New Rainbow Six Siege patch brings huge buff for Capitão, big nerfs for Ash and Dokkaebi

Ubisoft’s latest batch of Designer Notes for Rainbow Six Siege’s Burnt Horizon are bringing some major changes to some of the game’s most popular operators. Ash mains, you’re going to want to sit down for this one.

Ash

• ACOG sight removed from the R4C

It’s only a scope, but this is big news for Siege. Ash has always been a dominant operator to take along because of her high-powered R4C rifle that combines high DPS with manageable recoil. But with no ACOG in sight, Ash loses some potential as a long distance brawler. “Within the balancing team, we are challenging whether or not all Attackers have ACOGs by default,” the post reads. If Ubi is testing whether or not assault rifles need an ACOG to be competitive, the R4C is a great way to test it.

Dokkaebi

• After 18 seconds, phone calls from Dokkaebi will hang up on their own
• Walking into range of Mute jammers will hang up phone calls during the call

This shift rebalances the Logic Bomb to make it less frustrating, but still powerful. 18 seconds is still a long time for your phone to ring, but a time limit should help with roamers who are in tight spots in combat and can’t safely pause to hang up themselves. Interrupting the Logic Bomb with a Mute jammer is a great way to add some counterplay that didn’t exist before.  I can’t wait to place his jammers in convenient places to make a phone jamming “car wash” for teammates.

Lesion

• Reduced Gu Mines damage per tick from 8 to 4

Ubi says that Lesion is currently too strong, citing the “total amount of damage that Gu Mines can inflict to player combined with preventing sprint and defuser planting actions.” Reducing the ongoing damage of a Gu mine should help with attackers who need a few seconds to find a safe spot to take out the needle.

Capitão

• Increasing area of effect size
• Reducing damage per tick from 19 to 12

I think Capitão just became awesome. He’s always been one of my favorite attackers conceptually, but he’s often hard to make work beyond his smoke utility. I guess Ubi agreed, because the increase to the area of effect on his asphyxiation bolts is huge!

Ubi clarified that a new system now controls the propagation of his bolts. As a consequence, the effect will not longer travel through walls. As what I assume is a precaution to how huge his room-filling death arrows are after this patch, their damage is being understandably nerfed.

Maverick

• Increase swap time between SURI Torch and weapons

A longer swap time is an overall small change for Maverick, but it should effectively target a common annoyance for defenders. Right now, Maverick can burn a small hole in a wall and have his rifle at the ready faster than most can react (provided you could even hear the burn in the first place). Ubi says they experimented with making his torch louder to balance things out further, but it proved too difficult to do correctly and is now on the backburner.

Clash

• Removing Muzzle Brake on Machine Pistol

“The Muzzle Brake on Clash’s Machine Pistol is the worst choice in all scenarios now that it is fully automatic, so we are removing it,” the post reads. Can’t argue with that!

Breach charge overhaul

• Deployment animation is much faster
• Damage on Attacker’s side is reduced from 150 to 50
• Damage area of effect on Defender side is increased
• Lethal damage area of effect on Defender side is reduced

In a rare move for Ubi, a secondary gadget is getting a complete overhaul. This patch addresses the main things that have always kept me from using breach charges: the time and risk of setting one up. Experienced players can clearly hear the unique sound of a breach charge setup and will try to thwart you by shooting it through the wall. A faster animation combined with less fear of exploding nearby teammates makes them much more viable.

As a possible side effect, this could alter the balance of breaching operators like Sledge or Buck altogether. The convenience and speed of Sledge’s hammer or Buck’s masterkey are major reasons they’re picked at higher ranks. If breach charges become similarly convenient, we may see a more diverse meta less reliant on dedicated breachers.

Rework checkups

The balancing team closed the post with some important updates on other operators and gadgets. They’re aware that the current state of shields “heavily favors direct gunfights instead of teamwork and tactical positioning.” They plan to alleviate this by increasing the ADS time of shields.

The oft-neglected deployable shield is also under the microscope for a rework. Speaking of reworks, big changes for Lion and Glaz are still in the works. Lion’s rework will be further detailed at the Six Invitational this weekend. Everything is still subject to change throughout the test server period likely beginning later this month, but I expect little to change before the final release.