Overview
Grenades are some of the powerful and useful weapons in Team Fortress Classic. Here’s how to use them effectively.
Grenade basics
Let’s start with the basics of grenade usage.
Tossing grenades
You can toss a primary grenade by hitting the F key and a secondary grenade with the G key by default. You can hold down a grenade key to delay throwing it. Delaying throwing a grenade is called priming.
Priming grenades
When you hit a grenade key, you will hear a series of beeps. This indicates how long it takes until the grenade explodes. There are three regular beeps and one longer bee-eep. When the bee-eep plays, the grenade will explode. The time between the last regular beep and the bee-eep is shorter than the time between the regular beeps.
You can use the beeps to your advantage so you can toss a grenade so that it’ll explode before or right after it hits the ground. Hold down the grenade key until you’re ready to toss, then release it. This is called priming.
While priming, you can still fire your weapons.
Note that this does not work for caltrops, which do not cause beeps to play. They will only be released when you release the primary grenade key.
How far a grenade will go when tossed
The distance a grenade goes depends on the angle you’re facing when you release the grenade. The higher you look when tossing it, the higher it will go.
Grenade bags
You usually start with some grenades, but to get more, you’ll have to pick up a special bag, usually called a grenade bag. These usually fill your grenades to the max. Grenade bags usually have a specific sign over them indicating a bag is a grenade bag, a special skin for the grenade bag, or the bag is isolated from the rest of the bags.
Generally, it’s best to let Scouts and Medics take grenade bags. Their concussion grenades are key for offense in any game mode, and they’ll need every one they can get. However, if you’re playing defense in an attack and defend map or invade and defend map, they won’t need them (if there are any on the team at all, that is), so feel free to grab one if you feel you need an extra boost in power, particularly if your class has powerful secondary grenades, such as the Engineer, Demoman, and Heavy.
The grenade jump
Explosive grenades and the concussion grenade can be used to perform grenade jumps. There are two ways to do a grenade jump, handheld (HH) or tossed.
A HH grenade jump is done by holding the grenade, then hitting the jump key right as it explodes. This will do a lot of damage, but it will boost someone high.
A tossed grenade is trickier to do, but gets you more distance if done right. Toss a grenade, then jump forward, past the grenade, when the grenade explodes. Use the timer to determine when it’s best to jump. If done right, you’ll fly farther than if you used a HH grenade jump.
Grenades in combat
Now, let’s see how to use grenades in combat.
Tossing grenades for indirect attacks
Grenades are great for indirectly attacking someone or something. Some examples of how to do indirect attacks on grenades are
- Tossing a grenade at an enemy sniper nest or battlements while heading elsewhere (such as tossing a grenade at 2fort’s battlements while heading through the front door).
- Tossing a grenade so that it bounces off a wall and explodes near anyone near it. This works best in tight hallways, from 2fort’s spiral to the right tunnel that leads to the church in Avanti. This is also effective for clearing out defenders from the flag room or dealing with sentries.
Grenades when fighting someone
The real advantage of grenade priming is as a boost when fighting someone. When you see an enemy start to attack you, hit and hold down the primary grenade key. When you hear the last regular beep start to play, toss the grenade at the foe. The grenade will explode and do a lot of damage to the foe, possibly killing them.
Doing this is a big help for any class. For weaker classes, like Medic, it helps you even the odds when you’re trying to get enemy defense off your back. For slow but powerful classes, a grenade can make it easier to defeat an opponent using a powerful class and to catch a pesky faster class n a large explosion.
This takes a little practice, but you’ll get the hang of timing it.
Throwing grenades while retreating
Grenades can also be useful while retreating. If you feel a fight is not going your way, start priming a grenade, then being to retreat. While running away, toss the grenade at where you were at before you began to retreat. This will hopefully either kill the enemy or scare them enough to let you have a clean getaway to the nearest bag, medkit, or armor pickup.
Kamikaze attacking
You can use the fact that a grenade will explode while still holding it to your advantage. If a target is extremely close to you and you have enough health to survive a grenade explosion, do not toss the grenade. Instead, hold it until it blows up. You’ll take a good amount of damage, but the enemy will also eat the blast, possibly killing him. Nobody ever expects a kamikaze grenade surprise.
This really only works for normal grenades, but it can work in a pinch with MIRV grenades.
Dying with a grenade
If you die while holding a grenade, the grenade will fall to the ground at the exact spot you died. While not always effective, you an score a kill with a grenade dropped after you die if your opponent is weak enough and unaware of the grenade. If you do this in an area packed with enemies, the grenade can help clear it out, giving your team some breathing move to run in.
