“When thrown, the incendiary grenade releases a high-temperature chemical reaction capable of burning anyone within its wide blast radius.”―Official description
The Incendiary Grenade is a unique weapon available only to Counter-Terrorists in Counter-Strike 2. Its Terrorist counterpart is the Molotov.
Overview
Incendiary grenades, designed to release fire, are used for both anti-personnel and anti-material purposes. Modern versions often utilize Thermite, a compound that can burn through metals and is nearly impossible to extinguish once ignited.
In the game, the Incendiary Grenade is the priciest grenade for Counter-Terrorists, costing $600. It serves both defensive and offensive purposes. Defensively, it can prevent enemies from accessing critical areas such as bomb sites, important pathways, or locations where hostages are held. Offensively, it can force enemies out of hiding by setting their cover on fire, making them vulnerable to attack or causing them to take damage.
When thrown, the grenade explodes upon hitting a walkable surface with an angle of 30 degrees or less, spreading flammable liquid and creating a fiery area that burns anyone within it. It bounces off other surfaces and will explode mid-air after two seconds if it hasn't landed, although this airborne explosion is ineffective unless it occurs less than 128 units above a surface, in which case the flames will fall and ignite the ground.
The flames initially deal 1 damage, increasing with each hit up to a maximum of 8, and then cause 40 damage per second with 100% armor penetration to anyone in contact, including the user, teammates, and hostages. The fire lasts approximately 7 seconds (specifically, 7.03125 seconds), and overlapping flames can stack the damage.
Smoke Grenades can extinguish the flames, provided at least one-third of the flames are covered by the smoke. However, the flames do not spread within the smoke.
Switching to another weapon after throwing the Incendiary Grenade takes a noticeably longer time compared to other grenades.
Tactics
- Use incendiary grenades to block common choke points, disrupting enemy strategies.
- Pair with the Molotov to secure entryways to key areas like bomb sites, preventing enemy access.
- Use the flames to flush enemies out of common hiding spots.
- In Bomb Defusal scenarios, throw a Molotov on the planted C4 to prevent Counter-Terrorists from defusing the bomb, as the minimum defuse time (5 seconds) is sufficient for the fire to kill a player at full health.
Trivia
- The Incendiary Grenade makes a sound when releasing flames, likely to align with the Molotov's characteristics and to warn players of nearby fire.
- It has less armor penetration than the Molotov, making it slower at killing armored opponents despite being more expensive.
- Both the Molotov and Incendiary Grenade are similar to the CS Grenade (a gas grenade from the original Counter-Strike) as area denial tools.
- The in-game Incendiary Grenade likely uses flammable liquid rather than solid white phosphorus, commonly found in real-life incendiary grenades.
- It shares its weapon type with the Molotov cocktail and does not have its own achievement icon image.
- The grenade is a retextured model of the Global Offensive Smoke Grenade, modeled after the Model 5210 Smoke Grenade but marked as the AN/M14 incendiary grenade.
Behind the Scenes
- Initially, the Molotov was the incendiary device for both factions before the game was released.
- Unused impact kill icons resembling those from Team Fortress 2 and Portal stick men figures can be found in the game files.
- Before the Panorama update, the regular impact kill icon (identical to the HUD icon) did not appear in-game. Kills made with incendiary devices through impact would only display the killer and victim's names in the feed. The Panorama update fixed this, and the icon now properly shows up between the killer and victim's names.
