Why Are Knockup Abilities So Powerful? | League of Legends 

Learning that Ornn doesn't really extend CC directly, but rather reduces the enemy tenacity was a cool learning moment I wasn't expecting

*it's because knock ups apply a hidden effect that spawns a minion around 9 months later*

Cinematic Nautilus: His E is a WMD. Gameplay: It does 20 damage and kinda slows or something.

Timing Ezreal’s E to basically negate Blitz’s hook is really satisfying to pull off.

Knocking up is so OP, it literally just forces you into a marriage

If tenacity worked on knockups, they would have to be twice as long, thats why regular hard cc generally lasts for so long and knockups doesnt

This is why I think Janna is one of the most oppresive supports to deal with on the right hands. Though she's primarily a defensive champ focused on disengage but when people are good enough on her she can be played aggressively, aside from the w spam of course. Her q is such a good tool to catch enemies off guard and is especially good with a yasuo.

09:50 GRAGAS MOMENT

Hey Vars, just giving you video suggestions. Why don't you talk the "eras" of champion design? Release champions, season 1 and 2, season 7 champs and so on? I think it's very interesting to see the patterns of each year, season...

I remember seeing a clip of a yasuo knockning up an enemy with a blastcone then qssing the blastcone and ulting the enemy

Literally just had a moment last night during aram where I missed my 4th jhin ult shot because a riven knocked them away ever so slightly and she yelled at me about how I missed a shot against a "cc'ed target"

But you can't QSS + flash (or any movement ability) to escape a knockup anymore since season 10 (10.23). Which sucks because, as Vars pointed out, it was a really cool mechanic that required knowledge and skill (+ you'd have to use both an item active AND a spell, or worse your flash, meaning it's a fair trade off imo).

Because being knocked up has recently been a status harder to get rid of in many American states.

Very good video, I love all of the examples in the video alongside accompanying gameplay. Each video keeps getting better and better

Wouldn’t mind seeing a video of you rating and discussing the pros and cons of each type of CC/debuff

I dont really comment on videos too much but man keep up the grind dude, super informative videos and you are really smart. Deserve way more than 200k subs imo

so much learning in this vid, damn, huge props I've been playin a while and thought ik quite a bit

The 9 month followup CC is OP

It is a sad Day on rift. Ez keeping his cool buffer trick while Jayce losing his 😢

You talking about how awesome Thresh is. Plus the update to support items with the new season. Has me thinking of switching back to Sup from ADC.

Also any knock up gives you built in synergy with two extremely popular hypercarries: Yasuo and Samira.

They are reliable cc - what more is there to discuss? Forms of cc that can be easily negated (or at least mitigated in duration to the point of becoming ineffective) can never be a reason for a champions strength... it is too easy to take that strength away from them. But with reliable forms of cc, such as a knock-up, you know that you can always at least play stun-bot for your team. Even Leona, who has a LOT of cc, is less effective at cc in 4v4/5v5 team fights relative to Cho'Gath - Cho has a ranged AoE knock-up, but Leona might walk into a ton of Tenacity and do very little. Especially now that the rune page perks are changed, unreliable cc is now considerably worse. Champions will often be starting the game with a fair amount of Tenacity... sometimes the entire opposing team will. The value of knock-ups in that environment is going to be a bit higher than before.

nah only 4 minutes in but i really like learning abt how specifically stuns work. i actually knew a lot of what was said, but still somehow learned a ton. i think doing this every once in a while wouldnt be a bad thing. idk any other channels close to ur size that would teach a lot of ppl these things, but also i dont really watch a lot of league content so i could be wrong

The thing is tenacity many seasons ago had knock up added, then they changed some of the status effects to change almost all knock-up to airborne. This effectively removed the knock up condition reverting the change they made to tenacity. It was like when polymorph was it's own status, then they just made it the combination of 3 effects instead of one single status. This simplified rare status effects, such as polymorph only being on lulu, reduce the many keywords with similar effects. technically tenacity still does reduce knock up, but since almost every knock up ability was changed to have two status effects, stun and airborne it made this irrelevant. It is funny how the fact at one point tenacity did affect knock up (but not knock back) was never brought up, but maybe because it has long since changed again.

