Counterstrike: The Value and Fragility of Cover and Mitigating Positional Advantage

“The value and fragility of cover: Because of how little it takes to kill or be killed in CS:GO cover is incredibly important when you are trying to engage the enemy on more favourable terms. Why not enlist an inanimate object to absorb shots that would otherwise spell your end? Well, it may sound like there are only potential upsides to cover – reduced area for the enemy to shoot at, a safe place to reload and observe the area around you, and a comfy place to take a nap and hang out for a while if you’re really pinned down – but, there are also some downsides, a known location for your foe to circle around and keep an eye on, an easy target for various grenades, and, if you’re particularly unlucky, it’s possible your cover can be shot through and leave you a sitting dead duck. It’s just another facet of the game that makes it so engrossing. There are no free passes. No completely broken tactics. Think carefully enough and you can figure out a way to counter a seemingly broken tactic.

Camping busting options: In order to prevent usage of positional advantage from being entirely unfair (often times referred to as camping by frustrated players who don’t take enough care to play around it) there are a multitude of what I like to call “”camping busting”” options available in CS:GO. If you can establish that someone is in a certain position you have several options to force them out of their position or at least reduce their positional advantage. The main options, (available to an individual player), are flashbangs, high explosive grenades and smoke grenades (Molotovs could also be used but are more commonly utilized to prevent movement through areas) and they are quite effective. Flashbangs cause nothing but blinding white light to be seen by those effected for a few seconds (with the intensity dependent on the distance from the explosion). These allow you to toss one in and move in aggressively while they are unable to see (assuming you haven’t also flashbanged yourself or your teammates). High explosive grenades can be tossed into the area where the player is situated and will quite literally blow them up unless they move out of the way. Smoke grenades are especially interesting. They put up a cloud of gray smoke that you cannot see through and allow you to obscure vision in a certain area. However, there is a risk to using them. If you move predictably through the smoke on your way to assault your adversary you could find yourself in a worse position then before as you’ve closed distance between you and them and they will likely have their sights trained on the cloud ready to fire on anything moving through it. You may also be giving your foe an opportunity to launch a sneak attack or move to another position as they take advantage of the lack of vision for you.

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