Sigma
10-28-2009, 01:07 PM
Edit: Now that I think of it, this thread would probably be more appropriate in "Map Strategy Discussion". My bad!
Edit2: I realized this might be unclear. When I use the terms "attacking" and "defending" later, I'm referring to the team holding 3 as the attacking team, and the team holding 2 as the defending team. A sad attempt to clarify a rather mixed-up paragraph.
When attacking point 4 on granary and badlands, I find that pushes often fail despite the combo succeeding at taking yard (badlands) or the point area (granary). When the enemy retreats to bats/behind the point, they can put enough spam on the point to make a cap difficult (slow) for your heavy classes. If your scouts (+ roamer or demo) take a disadvantage on the flank during this push, your combo has to back off to mid or risk being forced/killed by the free enemy flank.
At times (on blands), you can dodge this problem by having your scouts give up the valley and go directly to yard to support the cap if they're having difficulty pushing past the flank. You risk your med or demo getting jumped by scouts from house, or a back-cap starting on mid, but if you're aware and make the call correctly, your pocket should be able to defend vs. the scouts and you should get spire before they get mid (2-4x on spire from scouts is enough if you can pressure the bats with your heavy classes such that they can't block). Unfortunately, doing this is pretty high-risk, as you're really screwed if things don't go to plan and you lose mid (spire is a writeoff also) or your med gets picked. Perhaps there's merit in the idea of baiting their scouts into a flank attempt by giving up the valley, then killing them and proceeding, but this relies more on the enemy team falling for your plan than your team executing properly. It seems to me that there should be a better way to take 4 when your combo can gain control over the point area, especially on granary; your scouts don't have any of the options they do on blands (coming to the contested point area is just asking to take splash).
So, in these situations where your combo can easily gain control of the point area, but you need to win the flank as well to actually get the cap, I've started to consider the flank a pre-req to moving on the point. It seems more common these days to encounter the demoman opposing the combo's push route rather than on the flank, you can commit more to the flank at a lower risk. To be more specific, I'll outline what I'm talking about on each map:
Badlands
Hold corner with medic + solly while 2 scouts, demoman, and solly go to valley. Versus their two scouts, you should be able to quickly kill them, force them back, or sticky them in spawn. Afterwards, you can send your scouts bats (if you want) group up with your combo (committing to yard) and have more people available to jump the spire (leaving your demoman for a moment to watch the forward resup if it's likely the scout(s) are still hiding there). In theory, you fight a 4v2 at valley then a 6v4 in yard; these are much better odds than simultaneous 2v2 and 4v4.
This play assumes that they enemy combo has already retreated from yard. If not, you can adapt this to be a bit more passive and have your solly hide in the house to pressure/kill the enemy solly that could come in after the demo/scouts. Since your combo will be more around the box area than the corner proper, you can afford to have your med in the house door to keep the solly overhealed.
Granary
Have your demo trap the right door, move your med between right/left yard (middle yard), and peek garage with both scouts and both sollies (as overhealed as possible). It's important to have the double solly peek as something of a surprise, such that you have a chance of catching 1 or both of their scouts with rockets and instantly getting picks. Note that you're not really committing here; if you don't get a good amount of damage on their scouts right away, it's probably not the best idea to continue through garage.
Counters
Obviously, both of these strats fail hard if the demoman has a trap on the flank. If this is the case, hopefully you can realize it in time to do a more standard push where you won't have to pop early due to a trap. The main idea of these is to push first where the demoman isn't to give yourself the advantage, so let's assume the demoman is with their combo and discuss what a team can do if they didn't instantly own this with stickies.
I don't really know what your scouts can do if they're faced with 4v2 on valley other than call it and gtfo. They could back spawn and be back to the action pretty quickly, possibly at the right time for a flank or demo pick, but even then, the strat succeeded in taking flank for a window of time. What else can be done?
If the defending team still has blands yard, then there are some more interesting options. Sending a solly behind the flank and winning vs. the hiding solly is obvious success, but that should be tipped in favor of the hiding solly. Quickly reacting to the lack of people holding corner and pushing could work; the attacking combo's uber would get forced first, but if any defending scouts died on the flank, that would just get ugly once the 4 people in house came back to mid. Sending both sollies into house could be nasty, but the combo at corner could turn the tables and jump into yard then follow them into house, or move into house and capitalize on the hiding solly's advantage. Then it would depend on how fast the attacking team reacts and how lit everyone gets in the close-range rocket fight in house/whose demo lives. Now that I think about it, the attacking demo could potentially sticky house and pipe at valley, attempting to bait the defending sollies into a trap. Hmmm.
Going over to gran, the best counter I can think of is to have the defending med on the right side to keep the scouts constantly buffed, and just... not get juggled by their sollies. Sending a solly out of Z could force the enemy medic, but that's pretty risky if the attacking sollies are just peeking at garage rather than committing. Maybe some spam from the combo on right would do the trick, but you'd need fast and accurate calls there; moving over to spam right while the enemy combo is actually pushing point would not be pretty.
Anyways, thoughts? I think the idea of forcing 4v2 then 6v4 (with the option to pull back in between) is pretty enticing, but there are some big drawbacks to these. How would you improve these pushes? How would you counter these pushes? Are there better ways to avoid having to rely on a flank victory + a combo victory happening at the same time?
