What’s up guys, Rogue-9 here and at long last, we are going to be turning our attentions
to Fuze in this new episode of my Rainbow Six Siege Loadout META series.
Many thanks to all of you who have been suggesting a comparison of the AK-12 and 6P41 in the
comments of my recent videos, I welcome your recommendations and it’s a good video to
do and long overdue.
So, what is the best loadout for Fuze; the rifle or the machinegun?
What are their individual strengths and weaknesses and what kind of
playstyle does each weapon suite best?
Let’s go and find out!
The initial overview of the most relevant stats gives us a mixed result although it
does look as if the AK-12 is the definite favourite here.
And the simple fact is that the AK-12 is undeniably a really strong weapon.
If Fuze was not such a slow, lumbering, noisy 1 speed operator, the power of the AK-12 alone
would make him one of the most picked attackers in the game.
Yes, the gun has a distinct weakness but if you set it up right, this gun is amazing; a real hidden gem!
And sure, Fuze can be really effective when he has enough team support but let’s face
it, not everyone has the luxury of a stack of 4 competent friends ready on hand
whenever you want to play.
In general, solo queueing is definitely not a way in which you will get the most out of
Rainbow Six Siege as a game and if you have been struggling to find likeminded players
in your region and at your skill or experience level, then the brand new looking for team
website “suqads.tm” is exactly what you need in your life!
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Filter by your region and platform and you’re all set to start squadding up.
Since the site is brand new, it is currently set up for Rainbow Six only but support for
a whole bunch of other games will be available soon.
If you are tired of playing solo, squads.tm has your back, so check out the site now by
plugging the address into your browser or by using the convenient link in the description below!
Now, time to explore the 6P41 and AK-12 step by step.
When it comes to raw damage per shot the LMG has the upper hand, especially at longer range
with flatter damage drop-off and significantly more power once the damage bottoms out.
But at short range damage is almost identical for both weapons and the AK’s significantly
higher fire rate means that its damage output per second is an awful lot higher.
In fact, like I hinted at earlier, the AK-12 is hands down the most underrated gun in the
game and its close range damage per second is the best out of all of the assault rifles.
Not even the Twitch’s mighty F2 or Jackal’s C7E can keep up with this gun and the only
automatic weapon in the game that can beat Fuze’s AK is actually the SMG-11 but of
course with that gun, controllability, capacity and range are seriously limiting factors.
Interestingly, despite the much slower fire rate the 6P41’s extra damage at range is
enough to compensate and give the LMG a higher long range DPS.
But it’s not until a range of 31m or more that the LMG’s damage output overtakes that
of the AK-12 and how many times will you be fighting at those ranges?
The conclusion here is that the AK-12 has a significant advantage at ranges where it
counts and so this round goes squarely to the rifle.
But Damage Per Second, while a very useful stat when objectively comparing the effectiveness
of weapons in Siege, is only half of the story.
Taking down an opponent is always a race to getting to 100 hit points the quickest and
so when going up against full health opponents, the shots to down or kill and time to down
or kill are further valuable stats that we should look at.
At close range up to 25m, the minimal difference in damage per shot means that both guns will
need the same number of hits across all of our strike location and armour level permutations,
with one single exception: When hitting the legs, the AK-12 will need 4 shots against
level 1 armour defenders instead of just 3.
Consequently, the close range time to down or kill is also better for the AK-12 in almost
all instances with that one exception where it will be 35ms slower because of the 1 extra bullet required.
As already mentioned, the long range stats are far less important but still, the 6P41’s
added power retention gives it a significant advantage.
The LMG will consistently need 1 to 3 bullets less than the rifle and despite the slower
fire rate that still translates into either the same or better time to down or kill for the 6P41 too.
Is that worth anything in practice?
Probably not really and so once again, I am happy to give this category to the AK-12.
Capacity of course is a category that an LMG is almost certain to win and having 100 bullets
at your disposal instead of 30+1 is definitely better (as long as you don’t have the bad
habit of reloading far too early).
Must… resist… the urge… still have 98 bullets left…
Capacity in Rainbow Six is balanced out with reload times and of course the 6P41 is much
slower than the AK-12 here.
Interestingly, the Russian LMG is one of the few weapons in Siege that has the same reload
times both for the tactical reload (when there’s still ammo remaining in the gun) and from empty.
And it is also the gun with THE slowest reload times of all, in both categories.
The AK on the other hand is thoroughly unremarkable when it comes to reloading with times that
are just 100ms slower than the mean averages for assault rifles.
100ms by the way, is 0.1s… just in case you were wondering.
Aim Down Sight time is a classic weakness of the LMG class, but it has been gradually
buffed over time and the 550ms (or 0.55s for those of you who prefer seconds) is not all
that terrible anymore.