If your health is low and you can’t quickly reach healing, feel free to prime a grenade and rush the enemy. You never know if you’ll get a kill or two with a dropped grenade.
Grenade spam
Grenade spamming is one of the most controversial parts of Team Fortress Classic, to the point where Valve removed grenades in Team Fortress 2 to prevent it. However, it is a valid strategy, much as some people don’t want to admit it.
Grenade spamming is great as a way to for area denial. A barrage of grenades can make anyone think twice about crossing a vital area, such as the pits that mark the start of the second and third parts of Dustbowl. For defenders in attack vs defense maps, area denial via grenade spam means less time for the enemy team to reach a capture point, which translates to more points for them because defenders get more points they longer they hold a point.
Spies and tossing grenades
Grenades are of particular interest to Spies, as they do not lose their disguise when tossing grenades. This makes grenades, particularly the normal grenade, an ideal weapon for destroying sentries. Just toss a few normal grenades and the sentry, along with possibly the Engineer with it.
Grenade tossing as a disguised Spy is best done either while running (to reduce the chance of someone noticing you) or when mixed with a large amount of enemies (so that it’s hard to determine exactly who tossed the grenades).
Grenade types
Now that you know how to use grenades in combat, it’s time to learn about the various grenades the game has to offer. They are divided into two classes; primary and secondary.
Primary
These grenades are tossed with the F key by default.
Normal grenade
Classes: All except Scout and Civilian
Maximum amount carried: 4
The normal grenade is the primary grenade of almost every class in the game. It’s extremely simple; when the timer goes off, the grenade explodes. They do a large amount of damage and have a pretty good-sized explosion radius (larger than the explosion sprite indicates).
Normal grenades are the bread and butter grenade of most classes. They’re powerful, common, and very easy to use, making them perfect for a variety of situations. Normal grenades are perfect for many situations, from spamming to sentry destruction as a Spy. If in doubt, use a normal grenade.
Caltrop
Classes: Scout
Maximum amount carried: 3
The caltrop is a pair of small metal spikes. Unlike other grenades, caltrops do not explode and cannot be primed. When the primary grenade key is released, 6 caltrops are released.
If someone walks on a caltrop, they will take minor damage, but most importantly, they will suffer a temporary speed penalty. The speed penalty will only stack three times.
Caltrops are a handy weapon for discouraging enemy pursuit while holding the enemy flag. The speed penalty a single caltrop inflicts can make it difficult for most classes to catch up to the flag holder, while the speed penalty from walking on two or more will make it impossible. Caltrops are also quite effective in tight corridors and chokepoints, because enemies will have to either walk through the caltrops and suffer a large speed penalty, takes a different route to bypass the caltrops, or wait for the caltrops to disappear.
Secondary grenades
Secondary grenades are the semi-unique grenades each class has. These are tossed with the G key by default.
Concussion grenade (Conc grenade)
Used by: Scout and Medic
Maximum amount carried: 3
Concussion grenades are green soda can-shaped grenades. When it explodes, it will release a white, circle-shaped explosion. Anyone caught in the blast will have their screen spin around in an 8-symbol shaped pattern for a few seconds, making it difficult to aim. The closer you are to the explosion, the more severe and longer the spinning effect is.
The most common use for conc grenades is to jump very high and go very fast. Conc jumps operate on the same principles that a regular grenade jump does (see the Grenade jump section for more information). In addition, you can also perform conc jumps in water, unlike regular grenades.
Conc grenades can also be used to disorient defenders. If entering a room that’s often filled with defenders, such as a flag room, toss a conc grenade in, preferably primed. When it goes off, it will disorient the defenders long enough that it’s easy to run in and get the flag or reach the objective without taking damage.
Nail grenade
Used by: Soldier
Maximum amount carried: 2
The nail grenade is a pan-shaped red and white grenade with holes in its sides. When the timer reaches zero, it will spring up a few feet or meters from where it was when the timer reached zero (even if the grenade was in mid-air!) and begin spewing a large amount of nails from every side of the grenade (six sides). After a few seconds of shooting nails, it will explode with a blast radius larger than a normal grenade’s.
Nail grenades are great for sentry gun busting. The sheer amount of nails the nail grenade spews out can easily destroy a sentry and kill the Engineer attempting to turtle it. If the nails don’t get the sentry, the explosion will.
Nail grenades are also very useful for clearing out a chokepoint, but not in the way you’d expect. The nails can do a good amount of damage, but the real strength lies in the large explosion the nail grenade makes. It’s large enough that it can reach a lot of foes and can kill multiple foes at once.
You can also do this to protect a flag, particularly in AvD maps. The blast radius should be big enough to either kill or seriously wound a foe very close to the flag.
