What’s up guys, Rogue-9 here and now that Operation Void Edge is officially out, the
question that needs addressing is: which primary loadout should you choose for Iana?
ARX200 vs. G36C: is one objectively better than the other?
What are their individual strengths & weaknesses?
Which one might suit your personal needs better?
And what is the best way to set up each gun in terms of attachments?
Let’s go and find out!
As always we will kick things off with a general stat overview, before exploring the following
topics one by one: We’ll be looking at Combat Effectiveness, Ease Of Use and Handling, Optimal
Setup for each gun and then the conclusion.
So, Combat Effectiveness first and as you will have already noticed: both guns are rifles
and therefore they share the damage drop-off range of between 25 and 35m.
The single shot damage stats of the ARX far outclass those of the G36 (both at long and
short ranges, as well as unsuppressed vs. suppressed).
In fact, the ARX is one of the hardest hitting assault rifles in the game, whereas the G36
is amongst the very weakest.
“But wait!”
I hear you cry.
“Something about those suppressed damage stats doesn’t look right!”
And yes, you are of course absolutely right.
The in-game menu tells us that the suppressed damage of the G36 should be 32 at close range.
But if we test this out in a custom match… we can see that the baseline damage is actually 33.
Ok, one point off.
I guess that’s not the end of the world.
But for the ARX, things become even more interesting.
The menu claims 39 points of suppressed damage but the actual damage is (place your bets
now!)… 44 and that is quite a difference.
The question is which one of those numbers is the correct one?
Which is the one the balancing team actually want to use?
Is the menu correct and for some reason the actual damage is higher than it’s supposed to be?
Or is the menu just wrong?
Who knows and for now, what we will have to do is simply go with the actual damage that
the suppressed guns do in game and hope that once the discrepancy gets fixed, it’s the menu
that is updated, not the actual suppressor damage.
If you are watching this video at some point in future though, do please take the suppressor
damage with a grain of salt because if we’re unlucky, things might have changed.
I will promise to keep an eye on this topic though and if anything does change, you will
find a pinned comment below with all the relevant details.
But enough of suppressors for now, we’ll come back to them later, when we talk about
setup options for each gun.
For now, let’s continue with the combat effectiveness analysis.
Fire rate is better for the G36 but not actually by an awful lot and that means that the Damage
Per Second output of the ARX is still the superior of the two.
Does this translate into fewer shots to down/kill or shorter time to down/kill?
Well, as you can see, at ranges up to 25m, before the damage drop-off starts, the G36
will require one extra shot in eight out of our twelve armour and strike location combinations.
So that looks quite good for the ARX but I think it’s also worth noting that for the
most common situations of body shots without Rook plates, there is only a difference against 3 armours.
For 1 & 2 armours, the G36 will not have any disadvantage.
And because of the faster fire rate, that means that in 4 of the cases the G36 will
in fact come with a slightly quicker time to down/kill your opponent.
In all other cases though, the ARX is boss and the time saving in each individual case
is actually twice of what the G36 achieves.
At long range (after damage drop-off) the picture is far more clear cut.
The ARX will need either one or two less shots to down or kill in all cases.
And that results in an average time saving of 65ms across all combinations, with the
advantage even going up to 119ms against level 2 armours with Rook plates.
The bottom line in terms of combat effectiveness is actually a bit of a surprise, I find.
At the distances that count the most, the two guns are actually not that unbalanced,
despite being on complete opposite ends of the power spectrum and having relatively similar fire rates.
At close range, you could almost call it a toss-up between the two guns.
Yes, the ARX will have an advantage in MOST cases but those are usually cases involving
limb shots or Rook armour.
I find it hard to call the ARX the definitive winner here, especially when we also consider
that the higher fire rate of the G36 has its own set of advantages in a one-shot-headshot game.
The ARX still has my overall vote for the more effective gun, especially of course at
longer ranges, where this battle rifle is undisputed, no question about that.
This early win for the ARX is countered pretty quickly though, once we move on to the ease of use stats.
The G36 not only has magazines that can hold 10 more bullets compared to the ARX, which
of course means that you can take on more enemies before needing to reload; but then
when you do have to reload, the G36 is slightly better than the average for the rifle class,
whereas the ARX is slightly worse.
