A new entry in Ubisoft’s Designer Notes series gives Rainbow Six Siege players an update on operator balance as we continue through Operation Grim Sky. There are only a few immediate changes to balance coming in the next patch, including key nerfs to Clash as well as adjustments to SMGs and Maestro. 

Clash

• Reduced weapon swapping speed between CCE Shield and Sidearm   
• Delay before refilling charge after usage ends increased to 2 seconds, from 1 second   
• Attackers regain full mobility after 0.5 seconds, down from 1.5 seconds, after being shocked

“Ultimately, we believe that this will further drive the idea that Clash is reliant on teammates, as opposed to an Operator than can exist completely independently,” the blog post reads. Clash’s previous super-human weapon swap speed turned out to be the result of a bug that was corrected in last week’s patch. These further changes cement Clash’s role as a scout to make callouts and a way to assist your teammates with kills.

Maestro

Since Maestro’s release back in June, his signature ALDA LMG has proven to be a powerhouse for defender weapons, thanks in part to its unique hipfire recoil that gets more accurate as you keep firing. Ubi said this abnormal advantage led to “confusion, and did not play out in the way that we had anticipated.”

As detailed later in a developer AMA by game designer Emilien Lomet, the original intention behind the ALDA was to try out “suppressive fire gameplay that would not require difficult implementation,” but it didn’t work out the way they hoped. This change still leaves the ALDA in a great place as a defender weapon, but maybe gives Maestro mains a reason to switch to their secondary at close range.

The new recoil patterns introduced for all guns at the outset of Operation Grim Sky had a particularly harsh effect on SMGs with high fire rates. Ubi wanted to discourage using a secondary SMG as your primary, as has been common with Smoke and Dokkaebi. But Ubi has now lowered the recoil of Smoke’s SMG-11 and Mira’s Vector, saying the initial recoil had a “significant impact” on them.

The posts ends with status updates on two operators that the balancing team still isn’t happy with: Lion and Glaz. Ubi says Lion continues to be “problematic for us at higher level play.” They’re working on two possible ways to rework him at the moment. One would “remove the intel gathering aspect of his gadget” entirely, and the other would shift the red outline of his scan to a more “Jackal style ping” that updates the player location at a slower rate. Both of these ideas are in the early stages and nothing is final yet.

Ubi’s comments about Glaz are a little more cryptic, but it wants to move away from his established role as a site pusher. “We want to bring him closer to the original idea of a sniper, holding a line of sight with a high powered rifle,” reads the post. To me, this points to a change to his thermal scope that can see through smoke. One other comment by devs might hint at this possibility. In response to a question about Alibi’s Prisma decoys, the development team said “changes to other operators might make her Prismas more appealing.” Glaz’s scope is the only gadget that can see through the decoy’s ruse, so a future change to this interaction makes sense.

Ubi also gave a quick update on a few other reworks and another operator they’d like to work on in the future. Thatcher and Castle’s reworks are still in progress, Frost’s Welcome Mats continue to be reconsidered, and forever-meme Tachanka will get his rework eventually. A new candidate mentioned was Fuze, whose gadget is “very risky and not reliable to use” most of the time, according to Ubi.

No definite date was given for the mid-season balance patch, but based on Ubi’s track record we can expect it in the next week or so.

The complexity of Rainbow Six Siege is both a blessing and a curse. When trying to get a handle on all 42 operators’ unique gadgets, the task of learning the intricacies and interactions between them all feels insurmountable. To help you better understand how different gadgets can interact with the map and compliment each other, we’ve broken down eight common gadget tricks that you’ll find in Siege.

Courtesy of Varsity Gaming on YouTube.

Bandit Tricking

Bandit tricking is a strategy as old as Siege itself. A large part of Siege’s meta revolves around the struggle between defenders and attackers over the reinforced walls of the objective. Gaining access to far sight lines is a big advantage for the attackers, so the fate of a round sometimes hinges on a few key walls. To guard against the hard breaching power of Thermite and Hibana, Bandit’s batteries can electrify the walls and zap enemy gadgets dead. But if the attackers also bring along the EMP grenades of Thatcher, then Bandit’s batteries are typically destroyed before they can protect anything.

To get around this hard counter for Bandit, players created what is now known as the Bandit trick. It’s done by waiting to place your battery on a wall until you hear a hard breacher placing their charge. If this is timed correctly, the battery will zap the breaching charges before they can go off. The Bandit then picks the battery back up, protecting it from a retaliating Thatcher, and repeats the process again if needed. The trick has since been embraced by Ubisoft as a legitimate part of the meta.

