The mid-season balancing patch for Rainbow Six Siege is on its way, and Ubisoft has provided a preview of some of the changes involved and player-data behind the rework.
Speaking on the latest episode of the Hot Breach podcast, as broken down by YouTuber Coreross, three members of the development team in Ubisoft Barcelona discussed a few of the nerfs, buffs and general tweaks players can expect when the patch comes out. It should be noted these are all still subject to change as the team get the final update together for roll-out.
Beginning with some character-specific alterations, Twitch’s Famas was found to have the best kill-to-death ratio among, so it’s being reduced by five rounds in a minor nerf. Kaid’s Electroclaw is getting a range increase, while his shotgun will have less ammo, and Glaz’s sniper rifle will have a higher fire rate. Two others, Lesion and Jackal, are both on the drawing board to be somehow altered in the future. Lesion’s mines are intended to be weakened, reducing the impact damage, and Jackal’s scanning ability will be changed so he can’t scan footprints above him, and doing a full scan so the whole team can see will cause the trail to disappear. Neither will be in the next patch, but may come with the next season.
Alongside these specific details, the Hot Breach hosts shared a variety of graphs and figures on character and player performance. The data shown is based entirely on PC, so the console player-base is totally unrepresented. Some figures include that Jackal is far and away the most banned operator, with a 72% ban-rate in version Y4S3 and 62% ban-rate in version Y4S2.3, a factor contributing to his upcoming rejig.
In-depth stats on weapon use were also given, allowing players the chance to pore over the exact frequency certain weapons are appearing with which operators, and their win-rate. As you’d expect, top-choice and win-rate are often corollary, but not always – Mozzie’s Commando 9 is picked twice as much as their P9 Roni, yet they have the same level of success overall.
No word on exactly when the mid-season patch is coming, but the Hot Breach streams are available on Twitch for more research in the meantime.