The Defender's Wiki - Sky control

Sky control is pretty much the most important part of defense. Matches 90% of the time end, because of sky rush, so it is crucial to keep control of sky

#What is the "sky" -

Even if you're new to octc, you must've seen people staircase bridging till they hit the build limit and then making a platform there. That's where the main fights are going on in order to take control over those platforms and bridge to the enemy's woolroom from there

#What to do to control sky -

Because most of the rushers are very skill-less, they often skyrush, so they can compensate their lack of skill by abusing the highground; luckily defenders have developed a few tactics to counter their funny "strategy":

• First thing your team should focus on is building good stairs and repairing them whenever the enemy team destroys them
• Push the enemy team's left sky and extend the platform towards their wall
  • ! Do not actually try to get into their woolroom, just push and extend the platform, so they can't push your own woolroom!
• Break the blocks rushers leave while trying to get into your woolroom, this includes sky platform extensions and any floating blocks in front of your wall
• It's always good to have an IGL on your team, however being an IGL requires some skill and authority among the players. A prime example of a good IGL is Gabuski. Nonetheless, your team does not necessairly need an IGL to defend well, the most important is good communication with your team. If you're a sniper or you just see a lot of people sky rushing your wall, announce it to your team, you can use such phrases as:
  • "left sky"
  • "everyone left sky"
  • "LEFT SKY NOW OR GG"
  • "LEFT SKY NOW OR WE LOSE"
  • "GG, we lost, it's over, I'm leaving"
  The phrase "left sky" means you should go fight on the left side of the sky platform.
  If you're not a sniper, but a sky fighter, you can encourage your team to push your enemies' left sky with you. BUT remember to not actually try to get their wool, you can tell one of your friends to say not to push after you say to push, so some people may resign and yous won't push too much
  ! Do not hesitate to send these messages multiple times
• Kill enemies who are going towards your wall
• Build an "anti-sky"
• Build trenches
• Build an armour station or armour dispensary, so your sky fighters don't have to craft armour and therefore can go fight faster

#Stairs -

Stairs are probably the most important part of defence, as they allow us to get onto the sky platforms fast and repel sky attacks. They're also the part of defence that requires the most effort to build and maintain

#Where to build stairs -

Stairs positioning is a very important factor. During CTW matches, you should ideally build two or sometimes three staircases - one that leads towards middle, one that leads towards your left sky (also called backup stairs) and one that leads towards your right sky. The middle staircase is always the main one that people use all the time, because it's the closest to spawn. The left sky staircase is used when the enemies' are rushing our left sky and it'd just take too much time to get there using the middle staircase. The right sky staircase is not that important, it's good to have when the match starts to get longer on some maps, because the rushers may try to bridge from our right woolroom to our left woolroom or if we want to prevent them from rushing us with the woolroom loot which often includes better armour or speed potions

* Red - main staircase, blue - left sky staircase, purple - right sky staircase

#Types of stairs -

There's a lot of staircases types and this page won't cover all of them, but there are two main factors that all stairs should have if possible: you should be able to travel fast using them and it should be impossible to block them by placing blocks or water.

#Anti-sky -

"Anti-skies" prevent rushers from placing blocks on the build limit level in strategical areas, mostly in front of your main wall. They usually consist of blocks that do not have collisions, meaning the rushers can't walk on them and also can't place other blocks wherever they are. If they wanted to do that, they'd have to break the anti-sky blocks first and then place their own blocks

#Where to build anti-sky -

You should always build an anti-sky in front of your main wall. Make 4-5 blocks gap between where you want your anti-sky to be and the snipers' nest - anti-sky is useless there, because the rushers can just jump onto the snipers' nest from their platform and it may also annoy the snipers. The bigger your anti-sky is, the better. Remember to only build it on the build limit level, if you make it one block lower it'll actually make it easier for rushers. You can also make an anti-sky on side of the sky platform that's nearest to your woolroom, so the rushers can't extend the platform towards your woolroom

* Red - wall anti-sky, blue - sky platform anti-sky

#Types of anti-skies -

#Trenches -

Trenches are just pits made in the sky platform, so you can hide in them, making your enemies unable to shoot you with their bows. For some reason trenches are not utilized in matches at all; maybe because they're hard to maintain, they take some effort to build or because not many people know about this strat.
! When building a trench, make sure to cover it with iron bars from below, just like stairs, so it's harder to destroy them by enemies; the more iron bars the better

#Where to build trenches -

Because no one builds trenches in actual matches, they haven't been tested to determine where it's the best to build them. But I'd say it's the best to build them in front of your stairs, leaving like a 5-10 blocks gap between the trench and stairs, then repeat that

#Types of trenches -