Standoff 2 Guide to Aggressive Play: Learn What Is Smart Play by Play
If you’ve ever watched high-ranking players, you have probably wondered how those players can play so aggressively at times, and seemingly get away with it. However, when you play aggressively, the enemies will always just 1 tap you out of the air, as if they are the best players in the world. This feeling exists in all ranks. There are times when you would be playing on a smurf in gold lobbies, and Timmy who is Gold 2 just shoots through smoke and his first bullet finds its way to you. So how do these players get away with it? Well, that’s what this Standoff 2 guide is about, so stick with it.
What is Aggression?
Let’s start out with the basics of what you need to know about aggressive play, though. Or even, what really is considered ‘aggressive’ in Standoff 2. Basically, the term aggressive suggests that there is some risk involved. Just for the purpose of this example, let’s say there are two types of aggression. The first type is dumb aggression. The reason it’s considered dumb is because the player is playing aggressively with little information or reason to why they are playing aggressively. They are risking a massive amount with this aggression because they don’t know much about the situation. An example of dumb aggression would be running into a pre-aimed corner without using any utility.
This is certainly aggressive, but it’s also really dumb. Hence the term dumb aggression. A more methodical approach to clearing an angle if you were not to use utility would be to slow it down and clear every angle carefully before moving on to the next. Now, it would still be a lot safer for you to use utility to clear an angle. But you’ll notice it’s probably a lot safer for a player to slowly clear an angle than it is for them to just wide swing out. The reason for doing that in Standoff 2 is if they move too quickly without any information, they heavily risk exposing themselves to too many angles and getting themselves killed. Notice how many angles wide swinging exposes you to.
This is really bad in most situations and you want to avoid that. This is why we’re calling it dumb aggression. Most of the time you’re not going to want to just wide swing into an angle without using utility. But you’re also not going to want to all the time clear these angles slowly. Doing that leaves you a lot more open to walking into a crossfire or getting caught off guard. Eventually, there are going to be angles that you won’t be able to clear alone without utility. So what does this mean? Well, you guessed it, you’re going to have to use utility. There’s more that goes into doing this in Standoff 2, and here you will get a proper break it down.
But for the sake of this discussion, let’s call this calculated aggression. This is a really cool strategy that you can run with your teammates in diamond lobbies. If you throw a smoke and Molotov at the start of the round, it will clear out all the enemies trying to push through that. This means that if the Molotov’s fire tags anyone, you’ll know that someone is there. Then when you push through the smoke, drop a flash in. However, if molly’s fire DOES NOT tag anyone, that means there is no one on that angle. In both situations, what you can do, is smoke, and if someone is there, you are either going to flash them and likely kill them.
If they are not on that angle, you will run straight through that angle knowing it’s safe, and quickly bombard into the site. This is what can be called calculated aggression. This is a very aggressive play, because you literally full sprint from mid, onto a site through a corner, but safely. The reason you know it is safe is because you’ve used your utility to protect your team. If instead, you ran into that same corner without smoking and without flashing or molly-ing, you wouldn’t know if enemies are there or not. Then you don’t know if you should play more carefully and clear every angle, or if we should keep going. This is the difference between dumb aggression, and calculated aggression.
Now that you understand aggression, let’s go over some of the top level plays and strategies you can get away with playing aggressive. Because there really is a lot more that goes into it than it may seem. You can’t be doing dumb stuff to do win but have a plan in mind, that you should be executing. Even if that plan is as simple as you going to smoke an area, and holding, there’s always a plan. This is something that is really important because if you’re going to play aggressively, you need to have a plan. If you just run in, and at the first sign of conflict you don’t know what to do, you’re going to be in trouble. But if you know what you’re going to do after you engage, it becomes a lot easier.
Play 1
In this play, you’re playing Defuse on the Sandstone map of Standoff 2. This is a play for times when you already know or have an idea of the enemy’s location. In this case, you know that two players are dead, there were two players shooting at your teammates, and there was a player with an AWM. Now, you have decided to create a smoke wall and then immediately go for the kill into the corner. If you wait too long behind this smoke wall, or even waits too long to use the smoke, this plan doesn’t work. Either your smoke gets used up, or the enemy player pushed up too much before the smoke wall, and ends up getting a kill.
