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The original: Aggression is good.
So having added aggression to my PvP, I was able to do it quite successfully today in PvT. Fairly standard game from me, going for a 1-Gate Fast Expand, and he went for a slightly different 1 Rax Tech Lab Expand. I expected a Reaper, but he went for a Marauder instead. Seeing no bunker, I decided to go for an attack, and all it cost me was a couple of extra chronos as I attacked with my first 3 Stalkers and a Zealot, breaking his front (including half-completed bunker) and killing a few SCV's in his main. Sadly he surrounded and killed my Stalkers with a pretty good move. Attack-moved his SCV's, I stutter-stepped towards his natural, but he built a supply depot there and trapped my Stalkers.
I knew he was behind, so what do you do when he's behind? Attack again! I knew he'd be going for a bunker and he'd have it up in time this time, so I added an Immortal to the mix and attacked. Again, killed his bunker, killed a few marines and SCV's. This time I retreated with the majority of my force alive. Finally I attacked one last time and killed him.
Afterwards, I watched the replay and a very interesting fact emerged. Once my attack hit, my opponent played terribly. He seemed reasonably competent until my pressure got into his main, and then, even after cleaning it up, his macro just FELL APART. He took a hidden third, but it didn't even matter as he was barely making workers, and he only made marines. My economy gave me the army edge to kill him, as while I was banking a bit of money, I was still producing workers near-constantly while attacking. This was a Platinum like myself. Somehow I had neglected to put myself in the other guy's shoes and realise that being constantly attacked is scary, and fucks with your game.
Lastly, I noticed an interesting pattern, going through a few of my replays. Aggression increases my APM. Now, I'm no expert at SC2, but I do happen to know that doing more things faster is good, and the best way to learn to do more things faster is to just start doing more things faster. Aggression forces that. I'm not great at it, but my macro doesn't utterly fall apart the second I start looking at my army anymore, and so I can use that as a base to start building it up. Here's some numbers, ignoring the first three minutes of each game, as I'm spamming in those three minutes.
Long-ass macro game 1 (20-minute double forge PvT, no pressure): 46 APM
Long-ass macro game 2: (Same as game 1): 47 APM
Aggression game 1: (He 4-gates me) 65 APM
Aggression game 2: (The one in the blog post) 60.5 APM
Naturally this isn't much of a sample size, but I think common sense adds to it here. It takes more APM to macro and attack than it does to just macro. More importantly, I HAVE THAT APM, I just don't use it when I macro exclusively. So aggression increases my win-rate, messes with my opponent, actually makes me play better, and is great for my mechanical growth.
Aggression is really good.
 
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? Everyone already knows it.
It's a style that puts you behind when it doesn't work out and ahead when it does. Looks to me like your APM just is lower in longer games.
P.S: The problem is that 45-65 APM is really low no matter what end of the scale your on so people don't really feel compelled to comment on this post.
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I think aggression is a powerful tool in SC2 in general, but a big problem protoss have is they get to caught up in aggression and don't give enough heed to their lategame strength. We saw back before the infestor buff a lot of protoss would do a lot of moves to pressure a zerg because they thought they needed to keep a zerg, who were going ground compositions (roach/hydra) in check, while in reality a lot of protoss had shown us that passive 3 base protoss colossus (and colossus voidray play) could defeat any roach/hydra/corrupter based composition (this is of course before mass broodlord/infestor armies were discovered). A good example of this is the final game of the IPL1, IdrA vs KewiKaKi (although this was after the infestor buff, new playstyles hadn't really emerged yet). A lot of the time protoss fell back on aggression when they had an advantage rather than acknowledging their superiority in late game and playing toward that.
While things aren't quite the same now, I would say the proper way to play off an advantage with protoss is always to make an investment in lategame (faster or more upgrades, another expansion, etc). Lategame Protoss is so very, very, very strong in every matchup, and I believe that you should be investing in that lategame. If you gain an advantage over zerg, perhaps you could kill him with an attack or gain a bigger advantage; but the reality is that a mothership army with a lot economy behind it is almost always going to help assure you a win than attacking when you have an advantage. The same goes versus Terran; if you have the economy to warp in a ridiculous number of speedlots anywhere while having the gas availalbe for a lot of templar for storming/feedbacking his army/ghosts who try to snipe a base, you're shaping the game into a scenario where every time he tries to deny you economy, it comes at a heavy cost while you form an army that is plainly better than his (this is why you hear a lot of terrans complain a lot about lategame TvP).
That being said, If your goal is mechanical growth, then aggression is a great way to force yourself to multitask and play faster, which absolutely will help when you bring those better mechanics to more appropriate strategies.
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EneMech: People don't have to comment on the post. Yeah, I know my APM is terrible. I'm okay with that, and with people not commenting 
Dronefarm: Thanks for the post. You do make a good point. (At least in PvT and PvZ, in PvP your opponent is just as good as you in lategame, so maybe "Attack when you have an edge" is still a good idea) I'll certainly keep your ideas in mind. I probably am gonna continue the aggression for A) Fun, and B) Increasing skill, but I will certainly keep your advice in mind if I enter any tournaments or reach a skill level I'm happy with and decide to go back. Thanks very much. Your advice will likely be even more effective when I'm at a higher skill level, reducing the chance that my opponent can crumble me with drops or snipe a nexus or something because I do something stupid, cancelling out the advantage I've won.
