CS2 Zeus x27: Range, Recharge and the $100 Kill

Five hundred damage, all of it through armor, delivered to anything within about 120 units, which is roughly 2.3 metres. The Zeus x27 kills any player it reaches, and it reaches almost nothing.

That trade is as old as Global Offensive. What Counter-Strike 2 changed is everything around it. Since February 2024 the Zeus recharges instead of vanishing after one shot, since April 2024 a kill with it actually pays, and the game's own files spell out how far it reaches, how many you can buy and what happens to it when you die. Until now this site covered it in a table row and one paragraph of the economy guide. Here is the whole weapon, from Valve's release notes and the game files as they stood after the September 22, 2026 update.

The Zeus in 30 seconds

Everything in the "weapons.vdata" rows comes from the Counter-Strike 2 weapon definitions file, read from SteamDB's public GameTracking-CS2 repository, which mirrors the game's files after every update. The convars come from the same repository's dump of the game's console variables.

500 damage, no armor, any hitbox

The weapons file gives the Zeus 500 base damage and an armor ratio of 2.0. Armor penetration is half the armor ratio: the AK-47's 1.55 in the same file is the 77.5% this site's rifle guides quote. On that scale the Zeus sits at 100%, so a vest and helmet absorb none of it. The SG 553, which the AUG vs SG 553 guide covers, carries the same 2.0.

Then the arithmetic stops mattering. Five hundred is five full health bars. The legs take the smallest share of damage of any hitbox, three-quarters (the Counter-Strike Wiki's AWP table turns that rifle's 115 damage into 86 on a leg hit), and three-quarters of 500 still lands 375. So the Zeus does not care where the shot connects: head, chest, arm, stomach or leg, a hit is a kill. Compare the AWP, a $4,750 rifle whose 86-damage leg shot through armor leaves a full-health target standing.

Distance barely touches it inside its reach. The Zeus's range modifier is 0.99, the same value the AWP carries, so at the full 120 units it still deals about 499.

What it cannot do is hit anything through anything. Its penetration value is 0, against 2.0 for the AK-47 and 2.5 for the AWP, so a Zeus shot stops at the first surface in its way. A door, a crate or a thin wall between you and the target means no kill.

About 120 units: the reach, from the file

Reach is the Zeus's whole identity, and it is the number sources disagree on.

The weapons file sets the Zeus's range to 120 units. That field is the maximum distance a shot travels. It is the same field that sets the MAG-7 and Sawed-Off at 1,400, which lines up with the roughly 1,408 units at which the shotgun guide records their pellets vanishing. On the standard Source conversion of 0.75 inches per unit, 120 units is about 2.3 metres.

For scale, the $200 Glock-18 in the same file has a range of 4,096 units, about 34 times as far. The game's own item text for the Zeus does not oversell it either: "A rechargeable one shot kill at short range."

Two things about that number are worth knowing:

• It changed at some point in the move to CS2. Global Offensive's item schema, in the last copy SteamDB captured before CS2 replaced it, listed the Zeus at a range of 190 with a range modifier of 0.0049, a steep falloff curve. The earliest CS2 weapons file in the same repository, from May 2024, already reads 120 and 0.99. Valve's April 25, 2024 note that it "adjusted the attack cone" is the only line in CS2's release notes that describes a change to how the Zeus connects, and it gives no numbers.
• The Counter-Strike Wiki's figures are different. Its Zeus page says the Zeus kills in one hit inside 183 units, can leave a target alive between 183 and 230, and does nothing beyond 230. It does not tag those numbers to a game, and I could not reproduce them from either Global Offensive's schema or the CS2 file. This post uses the file's 120.

In practice, 2.3 metres means doorways, corners and the far side of a boost, not open ground. Hold it where the enemy has to walk into you.

Thirty seconds, then it is back

Valve's February 6, 2024 release notes changed what the Zeus is: "Made Zeus reusable in all game modes, after a 30 second recharge delay." Before that update it was a one-shot purchase. The live setting is the convar mp_taser_recharge_time, which defaults to 30 and which the game describes as "-1 = disabled." None of the official mode configs I checked overrides it, so 30 seconds is the rule in Premier, Competitive, Wingman, Casual, Deathmatch and Rush.