You should always try to keep in mind what your plan is because if you don’t have a plan, it’s going to be really hard to play smoothly, and intelligently. Over time, you’ll get better at developing a plan. For now, just try to remember that your movements should be in sync. You can’t be confused in this game. Confusion comes from a lack of understanding of what is going on around you. It’s hard to be confused when you understand what is going on. Those two things directly contradict each other. So try your best to pay attention to what is going on in the round, and try to see opportunities within that information.
Due to the timing in the round, the last player is very likely still rotating, and if they’re fast they can take 1v1 on a blind AWM user, before dropping down to safety with your team. Keep in mind that you already have information on 3 of the 5 remaining players, and a guess on the general vicinity of the last player. Because two are dead, you saw one, and the two players are shooting your teammates right now. That means the last player is probably is rotating right now. This is what you call calculated aggression. You know based on the information available to you to make this aggressive play.
It is a risky play, but there’s almost always going to be risk involved in aggressive plays. Maybe your smokes manage to miss, and the AMW kills you. Maybe the enemy player is closer than you anticipate, and ends up killing you when he goes for this strategy, that’s also possible. Still, it’s not nearly as risky, as making this play, when you only know the location of 1 player. The cool thing about Standoff 2 is that the whole game is about isolating your gun fights. If you just full swing into two players instead of one, it’s possible they’ll kill you. Instead, you quickly go for a peek, land the first shot, and then repeek a second later to finish off.
This type of play is pretty aggressive. You definitely can’t shy away from a gunfight. However, you also need to make sure that when you take a gunfight, you’re not exposing yourself too much. This is a prime example of how to play aggressively without dying. Use your utility to make 1v1’s easier, and isolate your gunfights, making sure to only take fights that favor you. Make sure to have a plan, and if you’re going to wide swing something, make sure you’re using a utility to make the fight favor you first.
Play 2
Let’s move on to another play that goes into some more subtle things about aggression that a lot of players don’t pick up on generally. Specifically, what this is about, is how players react to the things that you do in Standoff 2. Because it’s important to keep in mind, the enemy team is constantly reacting to the information they are given, just the same as you are. So if you make noise, that means they are going to hear that noise, and react to it. You can use this logic to make assumptions about how that player may react. The irony here is that sometimes at lower ranks, players won’t do exactly what is logical. So sometimes it can be more difficult to predict their movement. However, for the most part, this sort of way of thinking will normally prevail.
Especially as you start climbing. In this play, you’re in a 1v2, with the bomb currently down. The enemy is going to smoke the bomb plant, and you’re going to attempt to jump without making noise. Unfortunately, you’re going to mess it up, and it will in fact make noise. So what does this mean? Well, it means both enemy players now know where you are, which is a bad thing in a 1v2. A lot of players, after making this noise, might try to pretend like they didn’t and go back to walking. Instead, you should go full aggressive. You can’t be sneaky anymore, they already know where you are. You have to act fast now because it’s possible these two players will double swing you.
Since you decided to act fast, you catch them incredibly off guard and are able to land the first kill. Then you immediately turn your attention to the other player, who has just started defusing the bomb, something that a lot of players are going to miss that would have lost this round. How is this player is going to react to their teammate being killed right now? Most players would not keep sticking to the bomb knowing that their teammate has died just now. This is really important information here. Because if you think the enemy player is still on the bomb, maybe you’ll try to spray through the smoke, or maybe jump right onto the bomb, anticipating the enemy to be there.
However, you won’t do any of that, since you realize that the enemy has probably left the bomb alone and is anticipating for you to enter. If you sprayed into the smoke from above, the enemy was probably prepared to swing out of the smoke and kill you. If you had jumped right on top of the bomb, his pre-aim would have been completely off. Since you jumped to the left, which is a location the enemy was very unlikely to be standing, you are able to quickly land a headshot and secure the round. It really is the subtleties that are so important in aggressive plays. It’s not generally just an aim difference. Having incredible aim can sometimes bail you out when you make mistakes. It’s more about how well you can isolate your gunfights, and read situations to best find the most favorable course of action.