The assault rifles are only 100ms faster as a standard but the AK-12 does have the option
of attaching the angled grip with its 40% ADS time reduction.
This is cool and all but I really wouldn’t advise going for the angled grip on the AK…
as you will see in a little while when we discuss the controllability of both guns,
the AK-12 has quite a solid recoil and you may want to stick with the vertical grip instead.
So, another win for the rifle but only by a tenth of a second.
Hip fire is a relatively low impact stat but the surprising thing is that the 6P41 is actually surprisingly good.
Usually, larger and heavier weapons in Rainbow Six tend to have pretty poor hip fire cones
but the Russian LMG is not all that bad at all.
Better than some of the rifles actually!
Nevertheless, this round again goes to the AK-12 which has some of the tightest hip fire
spreads out of all of the rifles and tends to be about a 33 – 50% better than the corresponding
spreads of the 6P41.
And finally, controllability because even the best damage output is pretty worthless
when you only hit one in three shots.
The in-game recoil patterns are good representations for the recoil of both guns, so let me take
you through those quickly.
On the left for each gun, are the recoil patterns with no attachments used and then the second
patterns are set up for maximum vertical recoilcontrol.
This is achieved with the vertical grips and the muzzle brake for the AK and the Flash
Hider for the LMG (since that is the only recoil mitigating muzzle attachment that gun gets).
As you can see though, this might not actually be the optimal setup for the AK-12.
As a reminder and for those who may not be aware of this yet, recoil in Rainbow Six is
dictated by two separate forces that act on each gun when fired.
Vertical recoil and the recoil diamond (which is basically a randomising factor layered
over the top of the vertical recoil.
The AK-12 has a lot of randomised movement with a strong bias to the right and when picking
a barrel attachment, it is important to mitigate this as much as possible.
I’m not going to go into the exact workings of each barrel attachment in this video (because
I have a whole video dedicated to this topic, link in the top right now and also coming
up in the end card! – preferably wait for the one in the end card, cs… you know, you
would miss the rest of this video but the choice is yours!)
The point is, for the AK, you want a barrel attachment that makes the recoil diamond smaller
and the best choice for that is the Compensator.
Once you slap both the compensator and the vertical grip onto the Fuze’s rifle, the
challenging recoil becomes pretty manageable and I think if you go for this setup, you
will have a much better time keeping your sights on target during longer bursts.
Once you go for the optimal setup on each gun, I have to say that they are both quite controllable.
The relatively fast fire rate of the AK need a little bit of experience to master but once
I switched from the muzzle brake to the compensator, everything got a lot easier.
Which of the two guns wins this part of the face off?
Honestly, I don’t think there is all that much between them.
The LMG definitely has more vertical recoil but the slower fire rate makes this less of
an issue and I would take vertical recoil over random recoil any day…
I dunno, see the comparison footage for yourself but I think I’m comfortable calling this one a draw.
And so, how can we conclude?
Which gun is going to give you a competitive advantage?
As the earliest belt fed LMG in the game that has been with us since launch, Fuze’s 6P41
has always had a bit of a special status.
Back in the day, when the LMGs were a pretty inferior class in Rainbow Six Siege, the primary
use this gun would see was in… let’s say somewhat less than competitive strats that
usually involved firing all 100 bullets in one go whenever spotting an opponent.
But with several buffs over time, the fact is that this gun is no longer the meme it once was.
Controllable, with an ok ADS time, very good stopping power at all ranges and plenty of
ammo to go round, you can definitely make good use of this gun.
The issue is that it comes up against probably one of the best guns in the game.
No matter how usable the 6P41 has become, if you really want to play Fuze and give yourself
the most competitive loadout possible, you just have to go with the AK-12.
The gun is hard hitting at the ranges that matter, with great fire rate, decent controllability,
outstanding hip fire and perfectly average reload and ADS times.
The only reason that players are not calling the AK-12 OP or a crutch is because Fuze,
as a 1 speed attacker is just not picked often enough for it to make the impact it really could.
As long as you use the compensator to get the gun under control, it is a real beast
of a weapon and quite possibly one of the best you can get on any operator in Rainbow Six Siege right now.
If the AK-12 was on a 2 or 3 speed op, it would be a real menace and make no mistake
but it isn’t and so it is probably just right where it is.
In my personal opinion, the 6P41 is pretty decent nowadays but the AK-12 is awesome!
What are your thoughts on these guns and which one do you usually use?
Vote in the poll in the top right hand corner of your screen now or let me know more details
in the comments section below!
With Ember Rise going live recently and adding the extended barrel onto Mira and Goyo’s
Vector .45 you may be wondering whether or not this attachment is worth using.
Check out the link to my analysis video coming up in the end card now and with that as always,
thank you so much for watching, I hope you enjoyed the video and I will see you in the next episode!