A few musings on crowd control skills/equipment

[Crystalion]

When I said knock back was the best crowd control, I was specifically referring to knock back with multishot(and cold).

I also meant to imply(but probably didnt) that Im talking about fast killing characters. Who will be meeting monsters, killing them and moving ahead fairly rapidly.

I think I was fairly accurate.

Ah, an opportunity for commentary.

Let me start by saying that if you replace "the best" with "very good" then I'm in total agreement.

And let me clarify that I was never confused about you combining MS/KB/chill as a package deal.

On to analysis...

Elements under discussion:
1) the best crowd control
2) candidate: Bowazon using Multishot with knockback and chill
3) criterion: ignore competition if they are not a "fast kill[er]", to wit
3a) meeting monsters [presumably wherever/whatever the game throws at you]
3b) killing them [thus excluding crowd control techniques that "merely" neutralize or avoid]
3c) moving ahead rapidly [although this goal doesn't seem to take precedence over 3b as it would, e.g., in a MF run]

Well, if we ignore 3b then "free" spammed bone prison and teleport is definitely better CC so I guess I have to focus on the killing issue. A bone prison spammer, to kill things, really is looking to set off a chain of Corpse Explosions. The CEs themselves are vastly more efficient than MS, but getting the inital critical mass of corpses requires killing techniques that may well be less efficient than a Bowazon or even MS in particular [despite the damage penalty]. Whether the two cancel out in favor of the Necro or the Amazon under what conditions is probably up in the air. For example, you'd have to consider whether 3c precludes the Necro from bringing back a horde of monsters to the corpse site of the last horde he killed, so as to not waste time on starter corpses. I have a friend [Necro] who once cleared the entire cow level in [the space of] one screen, for example [herding them back to death central].

If we focus too much on 3b and 3c we might conclude that a Fury Werewolf Druid has the best CC by giving him a knockback and high% flee exploding arrow rogue and stunning grizzly--while this would keep monster density thin I suspect that the Druid would get pretty peeved from all the extra walking to targets [yes, I've tested such a Rogue... in v1.09 Hell Pindleskin prelude she kept the entire set of undead, 30+ levels her senior, away from my character, indefinitely]. I say focus too much, because by 3a we might meet a MSLEB, and clearly the Bone Prison Necro and Slow Missiles 'Zon deal with that better than Fury [arrrrgh...splat].

Having played a Grim Warding barb and knowing that WW barbs have [had?] high kill rates we could similarly argue for this over MS--bearing in mind that Leap/LA/Howl/Warcry definitely give the Barb the initial time needed to set up the GW when needed. In other words, Barbs don't tend to be played that way, but they are very flexible and very good at CC, so your MS/knockback/chill is a one trick pony by comparison, which can fail easily vs. cold immunes when knockback isn't giving you any room. So if MS doesn't kill any faster than a Barb can, it is not at all clear to me that awarding the Amazon the "best" title is accurate, even given your criteria.

And, of course, by focusing on Necro Bone Prison and complimenting Barb CC I do not in any way mean to slight the enormous other range of Necro CC skills [and apparently Confuse is now usable, perhaps even good, instead of being largely a joke]. It is just more an issue of debate whether a good CE Necro is better at 3c than a Bowazon. But I don't think people will have trouble accepting WW and Fury builds as qualifying under 3c.

In short, I think the knockback Bowazon suffers *situationally* with 3a too much to win "best" over "very good". Indeed I think you [and any reasonable person] posit too many criteria for anything to take the "best" title.

To illustrate, suppose I tell you I want the best character/items/techniques at crowd control to join an awesome xp generator [uber killer] and myself, a hardcore soso character being rushed. Your job is to keep me alive, in the heart of danger, where I qualify to leech xp. It is clear to me, with even this very limited criteria, that evaluating "best" CC gets complex really really fast. For example, if I know Leap or teleport, would I want the CCer to be a "hostile" necro, safely encasing me in bone prisons? Would I prefer an assassin, who can usually protect me with CoS and can use range 5 knockback shield of blades to auto-repel approachers while he mind blasts other threats? Etc. etc.

OTOH, if we modify 3a to be "most of the time" and add 3d) nothing complicated, just kill stuff and CC is a don't-need-to-think-about-it bonus, then my inclination is to agree with Bowazon/knockback/chill [although sometimes strafe would seem likely to be the CC over MS].

Had I thought the issues were simple I wouldn't have posted. But I certainly don't mind people, out of personal preference, going for a straightforward style of play. It is probably the case, given the enormous number of players of D2, that only straightforward styles of play will be evident at the top of the v1.10 ladders. So, recasting "best" in that sense I think you have a shot. Indeed, having gone the strafe route with my zon, your observation tempts me to try a hurried [focus: fast kill, fast leveling--not my usual M.O.] MS zon.