How to Ensure Effective Crowd Control in Cataclysm PvP

Crowd Control. It's something that PvP'ers argue about a lot. What's the use of CC when your opponent knows how to break anything you can throw at him? I'm here to argue that even in high-end fights, CC can be a critical weapon. But only if you use it correctly. Let's start with the obvious. If you're fighting a noob, your CC abilities will likely throw him completely off stride and lead to an easy win for you. But against seasoned foes, if you use CC in the usual manner, all you're going to do is waste mana.

So you need to take a slightly different approach if you want your CC abilities to help you in more serious fights. Here are three things you can do to make that happen.

Step 1: Learn All Your CC Options

Put some effort into learning everything you can about all the crowd control options your class and spec can deploy. The better you understand all your options, the more likely you are to be able to put them to use in a fight. Even options that don't seem ideal, or that have very limited effects, can mean the difference between life and death against a worthy foe.

Also, learning how and when to use these less than optimal effects gives you more options, which fits in very well with Step 2. Now a quality PvP guide will point out all these options for you, but it still falls on your shoulders to really learn them and practice them so you can throw them in the middle of a tough battle without choking.

Step 2: Break the Pattern

Here's where you're gonna get smart. What most people do is simply memorize what some PvP guide calls the "best CC rotation" for their class and spec. They then use that exact rotation in each fight. Makes sense, right?

But this is a recipe for disaster. Why? Because when you are fighting a veteran opponent, he knows the "best CC rotation" for your class and spec too. He also knows exactly what to do when you try to use that rotation against him. The result: you get owned, despite having deploying the "best CC rotation" perfectly.

What's the answer? Break the pattern.

If you are fighting someone who is likely to know how to counter the standard crowd control rotation, you need to throw him off balance by doing something slightly different. Throw something different into the middle of the rotation. It will likely throw your opponent a bit off balance since you won't be doing what he expects.

This is where really learning all your CC options (even the weaker ones) comes in handy. Since most players will be using only the "best" crowd control, throwing in something that's not on that list will give you an edge you can exploit.

And if you can replace a cooldown with something else, not only will you confuse your opponent, but you'll still have that cooldown available at the crucial moment in the fight. That leads us to Step 3.

Step 3: Don't Squander Your Cooldowns

It can be tempting to hit your foe with your big guns right away. But if those big guns are cooldowns, don't do it! At least, don't use them all up at the beginning of a fight. The logic here is simple. There will come a point at the end of a fight where having a powerful crowd control option can make the difference between living and dying. If all your powerful CC options are on cooldown at that critical moment, well, someone will res you eventually.

Keeping something in reserve for a critical moment is just smart tactics. If you do that with one of your cooldown CC options, you've just greatly increased the chance that you'll be standing over your opponents body at the end of the fight.