How to Dominate

Our Stickiest Pony, Punsy Charlatan, has put together a fairly detailed post about how he tops our Domination capture leaderboards. Check it out after the jump!

Domination, or more specifically the Domination-based ClOp, is a funny thing.  The ClOps tied to TDM and KC, whether Core or Hardcore, are still played more or less like any other instance of their respective gametypes, but Sticky Fingers is unique because it does not reward (and actually penalizes) half of the normal goals of the Domination gametype; namely, defending points after you capture them.  This means that getting the right lobby is the single most important factor for success, even more so than any other gametype.  With that in mind, let's look at the best and worst possible ways a game could go during this ClOp.

THE BEST POSSIBLE MATCH

You and your teammates begin at C on Dome and capture it while the enemy team captures A.  Your team proceeds to B, curiously encountering... no enemies, and caps it as well. As you move through the offices toward A, you wonder where everyone went, and the announcer answers your musing with the notification that they are currently capturing C, followed immediately by the notification that they have finished captured C.  "They must be moving in a group too", you think to yourself, as your team pauses briefly on A.  Moving through the dome toward C, you realize that you have just completed a full cycle of the map in hardly any time at all.  The cycle continues, C to B to A to C, each point freshly available and unattended, like a set of hotel toiletries that some unseen attendant keeps replacing whenever you leave the room.  The announcer's incessant and overlapping updates are the only clue that betrays your enemy's presence as you orbit the map in an antichthonic dance.  The routine becomes comfortable, if a little boring, but those +150s, with their characteristic accompanying sound effect, keep tickling your brain's pleasure center, and before you know it, the game is over, 200-199.  Everyone's score is through the roof, even though most of the scoreboard looks like someone sorted a bowl of Cheerios.  

THE WORST POSSIBLE MATCH

You and your teammates begin at A on Mission and capture it.  The enemy team immediately captures B and C and locks them down hard, spawntrapping you and all of your teammates at A.  Your team's attempts to rush either of the enemy points serve only to thicken the skies with ever-more-powerful enemy air support, making it even harder to run more than five meters before being shot from three directions at once.  After several minutes of fruitless deaths, your collective stacks of smoke grenades finally give you the opening you need to secure B.  However... the enemy team digs in even harder at C, because they're ahead 150-75 and just care about winning the match and boosting their K/Ds.  They never attempt to recapture B, let alone go anywhere near A, but they win the match 200-175 anyway.  You realize that you have only made a measly two captures in twelve minutes and fling the controller at the wall in anger, knocking over a lamp and your collection of decorative crystal gasoline cans.  Your house is shortly engulfed in flames.

MORE REALISTICALLY...

Most games will fall somewhere between the two, but unfortunately, you're going to run into a lot more that look like the worst one than the best one.  Leave these super-defensive lobbies immediately, because they are a major waste of time.  Yes, your W/L ratio will go down.  If you wind up in one of the best lobbies, find a rhythm, consider yourself blessed, and do not leave it unless absolutely necessary.  The rest of the guide is geared toward the middle situations where the enemy team isn't camping too hard, but they're not moving as a group and they'll shoot you if they see you.

FIRST, DO NO HARM

Capturing points is the name of the game, but the crucial mental leap to make is that letting enemies capture points is very nearly as important as capturing them yourself.  If you are playing in a Domination ClOp, for every possible step taken or bullet fired, ask yourself two things:

1. Is this going to help me capture a point?
2. Is this not going to prevent an enemy from capturing a point?

Sample scenario: you've just finished capturing A; B and C are being held by the enemy, and one of them is running up to capture A.  What do you do if he starts shooting at you?  The correct answer is "run away".  If you can make it away in time, great, and if not, oh well; mash X and you just got teleported somewhere else on the map, hopefully closer to an available point.  Shooting back is counterproductive because it means he'll have to run all the way back so that he can capture it so that *you* can capture it again.  Putting it more generally, shooting is counterproductive unless there's someone standing right between you and a point you can capture--time spent shooting could be spent sprinting towards a point instead.  Be ready for your K/D to drop.

