It is very useful to know Nanoswarm lineups so you can deny defusals and deal damage from a safe distance, but it is impractical to learn lineups for every nook and cranny on all the maps. So, this guide will teach you to create your own molly lineups on the spot.

The Sky Pixel

To throw lineups from anywhere, we need a universal reference point. For that, we can use the Sky Pixel. The Sky Pixel is the highest point on every map, and you can always find it if you look straight up. As long as there is nothing obstructing your view, you can use this as a reference for your lineups. It can sometimes be hard to see, but changing your Anisotropic Filter to 1x and turning on Experimental Sharpening in your Graphics Settings can make it easier to see.

The angle you throw your Nanoswarms affects the distance it will travel. If you throw straight up, it will go 0m. If you throw it while facing forward, it will go 19m. As long as you can see the Sky Pixel, you can use it as a reference to gauge the angle you want to throw.

Making Lineups

To create your own lineups, first ping where you want your swarm to land as a reference. The ping will tell you the distance between you and where you want your Nanoswarm to land. This value is important because it determines how far up you want to look.

Start by looking towards your reference point and then carefully looking up a bit without moving your crosshairs horizontally. Now you’ll need to figure out how much further up to look depending on the distance. This is the hard part. There are 5 good reference values to remember: 11m, 22m, 29m, 33m, and 39m.

If you want to throw a Nanoswarm 39m, you want to look up at an angle that places the Sky Pixel right at the top edge of your screen and throw.

If you want to throw it 33m, put the Sky Pixel at the tip under the match timer and then throw your Nanoswarm.

You can also put the Sky Pixel halfway, ¼ of the way, or ¾ of the way between your crosshair and the tip.

These angles are a bit more difficult to do because you have to guess approximately where to look. So it’s a good idea to practice these in a custom game first.

If done correctly, the Nanoswarms will always land within ±2m where you marked. Nanoswarms have a diameter of 10m so this will suffice for most situations.

Scoreboard Lineups

For some angles, you can even use your scoreboard. These can be pretty simple to line up, but don’t go very far.

If you line the very top of your scoreboard up with the Sky Pixel, your Nanoswarm will go 22m. One row down, it will go 19m. Then 16m, 14m, and 11mm. Anything lower will come straight back down. This only works when there are 10 players in your match, so you can’t practice these in a custom yourself.

Things to Consider

Often, the distance from your ping won’t be one of the exact reference values you have. When this happens you can do one of two things: change your position or estimate the angle.

If you have the time and space to do so, it’s usually better to just move a bit closer or farther away to be able to use a reference angle. This way you can have a more precise throw.

Sometimes you won’t have the luxury of time and space and you’ll need to guess the angle from where you are. When you want to estimate the angle to throw at, you can use the closest reference values. For example, if you want to throw a Nanoswarm 24m. You can line the Sky Pixel somewhere between ½ and ¾ of the way up, but closer to ½ because 24m is closer to 22m than to 29m.

One important thing to remember when trying this is that the angle and distance relationship is not linear even though it almost is. So halfway between two reference angles may not always be exactly the average distance. For example, halfway between the ¾ angle and ¼ angle is 22m instead of 20m.

Sometimes you will also need to adjust the angle to account for differences in elevation. If you want to throw your Nanoswarm somewhere lower, put the Sky Pixel a bit lower on your screen. This will throw your Nanoswarm slightly less far and will account for the lower elevation. If you want to throw to an elevated position, put the Sky Pixel higher or do a jump throw to gain some extra distance.

Jumping

Especially on larger maps like Breeze or Icebox, throwing your Nanoswarm a maximum of 39m won’t be enough. To get some extra distance, you can incorporate jump throws. If you do a jump and throw your Nanoswarm immediately after jumping, you can get a 25-30% distance increase. If you do a jump throw at a 17m angle, it can go 22m. Or if you do a jump throw at a 33m angle it can do 43m. The timing of your throw can heavily affect the distance, so this method can be inconsistent without practice.

Tips

• Avoid jump throws when you can because those can be inconsistent.
• Using the scoreboard and the top of your screen for lineups will help your angles be precise, so use those when you can instead of estimating the angles.
• For people that don’t want to remember many numbers, just remember the 33m and the 39m lineups as those are the most common ones to use.

Limitations

There are obviously some limitations to this technique. This only works when you can see the Sky Pixel and when there is nothing that could block your Nanoswarm like trees or buildings. Some of the lineups can be difficult to estimate and this will take some practice to be able to do quickly and efficiently. Also using this method, you can only throw your Nanoswarms up to 50m. Another thing to remember is these Nanoswarms can take a while to land, so it’s important to remember that for post plant situations.

Conclusion

Although this guide was for Killjoy’s Nanoswarms, you can do this for other agents’ abilities too including Sova, Viper, Brim, KAY/O, Sage, and Cypher. You can use the same references angles but the distances for each projectile will be different. So you will have to find those yourself.

Get out there and rain Nanoswarms down onto your enemies!