all been there. You thought you did everything right.

You CC'd the healer and stunned the kill target, but then your GO gets completely shut down. This sucks right?

By now you know that cross CC is important, but it's not always obvious which targets you actually need to lock down. Luckily we have the solution for you.

We broke down every DPS by how important they are to cross CC, and once you know this information we guarantee that your kills will become more deadly. Before we get into it though, if you're watching this video it's probably because you want to become a master of setting up kills.

Starting off with the low priority classes, we have assassination rogues. They could use blind, kidney shot, or dismantle to peel, but the first two spells are mainly used offensively.

As such you'll only need to worry about dismantle for the most part, which only applies to certain melee specs. Be wary if they do have blind or kidney shot ready for your offensive setup, but for the most part if they're using this to peel then that means they've already lost.

Up next we have all hunters who have great offensive crowd control, but their peels are not super effective against offensive setups. Roar of sacrifice is only a good example of how effective they are.

They're only strong against the likes of combustion, but nowadays most compositions simply go through this cooldown. The other peels hunters have you probably will never have to deal with considering their freezing traps can be dispelled, and most of their root effects can be countered with root breaker cooldowns.

Survival hunters do have more potent root effects with steel trap, so saving things like tigers lust or blade storm for these moments will be ideal if you need to keep up to your target during a kill window. It might surprise you to see that mages are also here in low priority.

We know mages have a crazy amount of crowd control spells at their disposal, including polymorph, frost nova and dragon's breath which can peel you immensely. However having any long duration CC or a ranged interrupt will be enough to help guarantee your killing opportunities.

Making sure you interrupt polymorph will free you from this annoying CC during your deadly setup. As for dragon's breath, if you can, avoid stacking up so the mage can only hit one target.

So many times melee cleaves get their entire kill shut down by one double db. Similar to mages, we have warlocks in this low priority tier.

Even though they have spammable CCs, they're still very strong against the mage. If you have a strong CC you'll simply need a ranged interrupt or a strong CC spell in order to stop them from peeling you.

You'll want to deny fear or shadow fury casts with your interrupts which should buy you enough time to get your pressure off. The only slight difference is that demo warlocks have access to pet stun, being an annoyance to deal with as they can use this while the lock is in CC themselves.

There's not much you can do about this, either outplaying it with a niche maneuver that's only available to certain classes, or having your trinket ready to get out of this stun if you can guarantee the kill on your target.

Another class in this tier is windwalker monks, which are mainly good at disrupting melee classes while being poor at stopping caster damage. This is due to ring of peace and grapple weapon being able to reduce or deny a huge portion of melee pressure.

Paralysis is also a nice way at stopping any class in their tracks, being an undispellable form of CC. So look to make sure you have ways to CC the windwalker, or if possible, having ways to play around ring of peace could be sufficient enough.

The last class we have on the low priority list will be death knights, who are the least important class to cross CC. As you know, the main utility of a DK is stopping magic damage with anti-magic zone.

While this is good to try and prevent, most good death knights will simply have their trinket for this, meaning they will most likely use it in conjunction with AMZ to stop your deadly damage from happening. This means you don't really need to worry about cross CC on DKs once trinket is down.

If you are ever in the rare instance facing a frost death knight, then you'll want to be careful for their blinding sleep. This combined with death grip can peel multiple targets every minute.

Moving on to the medium priority classes. We'll start things off with demon hunters.

Darkness can be a lifesaver cooldown, which is usually paired with their trinket. The main spells that will disrupt the majority of your kill attempts are their stuns or imprisons stopping you in your tracks.

If you rely on magic damage CC on enemy healers, such as poly or trap, then reverse magic is also an excellent way to deny these spells, so you'll definitely want to stop the demon hunter from getting this off. Luckily, crowd controlling the DH should be relatively easy.

Even strong root effects on them can be sufficient to deny their peeling effects as long as they aren't in range to utilize their spells. Moving on, balanced druids is another spec that has a bunch of different crowd control options at their disposal.

They can feel tedious to deal with due to their quick cast cyclones on top of their roots and roar which can disrupt any offensive setups. On top of that, their last resort peel involves some regrowth spam, which is sometimes enough to save their teammates.

Most of their utility comes from the nature school, so look out to disrupt nature casts on setups. Now, the last spec on this medium priority will be elemental shamans.

While they might not be as strong against melee specs, they will be strong at denying casters from creating pressure or landing crowd control. Having access to grounding and wind shear sounds like it won't be too frightening, but these spell disruption effects can counter even the biggest magic pressure from any caster.

On top of that, tremor totem will deny any fear cc on their partners, so if you want to utilize that against shaman teams, you should definitely look at either fearing the shaman as well or cross crowd controlling them to deny its use.