Valkyrie camera placement

Valkyrie is quietly powerful. Her Black Eye cameras can be thrown and stuck almost anywhere on the map and provide invaluable intelligence for your team, in addition to giving dead players something useful to do with their downtime. But after years of being spotted by her cams, players have learned how to quickly scan a room and destroy them.

To avoid this regrettable fate, you’ll have to get extra crafty and find some good hiding spots. Hiding a cam where no one would ever find it is easy enough, but finding a stealthy vantage point that’s still useful to the team is an art of its own. Load up a custom game and experiment with different spots. Avoid predictable corners and try to think lower instead of higher. Break open a box or glass cabinet and slip a camera in.

Shoot a discreet hole in a wall between two rooms and keep a camera there to watch both at once. And most importantly, try to get a useful camera outside. This will be the most difficult, since you only have a few seconds after the round starts to toss the cam before attackers notice. Practice landing the camera in trees or bushes to best hide it.

Courtesy of Jytus on YouTube.

Lion & Jackal

Combining Lion and Jackal creates a simple and deadly combo to counter roamers giving you a headache. Use both of their gadgets at the same time. Find a roamers footprints as Jackal and scan. As the scan begins and reveals their current location, activate Lion’s scan. During the few seconds of Lion’s scan, the enemy has no way of keeping their exact spot a secret. If they move, their body is highlighted red. If they stay still, Jackal scans them.

Use these precious few seconds to move in and take the enemy down. Keep in mind, though, that top-tier roamer Caviera is immune to Jackal’s tracking when using her Silent Step ability, and that Mute’s signal jammers cancel Lion’s scan when in its radius.

Dokkaebi & IQ

Another duo that comes together to form a cool trick, Dokkaebi and IQ are great for rooting out the exact location of any defender. After Dokkaebi calls the enemy team with her Logic Bomb, they have to take a few seconds to take out their phone and turn it off. It’s during this brief moment that IQ can see the phone through walls up to 10 meters away. If the sound of the ringing phone isn’t enough, this trick will ensure the exact location of your prey. Though just like with Lion, Mute’s jammers will prevent the Logic Bomb’s effects if you’re within its radius.

Courtesy of 458 Kit on YouTube.

Countering Clash

A good Clash player is a real problem for the attackers. Her shield allows her to roam the map with relative safety, reporting every move you make to her teammates. To top it off, attempts to melee her shield away can often be thwarted by her shield-mounted taser that slows enemies. She does have a few soft counters, but they both take some coordination to properly pull of.

First and most effective is Zofia. Firing one of her three concussion grenades at Clash will force her to move the shield and expose her lower body. This opening only lasts for a second or two, which is too fast for Zofia to switch back to her weapon in time. Instead, you’ll need a teammate nearby to confirm the kill. 

Clash's other counter is Capitao and his fire bolts. Landing a fire bolt at Clash’s feet can quickly eat at her health, but a weary player will be waiting for Capitao to pull out his crossbow and back up accordingly. To account for this, shoot the bolt at the exit she is likely to try to escape to and make her unwittingly walk into the fire, not away from it.

Evil Eye placement

Maestro’s Evil Eyes are excellent tools for zapping enemy gadgets, preventing a plant of the defuser, or just generally zapping the enemy until they go insane. They’re not as flexible as a Valkyrie’s Black Eye cameras, since they have to be installed on a wall or object by hand, but they’re a lot more durable. Finding the right spot for an Evil Eye is more nuanced than simply trying to be discreet. It’s a big hunk of metal and loud when in use, so stealth is out of the equation. Focus on placing them where their wide field-of-view can be best utilized. A great example is on top of waist-high cover in the middle of a room. In a spot like that, you’ll likely be able to watch 90 percent of the area.

To compliment the Evil Eye watching the objective, the other should be placed to watch the most likely attacking route. Placed in a corner to watch several hallways, the Evil Eye will be able harass enemies trying to make their final push. Position the camera far enough from the objective that an attacker would have to turn around and expose themselves to shoot it out.

Deployable shields

Deployable shields are an often-overlooked secondary gadget in Siege. Cowering behind a deployable shield is usually a bad idea, as it paints a clear target on your back and sometimes traps yourself when trying to fight back. But when you have a specific tactic in mind, there are plenty of good ways to utilize one. Most popular is to block a contentious doorway with a deployable shield to make it that much harder for attackers to infiltrate. This is used to discourage entry, encouraging  the enemy to funnel in from somewhere that's easier to defend.

