WARNING: This video contains flashes. And bangs.
Sometimes, I’m asked a question that transforms the way I see CS:GO forever.
For instance, Sasha K asked me what the maximum amount of time you can spend flashbanged in
proper matchmaking is. What an excellent question.
First of all, I needed to calculate how long you can remain flashed from a single flashbang.
This was harder than it first sounded. It’s not a simple case of chucking it at
the ground, crouching and looking at it! I got slightly better times from a botched
throw onto a sack of grain, which bounced onto the ground and then back up a bit before
exploding. Clearly, I needed to get as close to the explosion as I could.
I got a great result from this flash, which bounced off a wall and exploded in my face.
But nothing could beat noclipping into the ground for an almost perfect view of the BLINDING
EXPLOSION. Maybe you could do better than that, by a
few milliseconds or so. But I’ll stick with this one.
Now, we have to decide: where to start and to stop the timer? It takes a few frames before
you’re entirely blinded, and then it takes a while to fade out again at the end.
I decided to time the duration that you’re 100% blinded. No shoddy half flashes here
thank you very much! Using this fine specimen, upping the contrast
to ensure 100 % flash coverage and recording at quarter speed for maximum accuracy, I was
fully blinded for exactly 9 seconds. Or at fullspeed, 2.25 seconds per flash. Indeed,
a flash fit for a king! Now to picture a dream game.
There are 2 parts: the WARMUP, and the game itself.
Warmup has the potential to be 5 minutes long. Let’s assume 9 people connect immediately-
more than enough to deliver a solid barrage of flashes. Warmup can be made to last the
full 5 minutes if one person takes at least 4 to join- which let’s face it, often happens
in matchmaking. Even with 9 people on for the full 5 minutes though, we can’t be blinded
for all of this, since it took me at least 1.875 seconds after spawning to buy, throw
and for the first flashbang to completely blind me.
After this, it’s perfectly possible to remain blinded, provided a perfect flashbang is thrown
every 2.25 seconds after the first. It would take a minimum of 133 perfectly timed
flashes to keep the flashee blinded until the warmup’s timeout. This would cost $26,600,
easily achievable between the 10 people in warmup. And with plenty to spare! They could
lob a flash a second at him just to be sure. Wouldn’t even have to be that accurate to
ensure full flash coverage. So, minus the time before the first flashbang detonates,
this leaves 298.125 seconds in warmup that a player can remain entirely flashed for.
Not bad going. But, after the 5 minute warmup, the game doesn’t
start immediately! There are 4 seconds of freeze time. If you die and respawn within
this time then you can still move about and shoot your teammates in the face- as I’m
sure we’ve all done at some point. You can’t buy flashbangs during this time, but it turns
out, you don’t have to. If you’re holding a flashbang and LET IT GO immediately before
you’re FROZEN, the flashbang detonates 1.75 seconds later and lasts for 2.25, so does
still cover the whole of this freeze time. Isn’t that convenient. In total I count
298.125 + 4 seconds, a grand total of 5 minutes, 2 seconds and 125 ms of flash time during
a 5 minute warmup. Not a bad start. Now for the game itself. Although limited
to, say, 1 smoke buy per round, the same limit doesn’t apply to flashes. You can buy as
many of these beauties as you can afford! It’s almost as though Valve wants us doing
this… until 20 seconds after the round begins, whereupon the buytime ends.
Now, I constructed this delightful graph of all my workings and calculations, but I’ll
simplify it with this not-so-delightful spreadsheet. This is a single round. You have the freezetime
here, where you discuss strategies and tell your teammates how bad they were the previous
round- obviously, you can’t throw flashbangs at this point. But you can buy them.
During the first 20 seconds of the round, you can buy AND throw flashbangs. So it makes
sense to chuck as many as you can at this stage, and to ensure that when it ends, everybody
still has 2 flashbangs each. And this is the rest of the round, where you
can’t buy any more but the remaining 20 flashbangs equipped by everybody can (and
will!) be thrown. The rest of the round is the simplest. 10
people on the server, 2 flashbangs each = 30 flashbangs altogether.
No it isn’t, it’s 20. 20 flashbangs, each can blind for 2.25 seconds
= a total of 45 seconds. The buytime is a little more complicated.
It takes 1.875 seconds to deploy and for the first flashbang to explode. After this, it’s
easy for another to be thrown every 2.25 seconds to keep the victim 100% blinded.
BUT, it also makes sense to throw a flashbang at the very END of the buytime, because like
we mentioned earlier with the warmup’s freezetime, you can keep a player blinded with flashbangs
thrown during the buytime for the 4 seconds that follow. And THEN we can move onto the
45 seconds of flashes as everybody uses theirs up.
To put it simply: 10 flashes are thrown during buytime, 20 are thrown after. A total of 30
flashes, which equate to a total of 67.125 seconds total flash time.
At $200 per pop (or bang!), this is $6,000 a round that will need to be spent on flashbangs.
The most money-strapped round is of course the pistol-round, where the players on the
server have a combined total of $8,000 to play with. Easily enough.
This means, in a 30 round game + 5 minutes of warmup, with perfectly timed and placed
flashbangs, we can keep a man completely flashbanged for 38 minutes, 35 seconds and 875 ms.
That’s not bad going. Now the questions: why do 30 flashes only
blind for 67.125 seconds, when they should last for 67.5? BECAUSE of the odd timing the
last one during the buytime is thrown at to ensure that everyone is equipped until the
last possible moment. AND, although 67.125 seconds per round is
the theoretical maximum, is it do-able and can it be done without any gaps, effectively
rendering the victim 100% blind for over a minute solid?
The answer to both of these is YES! Even during pistol rounds when each player is limited
to 4 flashbangs per person- enough for 2 during warmup, PLUS another 2 for the moment the
buytime ends. It works out perfectly: if you started with 1 dollar less in pistol rounds
then it wouldn’t be possible. It’s as though Valve had planned for this all along.
Too convenient if you ask me. And what about the time taken for the other
team to reach the flash-fest? A single team can sustain a solid flash for the duration
of buytime and then for an extra 26.5 seconds beyond that as well. This is more than enough
time on any map for the other team to reach the unspeakable act of evil and to contribute
with their own flashes. Even if it wasn’t, if he-who-is-to-be-flashed
is willing to help this noble quest then he could perhaps start shuffling over to the
middle of the map the moment the buytime ends to help the other team to reach in time.
It’s a real shame that Vertigo has been removed, as it had insane potential for trick-throws,
with each player plummeting to their death as they depleted their flashbangs. IN STYLE.
All-in-all, you could pull off the perfect game of flashes for the low, low cost of just
$207,000 dollars. And why limit it to one person? Have 2 people
staring at the grenade and double the blindness! It’s probably even possible to have 4 people
huddled around each and every flash. And if overtime is a possibility then we could carry
this on indefinitely. …Though I think a normal 30-round game would
be enough to cause lasting damage, probably both physically AND mentally.
Tune in next time where I calculate how long you can use flashes to keep a player entirely
deaf for.