Learning How to Defend Bombsites like a Pro!
Ready to step up your bombsite defense game in VALORANT? Here, we will work on refining your defense strategy, focusing on three different sites, helping you become a solid anchor for your team to rely on. By the end, you will have attained a solid understanding of how to efficiently hold key angles, manage rotations, and respond to enemy positioning like a pro.
Mastering the art of defense in VALORANT is essential for controlling the flow of the game and supporting your team’s tactics. Strong defensive skills allow you to defend important chokepoints, limit the attacking team’s options, and buy time for teammates to rotate and reinforce the site being attacked.
Effective bombsite defense not only makes it harder for attackers to plant the spike but also increases the chances of a successful retake if they manage to do so. By understanding map-specific dynamics, like Bind’s teleporters, Haven’s three-site setup, or the narrow chokepoints on Ascent and learning to adapt to each of these variables, you become a reliable anchor that can fend off enemy tactics and secure critical rounds for your team.
Holding the Line in B on Bind
Let’s start with defending bombsite B on Bind. Bind’s B bombsite offers one of VALORANT’s most unique defensive experiences due to the map’s teleporters, which allow attackers to rapidly change their point of approach, rotating almost instantaneously. For defenders, this requires constantly evaluating potential threats and avoiding over-rotating, a common mistake among newer players. Understanding how Bind’s teleporters work and preparing for rapid rotations is essential in keeping a composed defense. Bind has two teleporters, both facilitating fast rotations for attackers:
1) B Long to A Baths: Entry at B Long, exit just outside A Bath.
2) A Lamps to B Short: Entry near A Site, exit near B Short, across from Hookah (also called B Window).
These teleporters help attackers switch bombsites faster than defenders can typically rotate through the long, narrow pathways offered through defender spawn, so learning how to position your team in advance and reacting in a calculated manner without over-comitting is critical. B Site’s narrow approach corridors and central container (also known as tube) make it a difficult site to retake post-plant, especially if your team is limiting their approach to rotating into the site from your spawn.
Focusing on mastering B Site angles and being cautious of agents like Jett or Raze utilizing their vertical abilities to create an opening for their team, can make all the difference in maintaining control. The following taskwill put these concepts in action.
The task prompts you to shoot at bots peeking you from both horizontal and vertical positions as you move. The task is designed to reinforce your ability to hold attackers off of B Site on Bind, while training you to efficiently defend against the three positions that enemies will push you from.
Play VCT Bind Defense
Controlling A Main on Ascent
Next, let’s talk about the specifics of holding down A Main on Ascent. While at first glance this can seem simple, it is often more challenging than it looks. The entry corridor to A site from a A main is narrow, forcing attackers through a tight chokepoint. Although this provides an advantage to defenders, inconsistent aim or angle-holding can lead to attackers breaking through easily with the use of well timed utility and agent-specific abilities, and once your defense has been broken, retaking A site can be a challenging process.
Attackers have two main approaches to Ascent’s A site:
1) A Short to Tree: A more open route, allowing attackers to gain sight of defenders in mid.
2) A Main: Direct and narrow, leading to a chokepoint entry ideal for defenders to control.
With enough practice, you can gain a strategic advantage on holding A Main. The site’s openness gives attackers multiple approach angles, so controlling A Main early on into the round prevents attackers from getting close to site. Due to how Ascent’s pre-round protection barriers work, you will have the positional advantage as a defender, able to hold angles deeper into A main before the enemy team can spot you. While this can provide the opportunity for picking up a quick kill, don’t get too greedy.
Remember, even if you trade kill-for-kill, losing a defender on a bombsite is a lot more negative to the defending team than the attacking team. Keep an eye on the enemy team’s coordination of smokes and flashes as well; Once your line of defense has been broken, it can be quite difficult to regain control of the bombsite. Keep yourself strongly positioned, and turn these aim duels to your advantage. This next task will teach you how to consistently win these crucial aim duels.
It will position you at Ascent’s A heaven, giving you vision into A main as spherical targets strafe horizontally at the aforementioned choke point. The targets will spawn at different positions, adding an element of verticality to the task, ensuring that you hone your head tapping skills.
Play rA VALORANT Ascent Headshot
Securing Bombsite A on Haven
As our final focus on bombsite defense, we will be teaching you how to lock down A Site from Haven’s iconic Window position, walking you through critical angles, positioning tips, and a task designed to refine your defensive mechanics in this high-ground position. With some practice, you’ll gain the confidence to hold A Site from Window effectively, stopping attackers in their tracks.
Haven is one of the game’s few maps that offer the unique setup of having three bombsites (A, B, and C), our focus today will be built around defending A Site from Window, also known as Heaven. This position provides a powerful high-ground view over A Site’s two main attacker routes: A Long and A Short,and being able to make use of the large amount of vision it provides, as well as the highground position, will be a critical skill to you as a defender.
Each path offers unique challenges.
1) A Long: An open area leading into a narrow chokepoint
2) A Short: A Short has tighter corridors with multiple corners attackers will have to clear.
From the Window position, defenders can control both routes with a wide view of A Site, which is crucial for stopping the attacking team in their tracks early and forcing a rotation, or holding after a spike plant. However, the accessibility of this angle vision-wise, also means attackers can easily contest it, especially with agents capable of vertical movement such as Jett, Raze, and Omen.
Window’s vantage point also offers a safer approach back into A Site. As you rotate from B or defender spawn, re-entering from Window rather than A Tunnel reduces the risk of walking into the enemy’s crosshairs, as they are typically less likely to have extended into the window position. This final task will simulate this scenario, helping you hone your skills for reliable defensive options and confident retakes.
The task places you in the aforementioned window angle of Haven’s A Site, prompting you to shoot at targets that spawn across different common angles below you. The bots used in this task have head hit-boxes, necessitating that you aim for heads in order to eliminate them in quick succession!
Play rA VALORANT Haven ThreeShot
Through the completion of this plan and the included tasks, you have attained critical insight into the mechanics and tactics for defending key bombsites on three distinct VALORANT maps: Bind, Ascent, and Haven.
Starting with Bind’s B Site, you learned how to handle rapid attacker rotations through teleporters and avoid over-rotating, a skill that maintains team composure and site control. Moving to Ascent’s A Main, you practiced angle-holding in a narrow chokepoint, learning to hold off attackers strategically and using positional advantages to secure the site. Finally, with Haven’s A Site Window, you developed high-ground defense skills that give vision over A Long and A Short, supporting both site control and safer retakes in an optimal manner. Good luck out there!