Counter-Strike 2: A Comprehensive Guide to Rotating
In Counter-Strike 2, one of the main fundamentals of the game is mastering the map knowledge. It's about understanding and anticipating the enemy movements, and reacting to their movement accordingly. This is where rotation becomes your ultimate weapon, if you can read your enemy movements or know where and when they might be then you can easily get the jump on them and catch them unsuspectingly.
Here are some tips on how to improve your decision making on when to rotate during a round:
Mastering the Fundamentals Of Rotating:
Map awareness: Knowing the map layout can be a key to figuring out the enemy positions at certain times. As your map awareness improves so does your skill for reading the map and you can start to visualize enemy positions based on sound cues and teammate callouts.
Radar awareness: Reading the radar is an important thing that you need to do from time to time so you can keep up with the enemies are and where they might be according to your teammates positions. Make sure to scale your radar so that it gives you the most possible info without taking up too much of the screen, I have seen most people have the map zoomed all the way out on the radar to make it easier to know the positions of each player; this is a personal preference and you need to adjust your radar according to your needs.
Communicate clearly: Inform teammates of your rotations, enemy sightings, and if you are planning to push. Be concise and specific so you do not drown out the enemy footsteps and your teammates can still listen for any information.
Check corners: Make sure you know which areas are clear when rotating, you don’t want to get caught off by someone who has been lurking and waiting for the rotators. Keep an eye on the radar for when a teammate has left a position they’re holding and where they went off to. If they had backed off to rotate then there might be an enemy who have snuck past where they were holding originally.
Professional Games: Watching pro matches can also help you in understanding the timings for both sides so you know at what time you may expect an enemy to arrive at a certain position and in which places you may arrive after the enemy and may require utility in order to peek or get past an enemy holding an angle.
Context-dependent: Adapt your rotations based on the map, bombsite, and the situation. Some maps require you rotate quickly as it would take a long time to rotate meanwhile some maps have bombsites much closer to each other allowing for easier rotations.
Coordination is key: Effective rotations require clear communication with your teammates, let them know when you are rotating so your teammate who is in the bombsite with you knows and doesn’t get flanked from the position that you were holding..
Learning the map layout is crucial for knowing the rotation timings and flanking opportunities/threats.
Rotation Strategies for Different Roles:
Rotating on a map doesn’t have to be on one side only and you can rotate in both sides, effectively rotating can be the factor for turning a round in your favor. Following are some of the tips regarding rotating for each side.
Terrorists:
Post-plant rotations: After the bomb is planted, anticipate where the enemies will be retaking from and hold key defensive positions, it is important to be in strong post-plant positions and also changing it up sometimes to catch them off guard. You can push and hold a much more forward position if you have swiftly taken over the bombsite. If you have been playing as a lurker then it would be a great idea sometimes to just wait and cut off the rotations and then flank the rotators to help out your teammates on the bomb site.
Info-based rotations: This is something that most players don’t really tend to notice or note when in-game, if you see that the enemy has stacked a bombsite or are pushing as a 5 man from a bombsite then you should just hurry and rotate towards the empty or weaker bombsite to get the bomb planted as quickly as possible. You can also keep track of where the enemies in the later stages of a round by noting where a teammate had died and how long ago they died, there may be situations where the remaining defenders tend to stick together and if you get info that they are both in one site then you can easily take the C4 to the other bombsite and have the bomb planted with no resistance.
Fake rotations: A great way to make sure that your team can easily secure a bombsite is by either faking the rotation or faking the bomb site. You can lure defenders away from a bombsite by making noise or pushing another area before rotating back, make sure to not make noise when retreating so that they do not hear the retreat and figure out that it was a fake. In lower ranks, you can also have the lurker execute onto a bombsite or throw utility on the bombsite to draw an extra defender or two onto that bombsite.
Counter-Terrorists:
Retake rotations: React quickly to bomb plants, make sure to take the most efficient and quickest path to the bombsite while checking your corners and coordinate your push with the team to retake the site efficiently.
Preventative rotations: It helps being prepared, anticipate the terrorist pushes and rotate to a bombsite before they arrive. You can easily have the extra numbers if you get early info that they are executing to a bombsite or if the teammates on the other bombsite have actually scouted that there is nobody outside that bombsite.
Reading enemy rotations: A main factor deciding a round can be reading the enemy rotations and being ready for them to rotate towards the other bombsite. If you see that the enemy execute on the other bombsite was halted and things have been quiet while you do not have control over the C4, it would be wise to stay and hide on the other bombsite. You can also push forward and hold a forward angle to have early information regarding their rotation and also be able to catch them with their backs turned as they may not check an angle that the CTs do not usually hold.
