Playing Offense

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Everything you do relies on timing with your Capper. Since the Capper looks to move the enemy flag, your goal is to kill everything that can prevent Capper from escaping successfully.

If you hear E-Grab you should prioritize performing/supporting an E-Grab unless your capper will beat them.

Major Responsibilities

Kill the enemy Heavy on Flag and enemy Light Defense 5 seconds before your Capper will grab.
Put pressure on the enemy Sniper to prevent them from killing your Capper pre-grab and post-grab. Generally, only 1 Offense member does this, and only if you are running 1 Capper
E-Grab when the Defense calls for it.

Minor Responsibilities

K-Out and meet your Capper after they grab.
Hit the enemy stand at the same time as other Offense members, aim for when your Capper would be 15 seconds out.
Spot enemy Cappers and enemy Offense, this assists your Defense better than you shooting the enemy Offense.
Walk flags with your other Offense members.

Timing

Your goal is to kill every enemy near their stand when your Capper is 5 seconds out. As respawns are 5 seconds, they will not be able to do anything to prevent your Capper from grabbing the flag successfully.

Generally speaking, getting to the enemy stand when your Capper is 15 seconds out is optimal. This will provide you with enough time to put damage on the enemies HOF and LD or MD

Capping routes generally take between 25 seconds and 50 seconds. If the routes have been too fast for you to keep up, ask your Capper to wait before leaving so you can get to the stand on time. On most maps, you should be able to get to the enemy stand on a 35+ seconds route consistently at the 15 second time call.

As long as your fellow Offense members hit at the same time you should be able to output significant disruption on the enemy.

When to reset

Using the K key to reset is effective to keep yourself in sync with your Capper and other Offense members.

This should be done just after your Capper dies or grabs successfully. Although, if you are in the range of killing/distracting the enemy Sniper before they can output exit damage on your Capper, disrupting them takes priority.

There must be no requirement for an E-Grab to reset.

You shouldn’t Reset if performing a Walk is optimal.

Resetting should still be done if you are currently fighting an enemy other than the Sniper. It is more beneficial to be on time with your team than getting the kill.

Defense can punish Offense that linger around at the enemy base and forcing them to be out of time with their Capper.

Walks

A walk is where an Offense member chooses to grab the flag rather than the Capper.

Walks can punish HOFs that play passively. These HOFs focus on just killing Cappers and avoiding damage.

This also punishes Snipers who sit far away from their stand and don’t work with their Light Defense.

Most of the time you would only walk if your Capper dies and the stand is clear enough to get away with a Walk. On maps like Dangerous Crossing Walking when the enemy HOF is distracted can be effective even when your capper is still 15 seconds out.

Walks shouldn’t be done if your health is low as an Offense member. Walking is useful if you have other Offense members to help protect or promptly meet you. If your fellow Offense member is Walking the flag it is important to promptly assist in getting the flag back to your base. Respawning as a Light class to assist with the walk if you are about to respawn is optimal.

Due to the Rage mechanic, it is generally better to kill the enemy HOF and LD or MD before a walk occurs so they don’t regenerate health or energy.

Spotting

To support your Defense effectively an Offense member should attempt to spot the enemy Capper whenever possible.

Using the Alt key will spot enemies so that other players can see where the enemy is.

You will need to communicate the side an enemy is from your Defenses point of view.

As an example, if you are on the left side of the map and see an enemy Capper moving to your left, you can say “Enemy Capper is on the left side”. Calling out the name of the player is beneficial to assist Defense at determining if the enemy is running multiple cappers or not.

This is where learning routes as an Offense member can be advantageous because you can learn the specifics of recognizable routes. This knowledge provides the ability to give time estimates as well as give specific route descriptions. See the Capper Guide for more information.

Spotting enemy Offense members also assist Defense. Allowing your LD or MD to venture out and kill them before they reach your stand, ruining their timing.

Sniper Pressure

Killing the enemy Sniper before your Capper has regenerated their health is an important objective pre-flag grab.

A Sniper can easily shut down a Capper if they find them on their route with low hit points.

Killing the enemy Sniper before your Capper starts a route can prevent them from spotting your Capper as they start, adding more pressure.

Spawn Mechanics

Spawns are weighted on some maps and some are more beneficial to an enemy Sniper than others.

Arx Novena on the Blood Eagle side is a great example of this. The left/sniper hill spawn can be extremely useful for the enemy Sniper to get exit damage on your Cappers if your Capper was on a Left to Right route. This is also a useful spawn for Snipers to pre-snipe your capper before they regenerate their health on the common Back to Front route.

If you’ve recently killed an enemy Sniper, sitting directly on the spawn location can prevent them from spawning at that location.

By standing a short distance away from the spawn, allows an enemy to spawn at that location. This is an effective way to repeatedly kill an enemy Sniper.

The Sniper has a longer respawn time than all other classes in the game. 10 seconds rather than 5 seconds.

How to play Flex

The Flex role is assigned to an Offense member that knows how to run capping routes. This is generally a role dedicated to disrupting the enemy Sniper. Two Cappers can be harder to spot and shut down than one.

This member will run routes that grab at the same time as the other Capper, as well as disrupt/kill the enemy sniper on other runs.

Choosing if they should run two cappers or a disruptor tends to be down to how the game plays out. Some Snipers do well against multiple Cappers. This works effectively on maps that are harder to spot enemy Cappers from the stand like the map Katabatic.

Another benefit of playing Flex is you don’t have to always try to grab the flag. You can choose to attack the stand or Sniper if your route gets spotted early or your health regeneration has been shut down for the route.

Classes

Most of the time it is best to be a Medium or a Heavy on Offense. Brute, Juggernaut, Raider and Soldier are the main GOTY Offense classes.

Having an explosive or timed weapon and a chain or hitscan weapon is optimal for all Offense classes. Juggernauts can run Spinfusor Discs as their explosive weapon opening up a Mortar and chain/hitscan combination.