Crowd Control Rundown.

Being Cataclysm is right around the corner I've been looking over my characters and evaluating or reevaluating my crowd control options.  Many of my characters I've never had a reason to use it at all.  Three, my Hunter, my Rogue and my Mage, I tend to use it a lot while leveling.  Two on purpose and one almost passively as in it just happens without trying.

Being I am leveling my Mage as frost I am forever freezing things so that works as a type of crowd control on its own and then of course there is sheep which I love to cast just for fun even if I did not need to.  My Hunter, while leveling, used traps once in a while but once I started doing solo raid and dungeon content I tend to use them more often.  My Rogue can just not live through some battles if I did not sap a mob to start with.

My other characters I have crowd control on but have never used it in any way.  My Shaman has hex, it is on on the tool bar even if it is over to the side as something I would need to manually click but it is there because I have never used it.  Not even once to see what it looked like.

My Priest has Shackle Undead and it is another one of those things I never had a need to use.  First off leveling as PvP only ( I used scream all the time then) for the start and then questing later I leveled as Disc.  I never got hit so I never really needed to worry about any type of crowd control.  I've never used the ability and even if I did, as a healer, I have no hit so I would probably miss anyway.

My Death Knight has Chains of Ice and I have it on my bar but again, like the other classes, I never had much need for it so I have never used it even once.

My Druid has a nice little selection of things it can use but Roots where the only one I ever used and even at that it was only used very early on.  Once I leveled a little rooting mobs made no sense to me, I was a bear by then and basically I did not care if I got hit.  I can take it.

So here I am considering myself at the least a good player if not great and I do not have much crowd control experience.  The thing is, I have some.  That is more then most have.  In the WotLK days crowd control was laughable.  It is as if I need to teach myself how to use crowd control to be ready for Cataclysm.

The thing is, will it be worth it?  Blizzards track record shows that we will need CC when we first get to the dungeons but by the time we are done with the first tier of raiding and have some gear it will be laughable again to run heroics.  I have no faith that Blizzard will do anything that stops the laughfest that dungeons became. 

Example:  ICC 5 mans.  When they first came out you heard people saying how they loved that you needed CC and needed to plan pulls again and that this is how dungeons should be, that they were hard and only good players would ever get through them.  Within 2 weeks everyone was just blowing through them again in an AoE spam fest even if they were horrible players.  This is because Blizzard does not really think anything out in advance it seems.

So is it going to be worth practicing my CC abilities when they will not be needed?  I am golden on my Hunter.  In LDW I spam my shots and when someone gets mind controlled I have a trap under their feet instantly while never losing a beat throwing the hurt on the boss.  I know how to CC as a hunter.  Should I take the time to learn how to do it on my other classes?  That is my question.

Learning is easy enough.  While nothing can kill me really I can still practice CCing them just doing some low level dungeons or better yet, 70s dungeons on heroic.  That is the perfect playground to learn how to CC solo.  That is where I got most of my experience with my Hunter, heroic MgT.  Now that is a learning experience to solo that baby.

While looking over things I noticed that every class has some sort of CC.  Some more then others of course and some that are situational based on the type of mob you are facing.  With that in mind I want to make a list for myself of what I will need to use if I plan to practice my CC abilities. 

Speaking of CC abilities I need to work on my kiting on the PTR as well.  Kiting, while not CC does serve the same purpose and there might be a need for it.  I've had to kite things at various times in raids before and I doubt that will change.  On the PTR I am totally confused with kiting.  I am just not doing it right.  Maybe I can blame that on my keybinds at the moment, being I have none, but I should still be able to do it and I can't.  Have to get used to that.  I think after the PTR goes live is when I will start to play around with CC on my other characters. No use trying now when I very well might have to relearn everything soon anyway.

The return of CC means a lot to old time players, to me it is a totally new concept.  I used CC when alone, in a group I rarely if ever have seen the need for CC.  Might be fun but I can tell you one thing for sure.  If the 5 mans are going to need smart people dropping CC whenever needed I will not be running randoms for sure.  I know that most people are stupid and will never grasp the concept of CC.