I’ve not played EQ2 in a couple of years, so I have no idea of the current state of CC. During the time where it was useful before being re-nerfed, the whole “green won’t hit CC’d mobs” vs “Blue will hit CC’d mobs” mechanic came about, and most groups were fine with not breaking mez. Until CC got nerfed and AE damage went through the roof and mez got basically removed from your hotbar. Stuns were still well liked, but no more mez.

Still and all, even when I stopped playing, it was very definitely a case of “If I can control it, I will kill it. Might take a while, but I will do it!” At least until some moron tried to jump in and help. . . lol.

In the newer “action oriented” mmo combat style, I do find some classes have okay CC, but as you said — no class is a master of it, and the few CC powers that do exist are very short, so only extremely situationally useful.

That said — I love the Control Wizard in Neverwinter. It’s more dps than CC, but still enough CC that vs any controllable mob is much like vs the EQ2 coercer — if I can control it, I can kill it.

Now you can unhitch the classes from their stereotypes and enjoy the freedom of classes done fundamentally differently.

Or better yet – follow DnD 4th edition – instead have Leaders, Protectors, Strikers, and Controllers. Protectors debuff, leaders buff, strikers handle single mobs well, and controllers manipulate the terrain/space. What a group that would make!

This work a lot better in instanced games like GW1.

Bit harder in open world games.

I’m not sure whether it’s really that hard to balance CC. I think it’s important how long you can shut down mobs while they are attacked (stuns). That’s of course a very powerful ability, and most CC classes I know don’t give you long stuns for good reasons. Mez abilities (by which I mean CC, but only until damage taken) is a lot less problematic. I don’t believe it’s that hard to balance by scaling how long CC lasts and how many mobs you can CC at the same time. Or by how fast mobs regen under CC. Throw in non-CC-able mobs every now and then (like one or two in a group, or something like that), and you also prevent CC classes being overpowerhouses that can solo better than everybody else.

CC is also hard to balance. Make it a total shutdown and everyone will just bring sufficient cc to nullify everything into punching bags, no need for tanks and healers. Make it only last a few moments and no one will bother (and complain that cc is worthless.)