Diablo 4 crowd-controlled enemies are referenced in debuffs for items and numerous effects on the skill tree, but the game isn’t clear on what it means by crowd control. Unlike other effects like “Unstoppable” or “Berzerking” for the Barbarian class, there’s no comment or tooltip for crowd control. Since many abilities and item bullet points state that a weapon or skill deals more damage on crowd-controlled enemies, it’s important to know what actually counts. In other action games, “crowd control” (typically abbreviated as “CC”) are effects that prevent enemies, most usually in large packs, from attacking. Here’s what CC means in the context of Diablo 4’s list of debuffs.
What counts as Diablo 4 crowd control?
Here’s a quick breakdown of what debuffs count as Diablo 4 crowd control (in alphabetical order), so that you can take advantage of effects that lead to crowd-controlled enemies:
- Chill
- Daze
- Fear
- Frozen
- Immobilize
- Knockback
- Knockdown
- Slow
- Stun
- Tether
It’s important to note that effects that hinder enemy movement, like slow and chill, actually count for crowd control. Fear also counts, but it’s difficult to deal damage to foes that are actively running away from you.
Of course, other effects that completely disable enemies, such as stun, immobilize, frozen, and tether, are more powerful. These effects will be your bread and butter when you decide to increase the overall World Tier difficulty and grind out experience points in various dungeons.
That said, many bosses have some sort of resistance to being crowd-controlled. Instead, anything that causes this type of effect will build up as a bar underneath the boss’s health bar. You’ll know when the meter grows, since the word “stagger” will appear over your character. When the bar completely fills, the boss will effectively be stunned and helpless for about five seconds, where you and your party can unleash all of your most powerful attacks without retaliation.