Speaking of sprinting, the ideal build should be optimized for two things:

1. Get from point A to point B (or point C, ha ha) as quickly as possible.
2. Don't get noticed.

Even though Hugh Jelly over there on the left is the obvious mascot of the Sticky Fingers ClOp, when it comes to actually playing, here's your inspiration:

Equal parts speed and stealth with a pinch of adorable.

HOW TO BE NINJA DASH

Perk 1: Extreme Conditioning (Pro)

Keeps you running longer.  Pro is nice for climbing around, but not strictly necessary.

Perk 2: Assassin Pro

The most powerful perk in the game comes in handy once again.  Most people don't pay much attention to the "enemy is capturing point X" announcements, so if you can stay off the radar, nobody is likely to come looking for you.  Pro is necessary because smoke grenades don't do much good if the enemy still has a red name to aim for.

Perk 3: Dead Silence Pro

Another sneaky perk, although this one isn't quite as mandatory as Assassin.  Pro is fun because you can use it to take otherwise-suicidal shortcuts, like jumping off the bridge on Mission towards point A (illustration in a future post).

Primary: Any SMG or the USAS

SMGs and shotguns are important because they give you the highest movement speed.  I prefer an MP7 with Silencer and Rapid Fire, but it's pretty much a matter of personal preference as long as you have Silencer so that you stay off the radar.  If you like shotguns, the USAS is the clear winner, because it gives you a 75% bonus to sprint time that stacks with Extreme Conditioning.  Certain maps might make one or the other a better choice.

Secondary: MP9

Besides the fact that it's got good range and a great headshot multiplier, this has the same 75% bonus to sprint time that the USAS does (note: the Skorpion also has this bonus, in case you prefer it for some reason).  As always, put Silencer on it to stay incognito.

Lethal Accessory: Whatever you want

I suggest C4 if you're good with it, but anything besides the Bouncing Betty or Claymore is fine.

Tactical Accessory: Smoke Grenade

The bread and butter of this build.  Here's the general pattern:
1) Run towards an uncapped point, mowing down anyone in your path
2) Shoot anyone camping it
3) Throw a smoke grenade as close as possible to the point (this can be done before step 2 if you can chuck it over a wall or bounce it around a corner)
4) Lay down in a spot with good cover on the very edge of the capping radius
5) Wait, returning fire if someone starts to shoot you

Generally, you'll want to wait a few seconds to let the smoke start to bloom before entering it, as opposed to crouching or laying down and then throwing it.  Also, keep in mind that smoke grenades do not last long enough to provide cover for the entire duration of a capture if you're by yourself--this might be a good time to practice playing dead.

Killstreak: Support

You're going to be dying a lot, so Assault and Specialist are right out.  UAV, Ballistic Vests, Advanced UAV, and EMP are all good options.  Remember, captures count toward your killstreaks!

Deathstreak: Juiced

Run faster.  Extreme Conditioning + MP9/USAS + Juiced == wheeeeeeeee


Stay tuned for the next installment, where I'll be covering specific strategies for all three points on every non-DLC map.  In the meantime, if you want to practice capping points on easy mode, play Domination with the DLC turned off.  If you want to practice capping points on hard mode, play Ground War Domination with the DLC turned on, especially the small maps like Piazza and Oasis.  If you enjoy dying from grenades that land 20 meters away from you, play Hardcore Domination.

I have a few comments, but the most important is that Lethal x Gaming went all out and got around 2350 confirms in the last Sticky Fingers op, or 392 caps per player on top of their leaderboard. The winners got more than 2600, or 430+ per player. Our single best performance ever was Punsy with 213, so we have an extremely tough row to hoe ahead of us. At 20 games per op, each capper would need more than 20 caps per game, so I think that this may require even more coordination than we originally thought. I have some exams coming up, but I hope to look into this more deeply after those are done. Thanks again to Punsy for writing this, even if he never checks his e-mail!