Not by a massive amount but the advantage is there and when you combine both of these
stats, it does give the G36 a bit of an advantage.
Aim Down Sight time is the standard 400ms for both guns, so no difference there but
the G36 does have the option of using the Angled Grip (which will take the time down
to 240ms) whereas the ARX does not get that option.
More on that when we discuss the optimal setups!
So far the G36 is wiping the floor with the ARX when it comes to ease of use stats but
it’s not a clean sweep, because for whatever reason, the ARX has amazing hip fire spreads
whereas the G36 has particularly poor ones.
Across all of the situations I tested: standing, kneeling, prone, jogging, shooting and shooting
while jogging, the ARX has a hip-fire cone that is consistently half the size of the G36.
Of course, when the Devs modelled the operators in Rainbow Six Siege, they created their arms
out the finest, high grade beef gelatine and if you do ever try to hip-fire, you are probably
more likely to accidentally hit an opponent 3m next to your target that hit your target itself.
Hip-firing in Siege just isn’t viable but having a smaller cone is not just about making
it easier for you to hit your targets if you’re mad enough to actually try to hip-fire (I
sincerely hope you aren’t but there it is anyways) but of course it will also give you
a little bit of an advantage when aiming in, because your gun will become accurate just
that little bit sooner!
But the final and arguably more impactful aspect to the ease of use stats is the recoil.
Here you can see three patterns for each gun.
The first one is the baseline recoil, without any attachments.
Then there is the pattern with vertical grips and flash hiders attached and finally are
two special cases: for the ARX200 it’s the vertical grip combined with the suppressor
and for the G36C it’s the angled grip and flash hider.
If we compare the baseline recoil of both guns side by side, you can see that the ARX
has a slightly greater first shot recoil and fans out a bit more, while the G36 has a more
extreme tendency to wander off to the right.
Trailing off to one side like the G36 does may look scary at first but really, the pattern
stays nice and tight throughout and at least with a mouse, you should be able to compensate
for this movement with just a little bit of practice.
So for me, the conclusion here is that, once you slap on some attachments, both guns are
pretty easy to control but the G36 wins out all the same.
This gun is one of the easiest to control full auto attacker weapons you will find in Rainbow Six Siege!
So to conclude and summarise the ease of use segment of this comparison, there is not really
much debate to be had.
Sure, the ARX has outstanding hip-fire spreads in all situations but other than that, the
G36 is the all-out winner for capacity, reload times and recoil.
And this is where I would normally conclude the video and say that the ARX has more takedown
power and the G36 is easier to handle but today, I want to take things one step further
and put a bit more emphasis on how to set up each gun, especially since both weapons
have opportunities for unique setups that can give each a very specific purpose.
But let’s start out with the simple question of which muzzle attachment you should pick,
at least of you are trying to minimise recoil.
As always, I tested all of the muzzle attachments in practice and so let’s examine what the
patterns look like for each gun with the vertical grip and various muzzle devices attached.
Looking at the four patterns for the ARX I have to say that my personal favourite for
the best controllability is the flash hider.
The compensator is great at compressing the recoil pattern but then you are still left
with the inconvenient first shot recoil.
The muzzle brake perfectly takes care of the jump on the first shot but then you have no
benefit in term of the horizontal movement.
I feel a little bit like Goldilocks here because the compromise that the flash hider offers
is not too hot and not too cold, it suits me just right.
You still get almost the same first shot recoil mitigation with the added bonus of slightly
less horizontal movement.
And really, the same goes for the G36.
Yes, the compensator helps straighten out the pattern considerably but when I ran my
tests where I control the recoil, I didn’t even notice the sideways movement at all and
so once again, I personally will be running the flash hider on this gun.
Barely any additional first shot recoil and still a bit of a benefit horizontally; it’s the best of both worlds.
Those would be my recommendations when going just for recoil control but let’s take things one step further!
We talked about the suppressed damage of each gun right in the beginning and so let’s
revisit the suppressor as an option on each of these guns.
When it comes to considering the suppressor there are two factors that are important.
Will the damage reduction affect the time to down/kill and will the gun still be controllable
if we sacrifice the advantages of the flash hider or of course other muzzle attachments?
Well, in terms of damage it’s “good news everyone!” for the ARX.