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hehe good. I hope everyone keeps thinking that way.
Because defending is amazing!
Out of curiosity what would you say is your skill level ?
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Your apm might be low now, but if you keep playing aggressive styles you should build up the apm/multitask to macro and attack in different areas and such over time. I'd say keep it up, just try not to all-in if that's what you consider aggressive as that wouldn't work your multitask or macro in the slightest.
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Well done. Aggression has always been the best way to improve and get out of leagues. You will be surprised how much worse a players macro is when they are being pressured and how much your multitasking will improve when you attack THEN you realise how easy it is to pull back from a fight, build workers, make a few stalkers, build a pylon and go back to the battle all within 5 seconds.
Very often when I pressure the enemy with my 3 stalkers and 1 zealot, just like you, and after harassing here and there I realised that I've already expanded, got my robo up, and triple the army at base whilst my opponent is scrambling for units and repairing like a madman.
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TuElite: I'm a Platinum player, though I've beaten a fair few Diamonds. If leagues were ICCup-like, I'd say I'd be moving between top of Platinum and bottom of Diamond fairly consistently. As it is, top Platinum.
DanLee: Yeah, I agree. I often all-in in PvP as a reactive thing, however. "Oh, he fast expanded with four sentries? Colossus all-in."
Zariel: Yeah, that really did surprise me. I mean, I've seen it in my own games, but I don't think I fall THAT far apart. It makes sense: If you're used to attacking and macroing, but your opponent isn't used to being pressured, you will inevitably do better than him, especially as you do the same thing every PvT and he doesn't face the harass every time. I'm glad you believe it will improve my play too, means I'm likely on the right track.
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There's been a ton of good advice in this thread, and I would like to add an additional point. Try to scout out what your opponent is doing before committing to aggression. Sometimes, the opponent is blindly preparing for a big allin, and your non-allin aggressive move simply walks into a meatgrinder. If you scout for his army size and composition, it would allow you to decide whether to attack or defend, and how to adjust your army composition accordingly (you can just warp in zealots or stalkers, whichever works better).
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On April 24 2012 23:58 Heh_ wrote:
There's been a ton of good advice in this thread, and I would like to add an additional point. Try to scout out what your opponent is doing before committing to aggression. Sometimes, the opponent is blindly preparing for a big allin, and your non-allin aggressive move simply walks into a meatgrinder. If you scout for his army size and composition, it would allow you to decide whether to attack or defend, and how to adjust your army composition accordingly (you can just warp in zealots or stalkers, whichever works better).
Usually aggressive play is for the purpose of always knowing what your opponent is up to, so the scouting is not exactly necessary. Also just because you go to attack an opponent who is all-in doesn't mean you are walking into a meat grinder, you can just go back to your base or keep trying to trade with him as efficiently as possible as he crosses the map to your base.
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Good read. You are at the cross-roads where you can continue on this path and play an MC style of aggresive timings, or you can follow players like Genius or Parting who rely on solid multitasking and macro to pull out wins. Personally, I love the MC style
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On April 25 2012 02:41 DanLee wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2012 23:58 Heh_ wrote:
There's been a ton of good advice in this thread, and I would like to add an additional point. Try to scout out what your opponent is doing before committing to aggression. Sometimes, the opponent is blindly preparing for a big allin, and your non-allin aggressive move simply walks into a meatgrinder. If you scout for his army size and composition, it would allow you to decide whether to attack or defend, and how to adjust your army composition accordingly (you can just warp in zealots or stalkers, whichever works better). Usually aggressive play is for the purpose of always knowing what your opponent is up to, so the scouting is not exactly necessary. Also just because you go to attack an opponent who is all-in doesn't mean you are walking into a meat grinder, you can just go back to your base or keep trying to trade with him as efficiently as possible as he crosses the map to your base.
Well I guess a better way to phrase my point is to send something up ahead in advance of your army, like a stimmed marine or a probe to scout what is ahead. I've seen a pro stream where the player deliberately unsieged and resieged his tanks to that the opponent would take at least 2 volleys of siege fire; that was what I was thinking about. The worst case scenario is that you walk your army up a ramp, then forcefields come down trapping your army in a hopeless position.
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Heh has a good point, though I don't think it's personally applicable to me.
In PvP, I always scout before attacking. In fact, I don't attack unless I scout in enough detail to see my opponent's economy, tech, and army so I can pinpoint a weakness.
In PvZ and PvT, I harass with the first few units. In PvZ my opponent can't catch me (I scout gas timings and retreat before ling speed can finish) and in PvT, it's the same, because Stalkers rule. If my opponent has expanded, he can't be all-ining, and I never attack up a ramp, I just move up, scout the front, and then run like hell.
All aggression after the initial aggression is based on scouting, so I don't walk blindly into all-ins.
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EPT
