Grenades: the How-to's and Not-to's
Here are some things to keep in mind when learning to throw grenades in CS:GO.
To start improving your skills with grenades, you will need a way to practice efficiently. To do so, if you don't know already, you can create an offline game that gives you infinite grenades which allows you to practice to your heart's desires. It only requires a few simple console commands after you start up an offline casual game, "sv_cheats 1", "sv_grenade_trajectory 1", "sv_infinite_ammo 1", "bot_quota_mode 0" and "mp_roundtime_defuse 60" these will create a game where you can throw as many grenades as you want. Additionally, you would want to bind a key to "noclip" as it allows you to fly around the map to observe where your smokes and molotovs actually land.
As you are practicing your grenades, you'll want to keep a few things in mind.
First of all, does the grenade take a lot of time to set up? If the measurements and alignments you use for your grenade takes a long time to set up, say more than 3 seconds, it is generally not a good grenade to use. This is as in CS:GO solo matchmaking games, you will want to be able to throw them as fast as possible as the coordination with your team will not be the best, and thus you will need to be able to use your grenades as soon as a situation in need of it comes up. In the case that you have a 5-man pre-made team, it is always a good practice to make your grenade throwing as efficiently as possible, as it will give you the ability to do faster executes onto bombsites.
Secondly, does throwing your grenade involve movements? If throwing your grenade involves jumping or moving, it will be less reliable, as your character's movement speed do not stay constant at all times. But you can minimize the inconsistency with a few things. First, turn on "cl_showpos 1", this will show your movement speed. There are 3 different positions in CS:GO, crouching, walking and running, all three of them have different maximum movement speed. This means that if your grenades involve using any of these three types of movements, you will want to make sure the grenade that you are throwing is thrown at maximum movement speed, so that it will be the same every time you throw it. Secondly, if your grenades involve jumping, try do it with a bind.
For example, you can bind the o key to jump and throw grenade at the same time by binding in console like the following, bind o "+jump; +attack". This allows you to throw your grenade at the same timing of the jump every time, but you just need to remember to bind a key to "-attack" as the command "+attack" will result in continuous attacks/left clicks.
Thirdly, will this grenade actually be viable in an actual game? This is a rather vague concept as you could argue that any type of grenade can become viable depending on the situation. That is true to an extent, but in general there are some grenades that just won't be used. These are the type of grenades that leave you exposed when you are throwing them, can be thrown in a different and more efficient way, and grenades that do not achieve anything objectively.
Why the grenades that leave you exposed when you are throwing them are bad is self-explanatory, but the other two reasons need some explanations.
As you will find out when you are practicing on your own, there will be many different ways to throw the same grenade that either flashes the same spot, smokes the same spot or lands the Molotov on the same spot. These different ways to throw them will inevitably have differences between them, which can include the time it takes for the grenade to take effect, any bounces it makes, the visibility of their trajectory, and the location that you throw it from.
All of these factors can have a separate article written on them, so I will briefly explain why they are important to note when throwing and learning your grenades.
- You will want to minimize the time it takes for your smokes and Molotovs to set off as it allows faster execution, less time for the enemy to react, and more grace time for you to synchronize your grenades with other ones that take longer to set off.
- You will also want to avoid any unnecessary bounces that the grenades makes when it is thrown. This is as when facing skilled opponents they will be able to react to flashes at times when given the sound of the flashes bouncing off walls, and smokes that bounce generally take longer to set off, which allows the enemy to adjust their position accordingly.
- The visibility of the grenades when they are traveling is fairly self-explanatory of why they are important to minimize.
- Lastly, the location you throw the grenades from should allow you to take advantage of the grenades, be it smokes, flashes or Molotovs, for the longest possible duration. For example, you wouldn't want to throw your grenades from carpets on Mirage to bombsite A, unless you are doing a fake.
Lastly, don't forget to practice different types of grenades on the Counter-Terrorist side too. Often we get too focused on figuring out grenades to take a bombsite with, and we forget the fact that for the other half of the game we are defending the said sites. So when you're practicing, also practice grenades that you can use to retake bombsites, stop rushes, etc.
Now get in game, type in the commands, and have fun figuring out smokes and flashes that you will be able to use in game!
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