Edit2: I realized this might be unclear. When I use the terms "attacking" and "defending" later, I'm referring to the team holding 3 as the attacking team, and the team holding 2 as the defending team. A sad attempt to clarify a rather mixed-up paragraph.
When attacking point 4 on granary and badlands, I find that pushes often fail despite the combo succeeding at taking yard (badlands) or the point area (granary). When the enemy retreats to bats/behind the point, they can put enough spam on the point to make a cap difficult (slow) for your heavy classes. If your scouts (+ roamer or demo) take a disadvantage on the flank during this push, your combo has to back off to mid or risk being forced/killed by the free enemy flank.
At times (on blands), you can dodge this problem by having your scouts give up the valley and go directly to yard to support the cap if they're having difficulty pushing past the flank. You risk your med or demo getting jumped by scouts from house, or a back-cap starting on mid, but if you're aware and make the call correctly, your pocket should be able to defend vs. the scouts and you should get spire before they get mid (2-4x on spire from scouts is enough if you can pressure the bats with your heavy classes such that they can't block). Unfortunately, doing this is pretty high-risk, as you're really screwed if things don't go to plan and you lose mid (spire is a writeoff also) or your med gets picked. Perhaps there's merit in the idea of baiting their scouts into a flank attempt by giving up the valley, then killing them and proceeding, but this relies more on the enemy team falling for your plan than your team executing properly. It seems to me that there should be a better way to take 4 when your combo can gain control over the point area, especially on granary; your scouts don't have any of the options they do on blands (coming to the contested point area is just asking to take splash).
So, in these situations where your combo can easily gain control of the point area, but you need to win the flank as well to actually get the cap, I've started to consider the flank a pre-req to moving on the point. It seems more common these days to encounter the demoman opposing the combo's push route rather than on the flank, you can commit more to the flank at a lower risk. To be more specific, I'll outline what I'm talking about on each map:
Badlands
Hold corner with medic + solly while 2 scouts, demoman, and solly go to valley. Versus their two scouts, you should be able to quickly kill them, force them back, or sticky them in spawn. Afterwards, you can send your scouts bats (if you want) group up with your combo (committing to yard) and have more people available to jump the spire (leaving your demoman for a moment to watch the forward resup if it's likely the scout(s) are still hiding there). In theory, you fight a 4v2 at valley then a 6v4 in yard; these are much better odds than simultaneous 2v2 and 4v4.
This play assumes that they enemy combo has already retreated from yard. If not, you can adapt this to be a bit more passive and have your solly hide in the house to pressure/kill the enemy solly that could come in after the demo/scouts. Since your combo will be more around the box area than the corner proper, you can afford to have your med in the house door to keep the solly overhealed.
Granary
Have your demo trap the right door, move your med between right/left yard (middle yard), and peek garage with both scouts and both sollies (as overhealed as possible). It's important to have the double solly peek as something of a surprise, such that you have a chance of catching 1 or both of their scouts with rockets and instantly getting picks. Note that you're not really committing here; if you don't get a good amount of damage on their scouts right away, it's probably not the best idea to continue through garage.
Counters
Obviously, both of these strats fail hard if the demoman has a trap on the flank. If this is the case, hopefully you can realize it in time to do a more standard push where you won't have to pop early due to a trap. The main idea of these is to push first where the demoman isn't to give yourself the advantage, so let's assume the demoman is with their combo and discuss what a team can do if they didn't instantly own this with stickies.
I don't really know what your scouts can do if they're faced with 4v2 on valley other than call it and gtfo. They could back spawn and be back to the action pretty quickly, possibly at the right time for a flank or demo pick, but even then, the strat succeeded in taking flank for a window of time. What else can be done?
If the defending team still has blands yard, then there are some more interesting options. Sending a solly behind the flank and winning vs. the hiding solly is obvious success, but that should be tipped in favor of the hiding solly. Quickly reacting to the lack of people holding corner and pushing could work; the attacking combo's uber would get forced first, but if any defending scouts died on the flank, that would just get ugly once the 4 people in house came back to mid. Sending both sollies into house could be nasty, but the combo at corner could turn the tables and jump into yard then follow them into house, or move into house and capitalize on the hiding solly's advantage. Then it would depend on how fast the attacking team reacts and how lit everyone gets in the close-range rocket fight in house/whose demo lives. Now that I think about it, the attacking demo could potentially sticky house and pipe at valley, attempting to bait the defending sollies into a trap. Hmmm.
Going over to gran, the best counter I can think of is to have the defending med on the right side to keep the scouts constantly buffed, and just... not get juggled by their sollies. Sending a solly out of Z could force the enemy medic, but that's pretty risky if the attacking sollies are just peeking at garage rather than committing. Maybe some spam from the combo on right would do the trick, but you'd need fast and accurate calls there; moving over to spam right while the enemy combo is actually pushing point would not be pretty.
Anyways, thoughts? I think the idea of forcing 4v2 then 6v4 (with the option to pull back in between) is pretty enticing, but there are some big drawbacks to these. How would you improve these pushes? How would you counter these pushes? Are there better ways to avoid having to rely on a flank victory + a combo victory happening at the same time?