This whole video is basically an explanation of why i loved old(pre rework) volibear E with the knockback and i still miss it, it made him feel so nicr

also suppresses typically are also basically a self stun as you cant do anything else while doing it (except skarner) unlike knockups

Displacement, one of the reasons I miss Volibear’s Q and E. There were so many time the E Samex me and me just flipping my opponent into my tower lol

Yone E should also apply a small knock up, to help him during the laning phase.

Uzi flash cleanse on Lee Sin ult is a classic

i never thought of knocks being op, but i do find fear being the best cc in the game, it is like a long lasting knock since you can still manipulate the direction people affected by it.

Great video! Can you please do Suppress next? Because I think suppress is a bad (?) CC due to the fact that the aggressor also couldn't do anything while inflicting CC to its target.

I think there are non-airborne displacement as well, such as Rell R, Renata Q, etc.

One extra interaction that's not super important but still cool: knock-ups are slightly worse against champions with on-demand Unstoppable like Ornn or Udyr because if they can unstoppable the initial knock-up they dodge the entire cc. This is unlike with roots or stuns like dark binding which still hit them and cc them for the remainder of the duration after the unstoppable wears off.

Vars, are you planning doimg a tier list of cc. you could easily describe all of them and explain why some of them are unhealthy to game.

You didnt talk about the king of displacement (and i understand why) K'sante! all of his abilites are some form of displacement and its quite hard to know when to use your spells since your team will never know when you do it, only react to it. good example is using his R to get someone over a wall to e.g. the river where your jungler is, if theyre not straight up standing still waiting, it wont cross their mind to think where the enemy will land only that they might appear there.

IDK if it works on PC LoL, but at least on wild rift if you time something correctly (easiest ones to pull off are kass r and ez e, but I've seen a cait accidentally pull it off with her e, but it's generally harder to do with dashes), you can cleanse the knockup. For example, if you see a malphite ulting towards you and just use ult as kass, and the malph ult hits you during the 0.25 second cast time, then after the cast time finishes you still teleport to your target location, with the knockup being no longer applied to you after it goes off (you're still knocked up for the fraction of a second between the knockup hitting you and the blink going off though, but after the blink goes off you're no longer knocked up). This applies to all knockups, not just forced movement ones like blitz hook (although it does apply to hooks too)

“To know thy enemy is to know thyself” or it’s just fun to look at and understand numbers and mechanics

I think knockups should have a tenacity that's based on target champion size Ie, baron is immune to knockups assumidly because he's gargantuan, but a cho'gath that's the size of your nexus should probably be harder to knock up than a lux, unless he's being knocked up by say, another cho'gath

I think knockups being the way they are is mainly so champions kits don't seem awkward. Imagine Vi if tenacity affected her R and enemies were CCed less time than she was. It would be like what happened to Renekton W when they changed the duration and animation length at the same time. Or how much longer Yasuo's Q3 would have to last just so he'd be functional in a solo lane.

This reminds me about that Jarvan E Q cancel Poppy ult

I believe items like QSS no longer cleanse knock ups since season 11. Only Gangplank q and, not sure, but maybe also rengar w.

I remember time when kalista passive was coded as displacement. So you could cancel Leesin R with passive or cancel Bliz Q in the same way as ezreal does.

Wouldn't it be cool if ''heavier'' champions like tanks or certain bruisers would be affected less by knockups in trade for something else? Idk just throwing out a random idea.

What I h8 about knocked up or displaced is that it often bugs and you end up being cc-ed longer

You kind of mentioned it by showing janna’s q but I think you can stress specifically how defensively broken linear projectile knockups are against dashes. Any offensive dash will go from the enemy to the target in a straight line. So you don’t even need to precisely guess the timing of the dash: the dasher and the projectile path will necessarily intersect along the way. So the Time window for the cast is (travel time projectile + dash travel time). Even against the fastest dash possible the time window is at least the travel Time of the projectile. That’s why cho’s q or nautiles R function almost just like stuns : you can’t effectively use them as dash canceling nor dash negating abîlities. If you want to use Cho’s q the time window is (size of q / speed of dash)

What's the name of the music at the end?

