I talk a lot about the fact that I think Dining on Villa is a better bomb site than Trophy, but the NA playday #3 match between DarkZero and Tempo Storm was a great demonstration to break down why. The match went the full 12 rounds and until the very last round, the only defenses won, were Dining (2 wins and 1 loss for either team on their first attempts). Individual players like Butterz may have "gone off", but it worked for both teams. I'll be focusing on the 4 successful rounds below.
Tempo Storm Dining defense, Round 3, Middle floor
Things to note
- Mute jammers used to deny 2 walls (Dining/Laundry, Memorial/Skylight hallway) and 2 doorways ( Memorial/Skylight hallway, Bicycle storage). One of them is placed behind the Goyo Vulcan shield in Bicycle storage to prevent being shot from the window.
- The wall to Pantry stairs is reinforced to prevent line of sight/access.
- A single wall in the middle of Dining/China is reinforced. Interestingly this prevents some possible lines of sight from China into Dining doorways.
- Wooden barricades are placed on Laundry door (slows access/notifies in combination with the mute jammed wall) and Memorial door (prevents jumping the mute jammer)
- The most important walls to get here are the two that are jammed.
Top floor
Things to note
- Goyo shields are placed in the doorway from Astronomy to Master bath and the connector from Statuary to Master bedroom to delay access along with the triple bedroom wall reinforcements
- A single wall on Astronomy is reinforced to possibly deny some angles from the Astronomy window rappel.
- Goyo plays behind the Astronomy desk (he melee'd some items to get more room) and the hatch is open along with the rotate hole to his right into Trophy (this rotate is standard to the meta for holding Astronomy for Trophy/Statuary defense as well).
How things played out using this setup
- Goyo (Butterz, who was nuts) initially played Astronomy to delay some top control, but as soon as he heard the rappel on the window, he blew the shield on the Master bath doorway, jumped down the hatch, then went downstairs to the basement to rotate back to site via Pantry stairs.
- Mute likely had a (possibly pre-placed) C4 underneath the window into Master walk-in closet and Pulse below on Pantry stairs called for it to kill Hibana.
- Goyo then proceeds to decimate the remaining 4 attackers entirely through the floor. He is at an advantage using the TCSG because a few shots to even the toe is fatal (on top of the high caliber destruction) meaning he doesn't need an angle on the head like the attackers might.
When Tempo Storm played Dining defense again in round 6 the only real change ups were the attackers brought a Lion instead of IQ and TS brought a Vigil instead of Pulse. DarkZero smartly played more horizontal but still lost a player to Goyo through the floor and more when attempting to push site.
DarkZero Dining defense round 8 - Ground floor
Note: I used the Goyo shield placements from their second success, round 11 because I could visually verify the placement of the one in master bath that may have been in bath door like TS did on round 8, but could not verify. The other difference is that the bedroom door shield was the same as TS's placement in round 8 vs on the doorway in round 11.
Things to note
- DarkZero reinforced the same key walls in Dining, but instead of jamming them, they opened holes above. This allowed for throwing C4 over as well as shooting up towards Statuary (and allowing Zofia to get a drone in easily). Tempo Storm easily opened the Laundry wall with Hibana both times.
- An additional reinforcement on Dining/Memorial wall denies some lines of sight between Laundry, the Laundry/Dining connector area, and Memorial door.
- A Goyo shield near the Laundry door to deny access/planting along with the barb wire to slow entry.
- No reinforcements on China wall to Dining, but instead one to Back stairs, denying some possible access/lines of sight in.
- DarkZero put up a LOT of wooden barricades to both slow attackers and provide many sound cues allowing for pre-fires and positional adjustments. Especially helpful for Pulse who is often looking upwards focused on calling out positions.
Top Floor
Things to note
- Much like the Ground floor, they opened up holes above reinforcements (in this case, a Jager ADS helped prevent attackers from throwing things over as well), and wooden barricades were used to slow/cue access from the other parts of the map, in this case the Study side.
- Instead of Astronomy hatch, Master bedroom hatch was opened.
- Someone played Astronomy stairs to shoot the Goyo shield in Bathroom instead of behind the desk, this allowed the same exit, but without using the hatch.
- DarkZero opened a hole in the floor of Master walkin near the door to slow/deny progress into Master bed.
How things played out using this setup
- Tempo Storm carefully cleared top floor with a combination of drones and Jackal (who was tracking Lesion pretty heavily). DarkZero tried to fight up through the floor, but was not as successful as Tempo Storm.
- Tempo Storm eventually moved attackers into Laundry, opened the wall with 2 sets of XKairos and had 2 people up top in Bedroom still to fight.
- DarkZero won a ton of gunfights in mostly horizontal battles as the attackers often gave away their approach via the Laundry hole or through wooden barricades.
When DarkZero played Dining defense again in round 11 the only real change ups were the attackers brought an IQ instead of Jackal (to counter Pulse) and DZ brought a Vigil instead of Jager. Tempo Storm mostly repeated the same same top floor clear and Laundry based attack.
Takeaways
- Pay attention to the key 8 walls to reinforce (the 4 for dining, 3 for bedroom, 1 for Pantry stairs wall)
- Goyo shields slow down the attackers, but more important they burn utility.
- Make sure to have a safe path to rotate back downstairs when you lose top floor either via hatches or stairs. The basement is your friend because of Pantry stairs and Back stairs.
- Defenders often seem to be at the advantage when fighting upwards through the bedroom floor, especially with Pulse and Goyo.
- Attackers need a horizontal push so they don't get delayed up top, be prepared to slow that down as well with jammers, barricades and more shields.
- Have good angles of defense on the site entry points that don't overexpose you to attackers shooting through bedroom floor.
Hope you enjoyed a 2 team defensive setup that you got to see play out successfully in a great match that Dark Zero just barely managed to win (thanks to their final Aviator defense)!
PS. Both these setups are available in my public Battleplans for you view! Click on the Information button at the top to get a button to copy it to your account to use as a starting point.
Special thanks to Justin for helping me identify some hard to spot elements!
If you want to watch the rounds in question here's the vod!