The deployable shield can also be comboed with Frost’s Welcome Mat traps to great effect. Placing one on the other side of the shield can often fool attackers hopping over the shield directly into the trap. Many cautious players will shoot the trap as they vault over the shield or toss in a frag grenade, but the real problem comes for shield operators. Unless a desperate Monty or Blitz can get a clear shot on the trap through the door, there’s not much they can do to prevent their death. Trying to hipfire the trap with a pistol as they’re vaulting over the trap has a low chance of actually working, so the shield and trap combo works great as shield repellent.

Courtesy of Macie Jay on YouTube.

Fuze charges

Fuze is an ultra popular operator for beginners. At first, his explosive hockey puck clusters seem like an easy source of kills, but any veteran player knows how to easily dodge their explosive radius. That’s why a truly great Fuze player doesn’t use his charges hoping to get kills, they use them to clear out the objective of defender gadgets.

To use Fuze best, you need to know that fuze charges toss out the grenades in the same pattern every time. Each of the five grenades is propelled in a straight line from left to right order. Use this information to clear out entire hallways of pesky barbed wire, deployable shields, Evil Eyes, Valkyrie cameras, Welcome Mats, and anything else you can think of. This also requires a good amount of map knowledge, so start researching the rooms above objectives to find the best fuze points. Clearing out the objective for your teammates can easily make the difference for a successful attack.

Wrap up

These tricks only scratch the surface of what’s possible in Siege, but they’re a foundation of the tricks you'll need to be aware of to compete at all levels. Just being able to recognize these strategies will help with your situational awareness and let you better work with your teammates to pull of a win.

This article was supported by Ubisoft. Read more about supported content on PC Gamer. 

A new Rainbow Six Siege patch deploying sometime this week fixes two abnormal bugs that have vexed players since the release of Operation Grim Sky last month: a bug that would make a player completely invisible and an exploit on the Oregon map. What’s missing from the Y3S3 1.2 patch, however, are any balancing changes to operators.

The invisibility bug has slowly spread throughout the community in the past month, but has never reached the critical mass of other troublesome exploits, like the terrifying Blitz hipfire fiasco or Jager’s deployable shield helmet. The invisibility bug is often caused by accident, as I witnessed for myself in a match last week, but could be employed by the impure of heart.

The exploit on the Oregon map allows players to clip inside of a washing machine in the laundry room and enjoy a clean layer of invincibility from within. Exploiters can also shoot from inside the machine, which is the cherry on top of the whole mess. Nonetheless, Ubisoft says these issues will be fixed in the upcoming patch.

One other long-running exploit is finally being plugged by Ubi. Defenders will no longer be able to place a deployable shield perpendicular to a window to prevent outside attackers from vaulting in. “Trying to do so will result in deploying the shield forward or backward depending on the player position, in a way that will always leave enough room for vaulting or rappelling in,” reads the blog post. This fix is long overdue, considering there’s no balancing reason that justifies blocking access to a window.

The balancing changes currently being tested on the Technical Test Server, mostly concerning Clash and the weapon swap time between her shield and weapon, will not be making it into this patch. Ubi explained this decision in the post, citing back-end changes that needed to go live in this patch before the balancing changes were out of the testing phase. However, one bug fix listed in the patch does nerf Clash quite a bit. She can no longer “instantly go into ADS with her secondary after un–equipping her shield.” Many had assumed this was working as intended, but I’m glad to see it was a bug.

Ubi didn’t give any time frame for when the operator balance changes would be making it into the game, but anyone wanting to check them out can always download the Technical Test Server. For the full patch notes, see below.

GENERAL

Fixed – Deployable shields placed perpendicular to a window prevent vaulting.

Fixed – The operator is invisible when players load into game.

Fixed – Pistols have their reticle misaligned with the center of the screen while shooting.

Fixed – No toggle for Montagne and Pulse special abilities (now comes with toggle).

Fixed – Cannot access Bulletproof Camera by pressing the secondary gadget button while prone.

Fixed – While prone, using melee and standing up will switch the knife animation to shield.

Fixed – The Stun Grenade VFX can be cancelled under certain conditions.

Fixed – The squad leader remains alone in a match after one squad member leaves when the leader starts the match.

