After having waaaaaaaaaay to many games of comp be ruined by the lazy emberassment that is Countdown, I can safely say that there needs to be a rework to the way that the gamemode works, primarily with networking issues and defuse timers. For starters, defending is absurd, a whole minute to protect a single spot from attackers is absolutely painful, especially when it feels like Defenders get a whole 30 seconds to defuse, with 10 of those seconds being devoted to actively diffusing the charges. Network issues do not help with this, I have had games where Defenders take a full 12 seconds to defuse, and other games where they defuse in less than 5 seconds. Speaking of timers, WHAT IS THIS DEFUSE TIMER!!! It takes a whole 10 seconds to defuse. Why. Just why. It takes 3 seconds to arm, and 10 to diffuse. These timers need to be made the same, maybe 6 seconds for both. Attackers feel like they always have an advantage, and with such a short set timer, setting up a charge doesn't allow for a team to try a counterattack before setting the charge. After setting the charge, regardless of how well Defenders play, they are at a massive disadvantage, almost requiring your full team to protect you from ONE attacker. Now for some changes. As stated before, make the timers the same, allow for the Defenders to stop a plant before it happens, and allow for them to actually defuse in time. Next, MAKE THE EXPLOSION TIMER A THING!!! The final charge level lasts for so long, with no obvious indication that it is about to go off until the second that it does. The ability to see if defusing a charge is possible would be invaluable for setting up for a counterattack on the side of Defenders. Finally, for the love of all that exists in this game...LET US CONTINUE PROGRESS ON A DEFUSE IF AN ALLY HAPPENS TO LOOK AWAY FOR ONE. SINGLE. SECOND. The defuse timer is so finicky that I wouldn't be surprised if some people lost games due to getting flinched or bumped by a teammate. One change that might make this a little more engaging is to speed up the defuse/set time with multiple people either setting or defusing allowing for a greater amount of progress, with a shared defuse timer allowing for teams to choose whether to protect a larger area or advance progress before protecting the defuser. Real talk, I almost prefer Rift over Countdown, not for the above reasons, but because Countdown is the longest PvP game mode in. The. Entire. Game. Only having both teams of three in Trials takes longer, but is certainly more fun/engaging, and winning is based on skill, not because the game mode hates you or matchmaking being a problem.