MIRV grenade
Used by: Heavy and Demoman
Maximum amount carried: 2
The MIRV grenade is a cake-pan shaped grenade with a handle on top and red circles on each side. When the grenade’s timer reaches zero, the grenade will explode while releasing four small red spheres called bomblets. A few seconds after they are released, they will explode as well. Each of these explosions, from the initial blast to the bomblet explosions, is as effective as a normal grenade’s blast.
The MIRV grenade is the ultimate sentry destroyer. Simply toss one near a sentry, and the sentry is doomed because an Engineer can’t repair the sheer amount of damage four bomblets doing off will do to the sentry, and will get gibbed if he tried to save his sentry when a MIRV has been tossed at it.
MIRV grenades are also great for clearing out chokepoints or area denial work. Toss one and foes will either scatter to the wind or get blown to pieces by either the initial explosion of the bomblets exploding.
Napalm grenade
Used by: Pyro
Maximum amount carried: 4
The napalm grenade is an orange and grey bomb with a ring around it. When it explodes, it will released 15 bursts of fire around the area it exploded in.
Napalm grenades are great for area denial. Napalms work best in tight areas, as these areas are small enough they anyone walking through them will take damage from all the flames. Walking through the fires caused by a napalm grenade can do a lot of damage and will set whoever walked though it on fire, making it an effective deterrent.
Hallucinogen grenade (Gas grenade)
Used by: Spy
Maximum amount carried: 4
The Hallucinogen grenade (also known as gas grenade) is a pill that releases orange particles when the grenade timer reaches zero. If an enemy touches one of the orange particles, they will take damage and being to see and hear things that aren’t actually happening, such as seeing a fake grenade suddenly appear in front of them or hear gunfire that doesn’t really exist. Gas grenades will stay on the ground for about 7 or so seconds, spewing out orange particles.
Gas grenades are great for area denial or for clearing out a chokepoint filled with enemies. For area denial, toss it at a tight area, such as the spiral in 2fort, to prevent enemies from briefly using it. For chokepoint work, it can do a lot of damage to enemies huddled in the chokepoint and force them to scatter, giving your team a chance to move in.
Flag carrying Spies can also use gas grenades as a way to deter enemies from chasing them. The grenade’s large radius means that it can reach pursuing enemies and encourage them to try a longer alternate route to get the Spy.
Beware, though. Releasing one of these will tell people that a Spy is in the area because only Spies can use the gas grenade. Be careful when planning to use one while disguised.
EMP grenade
Used by: Engineer
Maximum amount carried: 4
The EMP grenade is a yellow and black grenade with a ring around it. When it’s timer reaches zero, it will explode, releasing a medium-sized and yellow circle-shaped explosion. If someone is caught in the blast, it will blow up any ammo they have, potentially killing them.
The amount of damage an EMP grenade does depends on how much ammo the class is holding and how close the victim is to the EMP when it explodes. Rockets will do the most damage, while shotgun shells and cells will do damage as well. Nails do not explode when someone is hit with an EMP grenade. Also, the closer the victim is to the explosion, the more ammo will explode, doing more damage.
EMP grenades not only detonate the ammo held by a player, they also blow up any nearby backpacks, pieps, dispensers, grenades, and set Detpack timers to one.
EMPs are a great weapon for Engineers to even the odds against Heavies, Soldiers, and Demomen. These classes hold a lot of either Shotgun shells (Heavy) or rockets and shotgun shells (Soldiers and Demomen), which means that an EMP can often be fatal if these classes are hit by an EMP’s explosion. The EMP is the foundation of a good offensive Engineer because of how powerful it is against most of the most common defensive classes.
To counter an EMP, hit the X button to toss unused ammo after you’ve loaded up. This is particularly useful for classes that don’t use rockets, such as Medics, as rockets will do the most damage to someone if they are hit by an EMP grenade. Even with classes that can’t toss shotgun shells and rockets, the tossed cells can be the difference between life or death.
Misc.
Some other grenade-related stuff that’s useful.
Hold grenade script
[link]This script makes it so that you don’t need to hold down a grenade key to hold a grenade. Hit a grenade key once to start priming it, then hit it again to toss the grenade. Priming strategies still work with this script, but using it means you don’t have to keep a finger holding down a grenade key while you prime it.
Lagless grenade timer
[link]This script makes it so that the grenade timer is no longer dependent on the server, meaning that the timer will be more accurate. Very handy for those that have high ping.
Comes in normal and hold varieties.
HD models for secondary grenades
[link]Replaces the standard models for secondary grenades with ones that are more detailed and have better skins.