The latest patch notes for the Rainbow Six Siege test server include an initial operator balancing pass, and several of the tactical multiplayer game’s ops are getting notable buffs and nerfs. Among them is lovable beefcastle Tachanka, who Ubisoft says is still getting picked with less frequency than his designers had hoped following his extensive rework last year.
This initial test server balancing patch improves Tachanka’s grenades in just about every way. His Shumikha Launcher’s magazine is being increased from five to seven rounds, its fire duration is going from five to seven seconds, the time to detonate on the rounds has been reduced to 0.75 seconds from one second, and the fire area radius has been increased to 1.9 metres from 1.7 metres.
The rounds themselves go quite a bit further, too – their speed has been boosted to 30 (up from 20) and the “distance to start drop” has been increased from eight metres to 20 metres. That’s going to make the launcher much more useful as a direct-fire weapon, with less need to arc the rounds up to make sure they travel far enough to hit their targets.
Tachanka’s trademark DP27 light machine gun is getting a little love, too – now it’ll be just a shade quicker to set up and take down, with its equip speed going from 0.9 seconds down to 0.65 seconds, and its unequip time moving from 0.42 seconds down to 0.3 seconds.
Ubisoft says that despite initial projections of the reworked Tachanka being game-breakingly overpowered, it’s turned out that the operator is still a relatively rare pick – probably due in part to his steep learning curve. When he is picked, Siege’s designers say his grenades are used less frequently than they’d like, and that’s brought down his overall lethality (and correspondingly, his reputation).
[April 19th, 2021] Y6S1.3 TEST SERVER PATCH NOTES from Rainbow6TTS
“We’ve increased the power, duration, radius, speed, and capacity for his grenades to make them more useful and lethal in combat,” Ubisoft explains in the latest Siege Designer’s Notes. “These changes should make them more deadly and useful in fights while also not feeling overpowering.”
Also of note in the latest test server patch notes is the removal of tactical realism mode. Tactical realism playlists players have created will be removed, and some interface preferences have been added to the options menu to allow players to toggle some of those UI elements on and off for a more ‘realistic’ experience. However, it seems the realistic ammo system (where the remaining rounds in a discarded magazine are lost) won’t be available in Siege before too long.
There’s some time before the Y6S1.3 patch goes out to the live servers, and between now and then there will be additional changes – including tweaks to the ones found in this test server patch. Stay tuned.