With elemental shamans covered, we now move on to the rest of the specs, who are all high priority classes to cross cc in order to guarantee kills. First up, we have feral druids.

They have similar peels to balance, being able to cast cyclones, roots, and roar to disrupt any offensive setup. So why is feral higher than balance druid?

Well, the main separator is that feral druids have far more stuns at their disposal, so they could use them to stop someone from dealing too much damage. Also, their form of regrowth spam can be more potent due to strength of the wild.

Of course, you can interrupt their casts, but having an interrupt alone might not be enough to stop a feral from peeling you with all of their stuns and micro ccs. This means needing cross cc on them if you want to prevent their disruption tools from stopping your kills.

Next, we have shadow priests who have a number of lifesaving spells that can prevent your kills. If you rely on heavy cc on healers for your kills, then you definitely want to cc shadow priests to deny mass dispel from being used.

Leap of faith could also be used in this manner, to break healers from cc if there's aoe in the ground. They can also use this ability in general to reposition their teammates, which makes it really strong into melee stun setups.

Void shift is a lifesaver ability, which can help significantly with surviving a setup. This is a long cooldown though and is usually paired with a trinket break.

They could also use the defensive fear with a silence or stun on the healer, stopping your entire team. For all these reasons, shadow priests are super high priority targets to cross cc.

Just like enhancement shamans, but what makes them more important than ele? Similar to elemental, they have grounding totem, tremor and wind shear which can heavily disrupt casters, as well as prevent any fear mechanics on their partners.

The main difference between them and the other champions is that they have a lot of damage, and they can heal. The main difference that makes enhancement stronger is their ability to heal.

Their healing surges are not only instant but are also much more powerful, which means you cannot stop them from happening unless you cc them. If that's not enough, they also have access to chain harvest, which can have a reduced cooldown thanks to their skybreaker legendary.

This combo is common to use just so they can have defensive chain harvest to save their team from dying. Moving on we have ret paladins here.

Their main power of healing comes from their blessing of sanctuary. This can hinder setups that rely on stuns, being able to remove them and prevent the kill attempt from happening.

Aside from that, bop can be powerful to stop physical damage or cc from happening, which can be a lifesaver against certain comps. Word of glory is also a form of strong off healing, which could be enough to save their teammates from death.

Since it's instant cast as well, you can only deny it with a form of cc on them, so make sure you do so. Up next in this list we have arms and fury warriors.

While they don't have a ton of peels against casters, they have powerful peeling spells against any physical damage dealer. Defensive stuns or fears can be enough to stop anyone in their tracks.

Since their fear is a shorter cooldown than the medallion trinket, this alone is a powerful peel against your entire team. Against melee, their best way at preventing damage is intervene.

Being able to redirect all physical pressure to them can seriously negate your kill attempt onto other targets. If that's not enough, they also have disarm, which is excellent against most melee specs in the game, stopping them from dealing any damage or even cc.

As such, if you have a melee in your team. You will need to cc warriors if you want to land kills.

Against arms warriors, they have even more disruption due to war banner and duel. These spells are powerful enough to block any big offensive setup, especially if you rely on cc to win.

Last of all, and probably the highest priority specs to cc for your setups are sub and outlaw rogues. They have a ton of mechanics to stop any kind of offensive pressure from happening.

Both specs have access to stuns in their toolkit, which can be used quite easily for defensive purposes in order to survive. They also have dismantle, which as we know by now is seriously powerful against the enemy.

They have a lot of potential to counter any kind of offensive pressure. They have a lot of potential to counter any kind of offensive pressure.

They have a lot of potential to counter any kind of offensive pressure. They have a lot of potential to counter any kind of offensive pressure.

They have a lot of potential to counter any kind of offensive pressure. They have a lot of potential to counter any kind of offensive pressure.

Defensive smoke bombs could also be powerful against casters, acting as a pseudo line of sight. Sub rogues will also have shadowy duel in their arsenal, which can be used to stop one target from killing one of their partners.

This cannot be avoided unless you cc the rogue to prevent its use. Outlaw rogues have some specific tech, including gouge, which is an annoyance to any player as it stops damage immediately and has a super short cooldown.

Their blind is also at a reduced cooldown, acting as a reliable peel which doesn't line up with trinket. Essentially for all compositions in the game, if you don't cross cc these specs then you will get peeled to oblivion, especially against outlaw rogues.

So let's recap on the priority list for all the dps specs you should cross cc when going for kill attempts. Remember, this is a generalization and certain specs may be more preferable to cc, depending if you're a caster cleave, a melee cleave, or hybrid composition.

Generally speaking the high priority specs are the most important to cross cc no matter what as their utility options are able to block most kills. As always though.

See ya soon.