A CP guide

Quote from: ♫Sani♫ on February 29, 2012, 10:45:23 pm

Here lemme condense that guide for you
>Stand on the point
>Swat weakling babies off point
>Victory

How to play CP

I have seen many people fail to play CP properly; it seems as if though some people don't even understand the concept of CP. These failures have cost their team the match; hopefully this will help some of those people.
Before pointing out any spelling mistakes please read this first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences

Capping times
These are all with one capper on the CP.
A/D CP:

STANDARD CP:

Part 1. Setting up good defences

If the opposing team can't break through your defences they can't win, if they can't get near the CP that is even better but defending doesn't mean stopping all the enemies getting out of the spawn, there are some classes that you won't be able to stop; Spies and Scouts can easily back cap because of speed/cloak/distractions, often the seconds stage of dirtbowl is won by a Spy because all of the blue team goes right in front of the spawn for some reason. So try to stay fairly close to the spawn, at the most 5 seconds away so that you can get to the CP quickly before it is capped, try to encourage your team to stay by the CP by using

and

and this is why you have choke points in-between CPs to stop enemies from moving, what they do is only allow 1 path, normally some sort of narrow corridor so make sure you use them since you main priority is to stop the enemy getting to that CP, classes such as Sniper or Engineer are useful because they can do major damage to enemies while still remaining safe, they are also useful in other situations but I will get onto that later. Remember, the CP is really the only thing that matters in this game-mode. There is no real need to set up defences if you are on the attacking team but it can help to have an offensive Engineer place a sentry to hold off any enemies.

Part 2. Using set-up time

Most of the things in Part 1. apply here but there are some key things just for set-up time like choosing the right class and standing in the right place before the start of the round. Make sure that you get to the first CP quickly; every person that is defending will help. If there isn't a Medic on your team I highly recommend choosing Medic even if you're not very competent until someone better comes along, build up your uber but during set-up the amount of HP left doesn't affect the healing rate, just heal anyone you can since it only takes 30 seconds to build up an uber focus on that for the first portion of set-up. As soon as you reach the CP stay there, don't move off it because as soon as the enemy can get out of those gates they will die also this means that they can't see your class so they can't prepare very well. Use whatever methods you have to get other team-mates on the CP or at least in the vicinity of it. If you are on the attacking team you should also try to hide your class by going as far back into the spawn as you can until the last few seconds or even go as far as switching to Spy (Or any other class that needs a major tactic adjustment to fight.) until then. If you see someone close to the set-up gate switch to Soldier (Or Demoman but Soldier works a little better.) and walk into the set-up gate and fire at them, this will give them damage weakening them before the match has even started, if you are defending try to avoid doing this.

Part 3. Pick the right class

This is also effected by what classes you are good at but don't constantly just pick Spy or Q/C because you like them, you should try to think about what class will help the most in certain situations.

Medic:
On every game-mode every team should have at least 1 of these, they are fast (3^rd fastest in the whole game.), they can heal team-mates, they do a reasonable amount of damage (4 damage per shot, refire rate of 3 (10 shots per second) 4*10 = 40 DPS which means that they can fire their entire clip in 4 seconds, they takes just under 2 seconds (1.833333...) to reload.) and has an auto-health regen rate of 5 HP per second and can obviously uber people. This ability to keep people alive and do a reasonable amount of damage makes the Medic a key class and a high priority target for the other team, if you are against a team with a Medic you should try and kill it.

Soldier:
A common class on the battle field the Soldier is a power-house in the right hands but I have seen so many matches without a single Soldier and when someone competent does pick Soldier that team normally wins or at least does very well. High damage (30 damage in blast radius (Getting weaker the further out you go.) + 25 damage for a direct hit = 55 maximum possible damage with a fire rate of 1 rocket per seconds = 55 DPS and a reload rate of under 1 second (0.833333...) + a 1 second delay meaning that you can fire your clip in over 4 seconds but with a slow reload rate since you only load 1 rocket at a time which can be frustrating in a heated battle.) and high health and a fearsome reputation this is an important class to have but the slow speed lets the Soldier down but with a Medic, rocket jumping across the map won't hurt your health. An incredibly useful class for a push and even a single person defence.

Scout:
The fastest class in the whole game and the ability to double jump combined with a double cap rate makes this a scary class to fight and stop even in the hands of a amateur, 48 maximum possible damage if every bullet lands from each shot (8 damage per bullet, 6 bullets fired per shot.) it can take routes that most other classes can't making it a good class for flanking and avoiding damage with. A good scout could also defend with the ability to get to the CP really quickly and high amount of damage you could hold off people for a while until a team-mate arrives, unfortunately the Scout has quite low health, with only 100 HP the Scout gets killed easily by Heavies or groups of classes. Some less experienced Medics may be reluctant to heal a Scout especially if there is a Heavy or a Soldier around but with a good Medic the Scout makes an excellent medi-buddy.

The classes I mentioned above are good at defending and attacking but these ones are often better for defence.

