Part 8
Defense
Holding a site, contesting space, rotating, delaying and retaking: how to play the side where time is on your side.
On defense you win the round if the attack does not plant within 100 seconds, if you eliminate every attacker, or if you defuse the spike. You do not have to go looking for anyone: you have to make sure the attack cannot do what it wants in the time it has.
This part explains how: holding a site without dying for nothing, choosing between passive and aggressive defense, rotating when it is right (and not when it is not), playing a player up or down, delaying, using utility to buy time, retaking a fallen site and deciding what to do when it can no longer be retaken.
Chapters
Holding a site
Holding a site does not mean killing everyone who walks in: it means wasting the attack's time, giving information and staying alive until your team can help. Sometimes the right call is to give the site up and retake it.
Contesting, passive and aggressive defense, anchors
A defense can wait for the attack on site or go out to meet it to take space and information. Both work if chosen at the right moment and if the team knows who does what: who stays as the anchor, who contests.
Rotating (and not rotating)
Rotating means moving towards the site under attack. Done on solid information it saves the round; done at the first noise it leaves a site empty and hands the win to a fake. The question is always: how sure am I, and what does being wrong cost?
5v4 and 4v5 on defense
The first player eliminated changes the round. With the advantage, the defense should stop taking risks and let the attack make the move; at a disadvantage, it should tighten up, buy time and prepare the retake instead of holding everything.
Delaying and asking for help
The player delaying does not have to win the site alone: they have to get the team there in time. You delay by showing yourself, using utility at the right moment and giving ground one step at a time, and you ask for help with clear calls, early.
Stalling with utility
Stalling means stopping the attack with utility, without having to win fights. It works on narrow entrances, with staggered abilities coordinated between teammates, and has to be balanced against what you still need for the retake.
Retakes
Retaking a site after the plant is a race against time: 45 seconds on the spike, 7 to defuse. You win it by arriving together, gathering information, taking away the attackers' positions one at a time and protecting the defuser. Sometimes the right call is not to try.
After the site falls
When the attack takes the site, the defense has a few seconds to decide: retake, wait, hit from behind or save. Players who fall back well, regroup and pick the right timing turn a lost site into a round that is still open.