Fixed – Latency, micro stutters and graphical issues after playing multiple matches and maps in the same Custom game session.

Fixed – End of round timer does not stop when initiating the defuser plant at the last moment.

MAPS

BANKFixed – Valkyrie Black Eye can see through the ceiling when placed on in a spot on 2F Bank.

Fixed – Spot in 1F Tellers Office allows Valkyrie’s Black Eye to see the corridor and staircase.

Fixed – Spot in 1F Archives allows throwable gadgets to reach 2F Skylight Stairwell.

CLUBHOUSE

Fixed – Attacker drones can see through the ceiling underneath 1F Lobby and Bar.

CONSULATEFixed – Drone has no collision with the terrace edge from West Front Yard.

HEREFORD BASEFixed – Ranked Match Action phase lasts for 4 minutes on Hereford Base.

Fixed – Equipping a shield drops the fps by 10–20 on Hereford Base.

Fixed – Unstable FPS in Hereford Base.

Fixed – Maestro's gadget is vulnerable by breaking cosmetic destruction, Small pinstripe carpets across the map.

Fixed – Players can hide under a desk in 1F Prep Area.

Fixed – Defuser cannot be picked up after being dropped between the wall and the ammo box in 1F Garage.

Fixed – Defuser cannot be picked up after being dropped between the wooden planks located in EXT Barnyard.

Fixed – Thatcher's EMP grenade does not turn off the faux volumetric glow from the ceiling lights in EXT Barn.

Fixed – Small gap in 2F bathroom ceiling on Hereford base rework.

HOUSEFixed – Players can clip inside a wall using a deployable shield at 2F Workshop.

KAFEFixed – Players cannot pick up armor plates if the armor bag is deployed on a kettle in 3F Cigar Lounge.

OREGONFixed – Operators can get stuck inside a pile of boxes in 1F Office.

Fixed – Player can vault inside the washing machine on Oregon.

OPERATORS

BUCKFixed – If Buck mounts Tachanka's LMG Turret with the Skeleton Key on and leaves it, no interaction can be made with the turret afterwards.CLASHFixed – Clash can instantly go into ADS with her secondary after un–equipping her shield.Fixed – Clash is not able to use Observation Tools while her CCE shield is extended.ECHOFixed – Instead of disappearing when Echo’s Yokai hover drone is disabled, the "Jump" button appears greyed out.Fixed – If a disabled Yokai hover drone is picked up and re–deployed, it will still be in the disabled state when redeployed.FINKAFixed – Finka’s Spear308's damage falloff over distance is too high.MAVERICKFixed – Maverick’s blowtorch makes no sound on the first use on a wall.Fixed – Blowtorch SFX persists after Maverick is killed while using it.MIRAFixed – Black Mirror can be destroyed from the other side of a reinforced wall.Fixed – Mira can place her Mirror under another destroyed Black Mirror.MINOR BUG FIXESFixed – Clipping issue on Lion's uniforms.Fixed – Hibana's face appears washed off when equipped with the Yurei headgear.Fixed – Holding down both gadget buttons and releasing them in a certain order switches away from Pulse’s Cardiac Sensor.Fixed – The Chalkboard uniform for Hibana does not appear properly while in First Person.Fixed – Blitz's arm is delayed when leaning, causing clipping issues with shield.Fixed – The observation tool icon is missing from the select spawn location screen for attackers in preparation phase in Ranked.CHARMSFixed – A second "Gold Lion Chibi" will float next to the weapon it is attached to.Fixed – Equipping a country flag charm on the SPSMG9 will also apply on Clash’s CCE shield.Fixed – Chibi charms are not properly placed on Clash's CCE Shield in load out.Fixed – Multiple charms are clipping through Blitz's and Clash's shields.Fixed – Charms equipped on Clash's shield are not visible in 3rd person view.PICK AND BANFixed – When Joining in Progress during a ban reveal, players will always see the blue smoke.Fixed – Joining in Progress with previously selected operator does not update teammates blocked operators.Fixed – During the ready screen, the sizes of the operator's cards are not consistent.Fixed – The "Change floor" button is missing in the tactical map.Fixed – The bullet point that indicates the currently voted OP disappears after changing display mode. 

Following the implementation of a new ban system for teamkillers, fans of Rainbow Six Siege have been pleading to Ubisoft to let players “forgive” accidental teamkilling. The new system, deployed in a September 18 patch, inflicts a harsher penalty on players that teamkill twice in the same match, banning the player from all matchmaking for 30 minutes. Subsequent offenses ban the player for one hour, two hours, 24 hours, and then a whole week.

