Meaning, that for them to be effective - a controlling effect on the enemy should yield more impact than straight up attacking it. This usually means bosses without sidekick crews, which are SEVERELY underepresented in bg3.
Solo creatures tend to be either immune to most controlling effects or are trivial encounters.
They rarely exist in any D&D session I've played or DM'd.
Controlling spells are often referred to as "crowd control" for a reason.
Their main purpose is to reduce the difficulty of a battle so you can focus on a few creatures at a time.
Once you get to 5th level and have access to 3rd level spells like Hypnotic Pattern you can take out a room-full of minions with one spell allowing you to focus on the boss.
In 5E first and second level spells just aren't that great for crowd control unless you can up-cast them which at the EA level cap isn't possible.