As you can see here, at ranges up to at least 25m, the number of shots to kill stays unchanged
in almost all cases.
Only when you land nothing but limb strikes will there be cases where you will need one
shot extra with the suppressor.
That’s amazing!
And of course that means that the time to take out your opponent stays virtually unchanged as well.
Now true, at longer ranges the gun will start to suffer a bit but fights at these distances
are much rarer and at the end of the day, 6, 7, 8 or even 10 shots without the suppressor
is still pretty pants, so no great loss in those cases.
And once again for completeness’ sake, here are the stats for the time to kill with and without suppressor.
For me, the case here is clear.
The ARX200 is one of those rare weapons where the suppressor has a minimal impact on the
takedown power and is therefore very much worth considering, as long as it passes the
recoil controllability test and I personally believe that it does.
The gun remains pretty easy to handle even with the suppressor and so my conclusion here is:
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!
The ARX is a perfect candidate to take the suppressor and in only a few matches of trying
this out, I have had some truly surprising results.
It almost felt as if I was invisible because even when shooting open barricades or getting
kills, the rest of the enemy team barely reacted to my presence.
Whether you are playing as Iana or Nomad, I highly recommend trying out the ARX200 with
the suppressor and see how it works out for you!
Is the G36 maybe also a viable candidate here?
Sadly, it’s “bad news, everyone!”
While the recoil would undoubtedly remain very easy to control on this gun, the number
of shots to take out your opponents is definitely affected in almost all cases even at short
ranges… and that of course has the corresponding effect on times to down/kill.
And at longer ranges, things get even worse.
Of course if you have a pretty high headshot ratio, then you might still consider a suppressed
G36 but I think for most players, the negative effects on the takedown power of a gun that
is already on the underpowered side are just too much of a drawback to justify going silent
with this weapon.
But, fear not because the G36 has it’s very own specialist setup I think you should consider.
As I mentioned earlier, this gun gets the option of attaching the angled grip which
will cut down the Aim Down Sight time considerably.
I personally loved the accidental ADS buff we got during Operation Ember Rise.
I truly believe that I started playing better and having more fun with faster ADS times,
rather than the slow as molasses aiming we have regressed to now and so what I did after
the ADS time was “fixed” recently, is attach the angled grip to literally any and
every gun in the game that offers that option.
The snappier ADS just allows me to be so much more fluid and reactive; I love it!
And the G36 is the perfect candidate for this attachment, because the vertical recoil is
just about the mildest you can have on any attacking weapon and you can easily pass up
on the benefits that the vertical grip has to offer.
Whether you are playing Iana and actually especially if you are playing as Ash; if you’re
going to go for the G36, you should definitely run it with the angled grip.
If you’re going to play really aggressively, you might even consider ditching the ACOG
and instead going for an unmagnified optic to maximise your close quarters potential
but that’s entirely up to you.
And so we kind of end up with two final conclusions today.
If we are looking at the classic Loadout META conclusion of which gun is better, I would
say it is the ARX for most players.
The G36 is easier and more comfortable to use and you won’t have to worry about ammo
as much but if you have enough experience in the game to be able to deal with these
drawbacks, then the overall takedown power advantage of the ARX is worth it in my eyes.
Don’t get me wrong though, I think that picking these two guns for Iana is actually
pretty clever because they are very well balanced and as I showed earlier, the time to kill
can even be a just that little bit better for the G36 in a couple of cases.
Both guns are very viable.
But now if we also take the specialised setups into account, then you have two options really.
Pick the G36C with angled grip for aggressive, fast paced pushes or go with the ARX suppressed
for a stealthier approach that can really catch your opponents off guard.
I think both approaches have very valid use cases and you can either pick the one that
suits your playstyle more or you can make a choice depending on the map & site you are attacking.
If you want some more tips on guns that could currently be great candidates for running
a suppressor, check out the link to my recent video coming up in the end card shortly.
Over to you, let me know in the comments below which gun you prefer on Iana and if you will
be using either of the specialist setups.
I always love going through the comments to see what everyone else thinks of the weapons being discussed!
And that’s it.
If you liked the video, do hit that thumbs up button or leave a dislike if you didn’t.
Many thanks for watching, I hope you enjoyed the video and I will see you in the next episode!