What’s up guys, Rogue-9 here!
Operation Steel Wave is barely a week old and we already have the first patch of the
season up on the Test Server.
As usual, the patch notes are… let’s say a little hazy on some of the details, so in
this video we will be going over what will actually be changing and how it will affect
your games; as a bonus, I’m also going to give a brief rundown of the new metal detector behaviour.
Let’s go!
First up, let me maybe get straight to the fixed metal detectors that can be found on
several of the maps in Rainbow Six Siege.
This change is already live on PC and consoles since I didn’t cover it in my last patch
update video, I thought it would be a good opportunity to show off the change here.
If you already know all about this, use the chapters in the video to jump forward to the next topic!
The patch notes tell us that the metal detectors will now play a shorter three second alarm
before stopping, “only one alarm can be played at a time” and that there is no longer
a cooldown on the alarm trigger and while the first bullet point is straight forward
enough, I find the latter two a bit misleading to say the least, so let me just break down
a really simple before and after.
Before Steel Wave, the detectors used to play a 10s alarm sound whenever a player passed
through them and they were on a 35s cooldown once triggered.
This meant that after the alarm was finished, there were still a full 25s that you could
walk through the detectors without setting them off again.
The way they work now is that the alarm sound only lasts for 3s once triggered and the cooldown is also 3s.
This means that you won’t have multiple overlapping alarm sounds from the same detector
if you walk through it backwards and forwards (which makes complete sense) but as soon as
the 3s sound is finished, the device is immediately re-armed and will go off again as soon as
you (or anyone else) walk through.
That’s it, no more; no less!
The suggestion in the second bullet point that only one alarm can go off at a time is
complete nonsense, different alarms throughout the map can be triggered at the same time
completely independently; it’s just that you can’t trigger the same one again and
again for overlapping alarm sounds.
Now over to the upcoming changes and first up here is a nerf to Melusi.
The Patch notes tell us that the range of her gadget is being reduced: the max. range
is coming down from 6m to 4m and apparently, the slow penalty radius is being reduced from 3m to 2m.
This kind of suggests that before the 2m mark attackers will not be slowed down but that
is quite simply incorrect.
Even after the nerf, attacking players will be unable to sprint and will be slowed down
as soon the Banshee goes off at 4m distance.
What I suspect the patch notes are trying to tell us is that the slowing effect increases,
the closer you get to the device itself, peaking at 2m distance and I do believe that this
progressive slowdown can be seen in the test footage in the background here.
But minor details aside, the main point is that the Banshee is basically losing one third
of its range compared to before.
Both the maximum trigger range and the range at which players experience the maximum slow
down effect are reduced by one third.
In addition to this, there is also a nerf to the gadget’s sound effect…
in first person POV?!
What is that supposed to mean?!
Rainbow Six is a first person shooter…
All sound is always in first person POV!
There is no third person POV, unless for some bizarre reason the spectator cam still gets full sound?
But that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever!
Imagine a pro league broadcast and the spectator is completely deafened by Banshees all of the time!
No! No! I don't know... I don't know...
I don... I just don't know what this first person POV comment is supposed to mean.
Again though, the ever enduring mysteries of the Rainbow Six patch notes aside, the
main takeaway here is that the Banshee will be quite a bit quieter.
Here is a comparison of the before and after!
The next nerf is for Ace and Hibana.
It was recently discovered that their breaching tools were able to destroy defender gadgets,
such as bandit batteries or Kaid claws, through a reinforced wall, as long as there was a
breachable floor for the breaching tools to detonate on.
And while Ace’s SELMA aqua breachers were also intended to be used as anti-gadget devices,
they were never supposed to be able to defeat Bandit or Kaid supported walls all on their
own and so this ability is being mostly removed.
The SELMAs can still destroy close by gadgets but only when they are on the same side of
a reinforced wall, not from the other side.
This is a pretty decent fix and it’s great to see it come into the game so soon after
the launch of this new operator but there is still a little bit of a trick you can use,
specifically when you are playing as Ace and you come up against a Bandit.
All you need to do, is to stand parallel to the wall and make sure that you throw the
SELMA far enough away from the wall so as not to get zapped but still close enough so
that the unfolding arms will still reach the wall.
When the SELMA detonates, this can and will leave a decent sized breach at the bottom
of the wall which will then allow you to shoot the batteries on the other side, as well as
deny any further tricking.
So even after the patch, the Ace trick does still work to a degree and you can still defeat
a Bandited wall all on your own.
I think the way this should work is that as soon as any part of the SELMA (including the
arms) touches an electrified wall, they entire gadget is immediately destroyed and maybe
we will see this fix come into the game at some point.
How long it will take to program this new behaviour is anyone’s guess.
All we know for sure is that in the live build right now, you can still use both Ace and
Hibana’s breaches to clear defender gadgets through walls and as things stand, even after
the nerf/fix in the upcoming patch, Ace will still be able to open up small parts of electrified
walls as long as there is a breachable floor on his side of the wall!
Apart from these two balancing fixes, there are also a bunch bug fixes coming to the game
and while most of them are quite mundane, there are a couple that are worth mentioning.
If you’re active on Twitter, you might have seen a few clips going around taking advantage
of a new bug that allows players to walk or crawl on even the tiniest ledges on a number of maps.
Here’s pro caster and streamer KiXSTAr pulling off a ridiculous post plant defence on top floor Kafe.
And the clip that originally made this glitch public was this outrageous Assassin’s Creed
style parkour trick, shared by the one and only Coconutbrah!
With the new patch on the test server, this trick, glitch or whatever you want to call
it, has been removed on all maps, see an example test of the Kanal ledge here.
As fun and inventive as the strats that came with this glitch could be, I think it’s
great to see the devs react quickly to patch this out because some of the possibilities
on various maps are absolutely broken.
Another bug that is getting fixed is that, in the live build right now, Melusi’s Banshees
have a much larger bullet proof hitbox than the actual size of the gadget and some clever
players had already found some sneaky spots where you could use this see through cover
to get sightlines on your opponents while staying 100% untouchable.
This is also being fixed in the next patch and the new hitbox of the Banshees will be
much more accurate and so the opportunity to use the invisible hitbox for cover will
soon also be a thing of the past, nicely done Ubisoft!
And that’s it, short and sweet(…ish) for once.
Many thanks for watching, I hope you enjoyed the video and I will see you in the next episode!