Not too relevant but, my favorite Blitz counter is Neeko. W can get grabbed by his hook, but the real treat is from hitting level 6. You put yourself in an easily hooked spot, wait for him to fire, then ult. Now you’re ulting right on top of him. He will be very hesitant to hook you after you hit that a few times.

I actually knew this as a GP main. If you time it right your can w flash out of a knock up

Never was it mentioned that Malphites knockup is so oldly coded, that the knockup factor lingers for so much, its why Yasuo even when it seems the opponent has already landed and even doesnt seem knocked up anymore can still trigger his R

I should mention the reason why ppl think you can't cleanse out of airborne is bcs you can't with the summoner spell only qss or champion abilities can like gankplank w.

I don't think the QSS / cleansing of the stun portion works anymore. It just disables your item during the knock up duration and only after the airborne can you cleanse or QSS the stun.

As a Rell main, displacement is my closest friend and worst enemy.

Riot removed QSS flash in 10.23 a sad day. I don't know why they did this too. (I'm also confused why some outdated mechanics were mentioned) also yasuo's ult used to be coded as an airborn suspension not a knock up (so before you could qss yasuo r, as long as you did it after he teleported to you if you did it to early it wouldn't work) i think they changed it when they made all of the adjustments to knockups for tenacity then never went through with the changes in preseason 10.

What high noon cinematic is that from??

If types of cc are infinity stones, gnar is thanos

There should be like an item that weighs you down and reduces knock up timers

I personally have hated from the very beginning that tenacity is unless against the displacement part of CC. If you have tenacity, then you should not fly away that long, you should be heavier or the time for the displacement is shortened so you can act faster again.

Tfw you miss your q after kick as lee sin because you can't even predict your own displacement.

Because its a hard CC. Gangplank can W to make you recover faster. That's the only thing I know that can lower slightly the effect of a knockup

How many times have I used singed fling making a teammate miss a skill shot.....

Janna can be considered use knockup abilities like Howling Gale and combine Ultimate Monsoon to stop engaging back off away all the enemies and she can be keep scale for crowd control gameplay respectively support champion. 🌪🕊☁️🌬❤️‍🩹

Vandiril got mentioned: WTF IS A GAME WITHOUT BUGS 🦅🦅🦅

I don't think it was mentioned, but illaoi ult technically knocks her up. Making it possible to dodge cc with it.

What do you think about rune changes

8:22 Honestly this right here is the reason I think the game should be 3D, in terms of certain jumps going over things that appear to be on the ground, like the cages.

I'm kinda meh about knock ups or at the very least some of them. I'm always so happy to use Zyra ult which is a massive area of knock up but i never ever get the follow up. But when i play Malphite its always follow up garanteed XD

I had no idea the vast majority of these interactions with knockups existed.

I thought that riot put airborne in the game so key cc spells from champs are guarenteed like malphite r

Insec didn't invest insec, he just showed it for the first time in the mainstage and popularized it

I feel like most people how play league for at least fews seasons already know exactly why. It would be nice if there something in game that can counter knock up that not just some ability like Illaoi's R. May be more HP, tenacity, or character size will make champion heavier and make knock up or knock back on them less effective them.

I would like to file a complaint with your manager. Where was the Thresh slap knocking Pyke out of his ult?

Bro I feel like I’m watching a lecture on game design with every video.

Tldr: riot created a super cc type you cant realistically impact with clense or tenacity, then started playing favorites... >.>.... Yone

My take is that if its a main damage tool, knockups should not last long without a major drawback since there's basically no counterplay. I main Vi and even I feel abit unfair when im playing as an assassin.

Maybe this is why they had to deal with Impregnator Gragas?

