Recovery Guide

As some of you my know, my favorite role is recovery, meaning, getting your flag back from someone who has stolen it. I'm going to cover my strategies that I use with 4 classes: Archer, Assassin, Ninja, and Pyro. I'm by no means an expert, but I've played CTF for a while now, and have recovered quite a bit.

Archer: This is mostly situational. It shouldn't be your go-to recovery class, but it can help you in some odd situations. I mostly use Archer to break up an engineer camp that the flag holder is using, or to take out a clump of people around the flag holder, etc. You usually want someone else to pick up the flag for you, preferably a ninja. However, if you can, don't be afraid to get the flag back yourself. In order to recover you typically want to headshot someone from 30+ (correct me if I'm wrong) blocks away.

Assassin: This class was literally made for recovery. It's a high-risk, high-reward class that excels at killing a certain target. When you try to recover you usually don't want to chase them from behind or be in front of them, as they can simply block and kill you if they see you coming. I try to either a. attack them from above (using assassinate allows you to negate 1 fall that would otherwise harm you) b. hide behind a wall and assassinate them when they walk past me, or c. attack from the side. If all else fails JUKE THEM. This class is also great from clearing flag rooms that are not head-shottable. Also, try to avoid using your assassinate on anyone else, it usually just results in you dying to someone else before your redstone regenerates. Avoid any other scuffles as well, you want full health when you recover.

Ninja: This is a great class for recovery. I call it a "glass cannon," because it deals huge amount of damage without being able to take very much in return. It can cover long distances with its ender pearls, and disorient the flag holder with its invisibility and flash bombs. You should try to use all means necessary to deal as much damage to the flag holder as possible. A great (but cheap) tactic is called "414." It's going between your invisibility and sword slot quickly to deal damage and then disappear. Another tactic (although it should be pretty obvious) is to use a flash bomb, and crit your target as much as possible. When they start to retaliate, just go invisible. Always just chase, chase, chase. If you end up dying, pearl across the map again and attack the flag holder once more!

Pyro: Similar to Archer, Pyro is a pretty situational recovery class (never try to recover off of a medic with pyro, you can't insta-kill them). You usually want to try this if a soldier/chemist is camping a certain spot, or if you're a few steps ahead of one, hide in a spotWorst part of freeday imo is that everyone seems to want to target the fashionistas < /3 that they will run past you. Usually though, Pyro should be used for defense more than anything.

Final Notes: Recovery is a very important part of CTF, and mastering it can make you a much better player. As I said above, always keep trying to recover. No one cares about your KDR, your main focus should be to, well, capture the flag. Recovery is all about being cheeky and sneaky. Barging into a flag room as heavy trying to recover usually doesn't work. Also, if it looks like you can't recover by yourself, use teamwork to get that flag back!

~Scarpa_