The same update replaced the Zeus's "charging, charge not available and charge ready" sound effects, so the weapon tells you its state by ear. The Counter-Strike Wiki adds that the recharge sound can be heard by enemies as well as teammates, even when the Zeus is not in your hands. I could not confirm that against a Valve source, so treat it as the wiki's claim.

What 30 seconds buys you in a real round: Competitive's config sets the defuse round clock to 1.92 minutes, which is the 1:55 you see on the HUD. Fire the Zeus at 1:30 and it is live again at 1:00, and again at 0:30 if you used it at 1:00. A second Zeus kill in one round is possible. It needs the first one to come early.

On a private server the recharge is an ordinary server setting. The convar dump does not flag it as a cheat, so you can shorten it for drills. The practice server guide has the offline setup.

$200 in, $100 out

The Zeus costs $200, the same as a flashbang or a Glock-18 in the weapons file. For most of its life it paid nothing back. The Counter-Strike Wiki's update log records Global Offensive cutting its kill award to $0 on October 1, 2015, and Counter-Strike 2 kept that until April 25, 2024, when Valve "Increased Zeus kill reward from $0 to $100 ($50 in Casual)." The current weapons file still reads 100.

One kill loses you $100 on the purchase, and it takes two kills, at least 30 seconds apart, to break even. The $100 is the same reward an AWP kill pays, a third of a rifle kill's $300, and a fifteenth of the knife's $1,500, which the knife damage guide covers. The Zeus is a weapon you buy for the kill, not the money. The money in that kill is the rifle the enemy drops, as the economy guide points out.

What the $200 does not cost you is one of your weapon loadout slots. The game's item schema gives the Zeus its own loadout category, called equipment2, separate from the pistol, mid-tier and rifle groups that Valve's June 6, 2023 notes split into "1 Starting Pistol slot, 4 Pistol slots, 5 Mid-tier slots... and 5 Rifle slots, per team." The Counter-Strike Wiki's buy menu table lists it in the Equipment section, beside Kevlar ($650), Kevlar and helmet ($1,000) and the defuse kit ($400), the prices the item schema gives all three.

How many you can buy, by mode

The limit has changed before. The Counter-Strike Wiki's log records a September 18, 2015 Global Offensive update restricting the Zeus to one purchase per round with no dropping. Global Offensive's December 17, 2020 update then said: "Zeus restrictions in Casual, Wingman, and Competitive modes are now the same as all other weapons." Counter-Strike 2's configs still follow that rule. In all four modes below, the Zeus cap equals the mode's cap on every other weapon type. The game-wide default for that per-type cap, mp_weapons_allow_typecount, is 5. The Zeus's own setting, mp_weapons_allow_zeus, defaults to 1, so each of these configs sets it explicitly.

Premier has no config file of its own in the game files. The one matchmaking file that loads after the Competitive config, gamemode_competitive_tmm.cfg, sets freeze time, overtime and timeouts, and does not touch the Zeus. Rush, the 3v3 mode added on September 22, 2026, uses the same five-purchase cap under a $10,000 money limit.

It drops when you die. The convar mp_death_drop_taser defaults to true, "Drop taser on player death," and none of the mode configs I checked overrides it. A Zeus you are carrying when you die lands on the floor, and the item schema lists it for both Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists, so the other team can use yours.

Two modes run their own Zeus rules, both from Valve's notes:

• Deathmatch. From February 15, 2024, "the Zeus can be bought each life and will rebuy if not in random weapon mode," and "getting a second Zeus kill in the same life will earn double points." On October 1, 2025 Valve "Limited Zeus-x27 kill streak bonus in deathmatch." The convar behind the cap, mp_dm_taser_bonus_streak_max, defaults to 2 and is described as the "Maximum times to multiply the score for getting a streak of taser kills in a single life."
• Arms Race. When the mode returned on February 6, 2024, Valve's announcement said you can steal an opponent's progress "with your knife (or now with the Zeus)."

