The four roles in depth

Every agent belongs to one of four roles. The role tells you what job you do in the round, not how much you matter. A team wins when each role does its job, and often loses when two players try to do the same job while another goes uncovered.

In short:

• the duelist creates space and goes in first;
• the initiator brings information and sets up teammates' fights;
• the controller takes away the enemy's vision with smokes;
• the sentinel holds a site or a flank and slows the enemy down.

Let us go through them one by one, with what is expected on attack and on defense.

Duelists have abilities built for fighting: moving fast, blinding on their own, healing, dealing damage. On attack their job is to go in first on a site (the entry) and create the space the team follows into. On defense they are often the player who takes aggressive fights early in the round.

What is expected of a duelist:

• go in when the team is ready, with teammates' utility (smokes, flashes);
• take the first fights, even when it is risky: if they die but a teammate trades, the entry worked;
• create space, not just kills: a duelist who forces two defenders to fall back has done their job.

Many teams also have a second duelist, sometimes called the flex: they go in right after the first or play a different side. The typical mistake of the role is the opposite of an entry: the duelist who waits for others to go in so they can get easy kills.

Initiators have abilities that gather information (drones, darts, reveals) or that set up a fight (flashes, stuns). Their job is to make teammates' jobs easier: say where the enemy is and take away their chance to react the moment the duelists go in.

What is expected of an initiator:

• information before the entry, so the team does not go in blind;
• utility coordinated with the duelists: the flash when they are ready, not before;
• information on defense for the delay and the retake.

The typical mistake: using utility for themselves, entering alone after their own flash, instead of setting it up for whoever goes in. The chapter on initiators and information goes into detail.

Controllers have the smokes, and often other abilities that control space (walls, mollies, slows). Their job is to take away vision from the enemy at the spots and moments that matter: to get into a site, to delay an execute, to cover a defuse.

What is expected of a controller:

• smokes synced with the team's entry;
• charge management through the round: do not use everything in the first seconds;
• delay on defense, with smokes and control utility on the entrances.

It is the role most often missing in ranked matches, and perhaps the one that weighs most on the result. The chapter on smokes explains the six questions to ask before every smoke.

Sentinels have abilities that watch and defend: traps, cameras, turrets, walls, heals. Their job is to hold a site or a flank, slow the enemy down and tell the team what is happening where nobody is looking.

What is expected of a sentinel:

• on defense, hold a site alone or nearly alone, often as the anchor, buying time for rotations;
• on attack, cover the flank with traps or alarms, so teammates can focus on the site;
• in the post-plant, slow the retake with remaining utility.

The typical mistake: leaving the site to hunt kills elsewhere, taking away exactly the safety the sentinel was supposed to provide.

The role belongs to the agent, but the way you play is yours. Many agents straddle two roles: some initiators have very aggressive abilities, some controllers fight well on the front line, some sentinels are useful on attack too.

That is why it helps to think of roles as jobs to cover rather than boxes to fill. A team with two initiators and no duelist can work, if one of the initiators goes in first behind their own flashes. A team with two controllers can work, if one of them also does the sentinel's job. The chapter on compositions starts from exactly this idea.