This series on default defense meta setups focuses on operator neutral reinforcement and destruction explanations. I won't be focusing on bomb sites that aren't common primary/secondary sites or have too variable of setups. Teams will vary these based on specific strats or operator choices, but these defaults should give every ranked player a good starting point.
See the previous articles on Clubhouse and Consulate as well.
For easy reference, the (1) markings indicate default plant spots, and the (2)'s indicate important player positions (often relative to reinforcements).
The first two bomb sites share a fair bit of overlap in terms of Hookah reinforcements as you need to control Hookah/Billards for both that bomb site and the double bars.
Let's start with Blue/Sunrise Bar defensive setup.
Ground floor
The primary things to reinforce are:
- The 2 panels of the Sunshine/Blue bar wall to help the player playing this position control the angles of engagement as this is an important position that is protected from the main Sunshine external doorway.
- The single panel of the external Sunshine wall. You can place two here if you want to sacrifice a reinforcement upstairs, but this is primarily to limit the ability of attackers pressuring the defender from all the way back in Lobby.
Destruction
- Foot/Prone height holes along the bottom of the Blue/Courtyard wall. This helps to fight attackers in Courtyard as well as retake rotates into Courtyard to fight attackers in Blue.
- A rotate hole and a vault or line of sight hole on the Sunshine/Blue bar wall. The rotate hole should be the one closest to the Blue window and the other is useful for throwing c4/smoke/impacts at attackers behind Blue bar as well as shooting into the room in general. You need the rotate so you aren't forced to use the hallway to get into Blue.
- Line of sight holes in the Kitchen/Courtyard wall. Attackers generally will pressure Sunshine from Kitchen, these provide counter angles from Courtyard and Blue door to keep them on their toes.
Top floor
The primary things to reinforce are:
- The 3 panels of the Cocktail/Courtyard wall. Cocktail is an important position to help deny Billiards and fight hallway or cool vibes stairs. If the wall is left soft its easy for attackers to open it up from the roof and make it unplayable. Hibana is still a threat here.
- The single panel of the Hookah/Billiards wall to allow a player to fight Billiards as well as the Hookah door with some coverage from the Hookah bar.
- The single panel of the Hookah/hallway wall near the Cocktail door. This is to help the player in Hookah stay alive.
- The single panel of Hookah/hallway wall near cool vibes stairs. This is to allow a player on cool vibes to fight from the doorway.
- The single panel of VIP/Hallway wall to prevent long angles from VIP into Cocktail.
Destruction
- A crouch rotate hole between Hookah and cool vibes, as important for rotating as for firing into Hookah.
- A vault hole between Hookah and Billiards to allow fighting and rotating into Billiards. This can be used to escape pressure onto Hookah to fight it from Billiards instead.
- Open up the Hookah drop down. This allows the player in Hookah to escape from pressure, but also helps potential retakes late round. It also helps the attackers, so you can keep it closed if you know you'll lose Hookah quickly and not likely get it back.
Next up is Hookah/Billards. The only major difference is you take the 3 reinforcements from downstairs and apply them to cover more of Hookah and Cocktail walls.
Top floor
The primary things to reinforce are:
- The same as for the bar defenses, but you apply 1 extra to the Cocktail wall and 2 extra to the Hookah wall.
Destruction
- The same as for the bar defenses, but you should open the floors near the default plant spots to allow denial from below.
Lastly we have Kitchen
Top floor
The primary things to reinforce are:
- The 2 Theater/Penthouse walls. These help the roamer in Theater funnel Penthouse attacks through the single doorway.
- The 2 corner panels of VIP/hallway. These help support a roamer hold in VIP, especially the left most as that corner is more defendable due to the shelving. The other one also prevents a long angle from VIP window all the way to the Theater walls.
- The hatch depends on how strong your top hold is. If you are likely to lose it, its best to deny the attackers a quick rotate down if they burn a lot of time trying to hit you from above.
Destruction
- A rotate hole in theater wall. Where you place this along the wall varies the angle play to and from Theater and exposure to the window and white stairs. It's important not to be trapped in Theater and also allow a way to fight top white/luggage.
Ground floor
The primary things to reinforce are:
- The 3 panels of the Delivery/Lobby wall. It's important to be able to have a player in here to deny a push into Kitchen from Delivery door or Bathroom.
- The single panel on Delivery/Bathroom to give a player in bathroom a spot to play for default plant denial.
- The single panel of Kitchen/Delivery wall to allow a player in kitchen to play safely next to the rotate hole and bomb.
Destruction
- Upper holes for throwables on the Bathroom wall nearest the Delivery door, and foot height holes near the default plant spot. Both of these to help deny Delivery from Bathroom. Just be careful of the drone hole.
- A crouch rotate and upper hole on the Kitchen/Delivery wall near the bomb. The upper hole is for throwables into delivery without exposing your face, and the crouch rotate allows safe rotation to get behind the bomb to play Delivery more aggressively.
- Line of sight holes along the Kitchen/Hallway wall to allow fighting Courtyard pressure as well as assisting roamer retakes.
The Penthouse site is mostly out of the meta at the moment and quite difficult to defend consistently so won't be covered here, but feel free to play with operator specific ideas to see what you can discover!
While this is far from an exhaustive guide to all the possible PL defensive setups, it should give you something to start with as a base for your own ideas! Stay tuned for more in this series covering other PL maps. - mzo
PS. 2 of these setups are available as public plans I created on Battleplanner.io and linked below. Click on the Information button at the top to get a button to copy it to your account to use as a starting point.