It rides with your knife, and runs slower

The weapons file puts the Zeus in the knife's gear slot at position 1, with the knife at position 0, and the item schema agrees ("melee," position 1). It lives with your knife, not with your pistol.

Its run speed is 230 units per second. Valve's April 25, 2024 notes "Increased Zeus movement speed," and Global Offensive's schema had it at 220. That makes it as fast as an SSG 08 or a Desert Eagle and faster than any assault rifle, which top out at 225 with the M4s. The Counter-Strike Wiki gives 120 walking and 78 crouch-walking.

It is still 20 units per second slower than the knife's 250. If you are rotating between sites, pull the knife, not the Zeus, and switch when you arrive. The movement guide explains why a weapon's run speed changes how long you slide when you stop.

Stickers, charms and chickens

The February 6, 2024 update also "Added support for applying stickers and name tags to the Zeus." The current item schema tags it for stickers and for keychains, which is what the files call charms. The Kilowatt Case, which launched in the same update, includes a Zeus finish called Olympus, according to the Counter-Strike Wiki's page for that case.

And the most recent Zeus change is the least tactical. Valve's September 22, 2026 update, the one that added Rush, contains the line "Chickens now take damage from the Zeus x27." A Zeus shot at a chicken now does what you would expect. It still costs you the 30-second recharge.

Every Zeus change in CS2 release notes

I searched every Counter-Strike announcement in Steam's news feed from 2023 onward, which covers the limited test and all of Counter-Strike 2, for "Zeus" and "taser." These are the release-note lines that turned up:

Nothing in that list changes the $200 price, the 500 damage or the 30-second recharge since they were set.

Where the wiki is behind Valve

The Counter-Strike Wiki's Zeus page is still the handiest single reference, but three things on it lag the game:

• The range figures. The page's 183 and 230 units match neither the CS2 weapons file (120) nor Global Offensive's schema (190), as covered above.
• The update log. It lists two Counter-Strike 2 entries, February 6 and April 25, 2024. It leaves out the February 15, 2024 Deathmatch rules, the October 23, 2024 fixes, the October 1, 2025 streak limit and the September 22, 2026 chicken change.
• The purchase limit. The log still shows the 2015 "only be purchased once per round and cannot be dropped" entry, with no later entry on purchase limits. The page's overview does say a later update made the Zeus droppable, but nothing on the page mentions the December 2020 change that put its purchase limit in line with every other weapon, which is why Competitive allows five today.

What I could not verify

• The reach, measured in a match. The 120 is the file's range field. I have not measured it in game, and Valve has not said what the April 2024 "attack cone" adjustment does.
• Whether a partly recharged Zeus keeps its timer into the next round. No note or convar description says.
• What five purchases per round means in practice. The config allows five, but I could not confirm whether you can buy a fresh Zeus while you are carrying one that is still recharging, or only after dropping it.
• Whether a Zeus kill still steals progress in Arms Race. Valve announced it in February 2024, and no later release note reverses it, but I have not confirmed it in a current match.
• Whether enemies hear your recharge sound. That is the wiki's claim, not Valve's.

More weapon breakdowns live on the Counter-Strike 2 coverage hub, and the wider archive is on the Mythras blog.

Quick Action Checklist

• The Zeus does 500 damage with 100% armor penetration, so a hit anywhere on the body kills.
• Its reach is 120 units in the game files, about 2.3 metres. Play doorways and corners, never open ground.
• It cannot shoot through anything. Its penetration value is 0.
• It recharges 30 seconds after you fire it. Use it early and you can get a second shot in the same 1:55 round.
• It costs $200 and pays $100 a kill in Premier, Competitive and Wingman ($50 in Casual). Buy it for the kill, not the money.
• It does not take one of your 15 weapon loadout slots. It sits in the buy menu's Equipment section.
• Competitive and Premier allow five Zeus purchases per player per round, and Casual allows two.
• It drops when you die, so the enemy can take it.
• It shares the knife's slot but runs at 230, 20 slower than the knife. Rotate with the knife.