Engineer:
Although the Engineer can attack fairly well it is better suited to defence and some people would frown upon having an offensive Engineer and until sentry capping is added there are probably better classes to pick if they are missing but just like with any other class (except Spy and Sniper) a full Engineer rush would work. Look for good sentry spots where you can cover all or most of the entrances and a large area of ground but make sure that the sentry is not too vulnerable, if your team is in trouble place a sentry near them to help, normally it is best to put your sentry on the CP or very close to it, once you've placed it you don't have to stay near it you can move away, this may attract Spies but so long as you can get to the sentry before they cap the CP and build it again and kill them then it's ok. On dirtbowl stage 2 there is a common spot for the sentry on the last CP, you have probably seen a sentry on the thin stand like thing that separates the crates from the CP, I do not recommend putting your sentry there because it cannot cover the ground directly below it, if you have fairly high health you can get under there and shoot it, there are much better places to put it in that area.

Sentry blind spot

Sniper:
As you may know I do not think that the Sniper is a terrible offensive class but in the case of A/D CP the Sniper is better suited to defense. High damage out-put, able to stay away from enemies so they can avoid damage while still doing some, the problem for the Sniper is team-mates, this is especially a problem on the attacking side but since you can't shoot through team-mates they will be standing in the way an awful lot blocking your shots making it difficult to actually help sometimes. You should focus on trying to kill Medics first and any other classes that pose a big threat like Scouts. You will probably attact Spies but my Sniper guide (http://www.ganggarrison.com/forums/index.php?topic=26598.0) tells you how to deal with them.

These next classes are recommended but not really as important as the first three.

Heavy:
Some people would argue that this should be up there with Soldier or even replace it but I think that it isn't important, while it can heal itself (Leaving it vulnerable) and has high health and a 120 DPS but it moves really slowly and runs out of ammo quickly really letting it down in battle, I just think that the Soldier is a better choice, if you have anything you want to say about this please to post about it.

Q/C:
I don't think this is a popular option but with the recent buffs and more to come this can become a proper class that people will compare others with, while it's out-matched by a Pyro in range, damage and speed they can really do some damage, with a bubble shield to protect their team-mates from damage and quite high health and speed and the ability to push people away which can be used to stop them capping and being an effective Spy checker they are a pretty good class to pick for CP.

Pyro:
A useful class because they have high damage out-put (99 DPS excluding flares and afterburn (I think this is wrong because the damage scales up, must find the correct figure)) move quickly and can airblast people, rockets, mines and fire away keeping their team alive is fairly easy for and experienced Pyro but the nature of the Pyro meant that they have to get close to the enemy to do damage but now they have flares making the even a good ranged class. If the team has lots of Soldiers and your team has no Pyros you should probably change class because the amount of damage 3 reflected rockets can do is amazing and all the damage you will save your team from will really help them.

Part 4. Set-up is over, what do I do now?

If you are on the attacking team wait for the enemy to try and attack, normally they fire their weapons to try and hit people just going out, this means that they will have less ammo to use, try and go out the least defended part of your spawn so you get less damage and go to the CP and kill their team, all the things you should normally do. If you are on the defending team brace yourself for the first push, if you can hold them off for that then you probably can for a while, this is normally the most coordinated part of the match. Also I can't believe how many times I've seen this but a CP that is locked does not need defending, just don't even try to defend a locked CP.

Part 5. I'm capping the CP or my team is, what should I do?

One thing that I really hate is when someone is helping cap the CP and they just run off to fight enemies, I especially hate this when a Scout does it, the benefits of helping cap a CP are far greater than killing a single Engineer, I can understand it if it's a Sniper that is doing some serious damage but other-wise you should stay on the CP. Spy check all the time and kill anyone that gets near, this is also an opportunity for classes other than the Medi-buddy to get healed. Don't stand in front of Snipers on the CP because they can warn the rest of the team of what is coming and do damage to them.

Part 6. Someone is capping our CP, what do I do?
This is one of the most horrible things about playing CP with beginners, someone that you haven't seen before seems to be doing pretty well they are defending the CP but suddenly a Soldier comes along and kills the Engineer that the Medic is defending the CP with, instead of staying to fight the Soldier (And with good tactics it is pretty easy to beat a Soldier as a Medic.) they run away, they go hide behind a box or a corner and the Soldier inevitably caps the point and wins the round, you should always stay and try to fight, stand on the CP that way the capping is frozen, just delay them as much as you possibly can, it doesn't matter if you lose your 80% uber charge you can't use it once you've lost the game. Now if you look at the capping times at the beginning of the guide you would have noticed that capping times are different on different CPs, you should use this knowledge to help you when judging whether or not to carry on capping or stop the other person, for example if you are on cp_eygpt and you are capping the middle CP as a Soldier, you've got about a quarter of the way when suddenly the 4^th CP starts getting capped, even with just one person on that one they would still cap before you so just pay attention to the capping speed when playing CP because then your time will be wasted when the CP gets locked, with the Kawaii plugin (Which is included with DPM.) you can get a more accurate gauge on the capping speeds.

Part 7. A CP has been capped, where should I go?

Move to the next CP of course, if you are on the attacking team then try to get there quickly before they can set-up defences, if you are defending then try to set-up your defences quickly before the attackers arrive or if it is on standard CP then you have a choice, defend or attack, you decide which is best, if there were lots of cappers for the other CP you should defend or wait for them to pass before sneaking in and capping.

I guess that this is the end of the guide, if you have any useful input then please post it.