Any veteran Siege player is happy to see harsher punishments for teamkilling, a type of griefing that's particularly painful in an FPS where players don't respawn after dying. However, some worry that a zero-tolerance, automated system can introduce errors. These players suggest that anyone who's teamkilled should be given the opportunity to forgive their attacker.

It’s an idea that’s been kicked around the Siege community for years now, the first suggestion going all the way back to days after the game’s release in 2015. But with new harsher punishments for your mistakes, the demand has never been higher. Posts with thousands of upvotes circulated the Siege subreddit throughout September calling for change.

“There is no excuse for having to be banned because you're playing in a five-stack and a teammate accidentally moves in front of you while shooting or you try to stop an interrogation and accidentally clip your teammate as well,” said redditor winters_own. They’re definitely right about one thing: teamkilling in Siege is often an unavoidable accident. Between deadly sporadic gadgets like Fuze’s explosive hockey pucks, the lethality of a single headshot, and players’ extremely limited health pools, it’s an easy mistake to make. That said, it has only happened to me once or twice in my near-1,000 hours, and I rarely see it happen to others.

But why not add a feature that would theoretically improve the player experience? Finding an answer from Ubisoft has proved difficult. I haven’t been able to find any official statement about the proposed feature and any pleas from the community have gone without reply over the years. PC Gamer also reached out when writing this story, but has yet to receive anything back. This lack of communication is pretty uncommon for Siege. Ubi representatives, especially on the community side, are typically open to responding to interesting feature requests on the subreddit, sometimes going as far as sending fan ideas to the development team for further consideration. But this just hasn’t been the case for the forgive teamkill suggestion, as far as I can tell.

 Teamkilling has been a problem with online shooters since the beginning of the genre, but nowadays most games have opted out of the problem altogether by disabling it. In some cases, like with Overwatch, combat is so hectic and unpredictable already that having to worry about shooting teammates would be too much. But there’s also something like Fortnite Battle Royale, where teamkilling was once in the game until developer Epic decided it was too much of a hassle and simply removed it.

The most unfortunate teamkill of the century, courtesy of redditor AlexanderTheAutist.

The few popular FPSes that include teamkilling all handle punishments differently. PUBG’s policies are the most lenient, requiring a victim to go out of their way to manually report offenders. Battlefield 1’s hardcore modes will simply kick a player from a match after too many offenses, but custom server owners can set their own ban rules if they want. Hardcore modes in Call of Duty: WWII have a strict limit of three offenses before you’re kicked, but also has no bans. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive combines both a limit on team kills and team damage to eventually kick offenders. The Halo series still uses a forgive system for teamkilling, and it has always worked well in my experience.

The proposed forgiveness feature wouldn’t be completely immune to exploitation. It could allow a few friends in a match to keep teamkilling each other every round without any eventual punishment. Sure, they’re not bothering other unwilling teammates, but they’re still potentially ruining a match with no promise that they’ll leave and let someone else join. But even still, it’s small gripe for what could otherwise change Siege for the better.

Team damage is a related issue. Slightly damaging teammates without killing them still carries no significant penalties other than a slight score decrease. Abandoners in both Casual and Ranked matches continue to be a source of frustration, with no known punishments for serial 'leavers' in Casual play. CS:GO’s matchmaking, as a comparison, remembers the frequency of leavers and begins to match them with other bad apples. There’s still no proper offline training mode to let players hone their skills. 

Siege's current annoyances aren't deal breakers, but when other games already have proven solutions that could be applied, they beg questions of why something hasn’t already been done.

Ubisoft has announced a temporary price drop for all Year 1 operators in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege until March next year.

You'll often see Ubisoft offering free weekends for Rainbow Six Siege, usually accompanied by a discounted price for those thinking of purchasing the game in the same period. This time, they're doing something a bit different.

Starting today at 11am EST (3pm GMT), the price of Year 1 operators has been reduced from 600 R6 Credits/25,000 Renown to 360 R6 Credits/15,000 Renown. The Year 1 operators are Frost, Buck, Valkyrie, Blackbeard, Capitao, Caveira, Hibana, and Echo. The offer will end on March 4, 2019.

There is currently no plan to do the same with Year 2 operators.

If you're wondering if they're worth it, you can check out our guide that asks, which Rainbow Six Siege operators are the best?