Cripple is insane in my opinion the name of it😭

champion size should work as tenacity for knockups, change my mind

Thing is if your unstoppable and get stuned, Your still stuned. But if you get knocked up that cc just varnishes

What about Nami q? It has some odd rules to it

i just really think snares should cancel dashes too. too often i land a root on a moving target and get 0 reward for it.

I thought riot just didnt want to make knockups mitigatable because of spaghetti code and looking weird for falling back down instantly

bro when did the shift change cuz i didn't notice it, all the info in this video is so not talked these days about yet seemingly everyone in gold+ knew about them back in seasons 6-8, that's why thresh was considered S+ tier for so long

The best cc is instant death IMO. Since S14 there is so many that type of cc its mad taking the rift by a storm (no pun intended).

Gragas R and Anivia W are the best teamkillers in game and I burst out laughing everytime one of them fails while my team bursts out in rage and toxicity

I'd be more fine with knock ups if they weren't so universal, easy, and usually AOE. I wanna believe poppy's ult and later, bards ult was an experiment on new knock up designs, making the target untargetable and whatnot. There just isn't much gameplay to "True CC in an aoe with no restrictions" But they stay not cuz they're balanced, but because people like them. It's fun to win after all.

This was entertaining to me, who wanted it ❤

TLDR without even watching the video: its hard CC that stops all enemy actions and is also impossible to reduce or remove. As a bonus, yasuo can ult you.

i don't mind knock-up cc existing its yasuo and yone that make it annoying.

Cuz Malphite manages to knock me up without his R 🥵🥵🥵🥰😍

I remember fighting a team that had over 5 knockups once...with a yasuo. Never have I ever wished I was playing Olaf more than that game. I genuinely think they should give knockups the "kennen" treatment, where after the first one, any knockups within, idk, 5 seconds (?) have .5 duration. It's just so unfun when you're a 10/0 5k hp raidboss nasus, volibear, etc., but you try to do anything with your team and are cc'd for 10+ seconds in a 15 second fight, with tenacity doing nothing to help. It'd be one thing if most knockups were single target. I'd be fine with that. But for some reason 90% of them are AoE? I genuinely don't understand why they have such preferred treatment like that. Then you add in champs like Alistar with his essentially target knockup, and Rek sai with a right click-knockup into oneshot, and nobody gets to have fun. That being said, Thresh is one of my favorite champions in the game, so idk how much I can really complain.

Liss suppression is the best cc in the game because she can still do anything she want unlike Mal and WW. Is her R still a suppression or did they change it to stunn?

well. in my humble opinion. currently we have way to many knockups im ok with displacement as such as blitz hook poppy ult. but the amount of straight up being knocked up for a long time feels off. there is a counter to it granted you have a buffer mechanic in your kit. but otherwise. what are you suppose to do. if they have sion gragas yasuo nami. ? you will be airborn for the entire duration.

The reason Knockups are so powerful (and why ONLY Riven's/Aatrox's is balanced due to the very short duration of 0.75 on third Q/0.25 per Q seconds respectively) is because there is no way to reduce their duration. Tenacity affects everything except Knockups and Suppressions, and while the latter is seldom found sans a few exceptions and is typically gated to strong ultimates (Malzahar and Warwick), Knockups manifest on so many champions' kits (and can be extended by Samira's passive, wahoo) that they literally have no counterplay. Entire matches were lost because the enemy team had more knockups than ours.

My favorite Knockup ability is Gragas's Body Slam : ]

who needs knock ups when bard exists and his ulti does like evrything and it had the properties of an knock up ( you can t cleanse it)

Huge

But displacements locks ur character now too no? U used to be able to cleanse + movement ability to get out of knockups cause the stun part is over but they changed that. You can no longer cleanse/qss/wait out the stun part with tenacity to get out of it.

If i'm honest, Knockups in league should be more consistent. If i look at other moba's (Mainly Eternal Return, and a game called Albion online) a knockup is a stun that has a shorter duration, but a garanteed duration that cannot be reduced OR increased. I always F up my knockup durations because of that. Petition to simplyfy the League system?

came here for why knock ups are op stayed for interactions i didn't know

07:59 wtf did I just read in the chat 💀