What’s up guys, Rogue-9 here and I have been seeing some recent Twitter debates discussing
which of the two Thicc Bois (that’s Rook and Doc) is the better and also arguing that
the two characters are currently too similar too each other.
So in this video, I want to explore the stats and abilities behind each of the GIGN defenders
to see how similar they really are and which one of them is the better choice.
Let’s go!
Now the first myth I need to dispel right here is that Rook and Doc are the Ticc Bois
of Rainbow Six Siege.
If we consult the table of operator weights and heights, we can see that at 72 and 74kg
respectively, Rook and Doc are in fact below the overall average weight of 74.5kg and the
same goes for their calculated Body Mass Index stats.
If we go one step further and filter out the female operators, then you can see that both
of the GIGN defenders are actually amongst the lightest characters in the game and come
in significantly below the 79.5kg average for male Rainbow Six Siege operators.
Given this undeniable evidence, I hereby declare that Rook and Doc shall from now on be referred
to as the smol bois.
And with that incredibly important discussion out of the way, let’s get down to comparing gadgets.
Let me first remind you of exactly how each gadget functions because the fact is that
especially Rook’s plates are actually a lot more complex than most players might realise.
But before we get to that, here’s my face: This video is brought to you by Drop, formerly
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Many thanks to Drop for supporting the channel and with that, back to the video!
Rook can put down a satchel of 5 armour plates that can be equipped by defenders and attackers alike.
Standard practice is to place the satchel down immediately at the beginning of the prep-phase
so that all of your teammates are fully armoured up by the beginning of the action phase.
If you are playing as Rook and you forget to place down your bag immediately or if you
are playing as another defender and forget to pick up your plate before the action phase,
you will most likely receive a friendly reminder from one of your teammates.
Once equipped, each armour plate will have a couple of functions: They will reduce incoming
damage by 20% for all operators which basically means that “level 1 armours” turn into
“3 armours”, “2 armours” turn into “3.8 armours” and “3 armours” turn
into “4.6 armours”.
On average this will maybe allow you to soak up one extra bullet to the chest at close
range or maybe two extra shots at long range.
But of course, head shots are still one-hit-kills and any other types of damage, such as fall
damage, explosive damage, poison damage etc. will be unchanged.
Beyond reducing the damage you take, the armour plates will also guarantee you a “down but
not out” against anything but headshots.
So even if you are on 1HP and you take the full 150 damage from an explosive charge,
you will still survive it.
Will this be of any benefit to you?
Well, it depends: If you go down in a gun fight while in the open and face to face with
an opponent, then no, probably not.
But if you are in cover and get downed by a well-aimed hand grenade or the last explosion
of a Fuze charge, then there may be a very good chance for your teammates to get you back up.
In addition to these benefits, Rook plates will also slow the bleed-out process by 50%
giving you more time to creep your way to safety.
Doc’s stim pistol also has a number of functions.
It can be used at range, has 3 charges and can be used on a living operator to refill
40HP of health with each shot, up to a maximum of 140HP over heal that will decay at 1HP
per second down to 100 points.
It can also be used to revive down-but-not-out players and will refill 75% of their health,
rather than the measly 20% you get from manual revives nowadays.
Filling up a decent chunk of health when reviving is great but the chances of being able to
use that ability in any given round are quite slim and so the most frequent use you will
see from Doc players is replenishing a teammates’ (or more likely their own) health after a
fight or using the over heal function before a fight.
So that’s how the two devices work and the question now is: how do we quantify these
abilities to try to compare their value to the team.
One thing we could try to do is to see how much additional damage they will allow the team to soak up.
So, how much damage can each operator allow your team to take?
For Doc this is pretty straight forward.
Usually, you will get up to 3 stims used to grant 40HP each, resulting in a total of 120HP regained.
If all the stars align and Lord Tachanka smiles on you, you could theoretically revive up
to three players on your team giving you a total regain of 225HP regained but the chances
of that are extremely low.
So let’s stick with up to 120HP and only if Doc manages to survive long enough to be
able to use all three stims.
The value of Rook is a little more difficult to estimate, since it reduces bullet damage
instead of granting extra health.
20% less damage means that when plates are picked up, all incoming bullets receives a
damage multiplier of 0.8 and if we take the multiplicative inverse of that, we receive
an additional health pool of 1.25 or plus 25%.
For level 1 armour operators that of course means a theoretical 125 health but since the
other two armour levels already take less damage from each bullet fired at them, it
means that level 2 armours would theoretically gain 27.78HP and level 3 armours gain 31.25HP
from picking up Rook’s plates.
But I am becoming unnecessarily complicated here because if we are going to differentiate
the value of the plates for all three different levels of armour types, then we really would
need to do the same for Doc, because 40HP given to a level 1 armour is worth less than
40HP given to a level 2 or 3 armour, since each hit point is 11% or 25% more valuable
respectively to those levels of armour.
So basically because of the damage modifiers for the armour levels, those 40HP are actually
worth 44.444HP to level 2 armours and 50HP to level three armours.
Make sense?
The conclusion of all that nonsense I’ve just been talking is that both Rook and Doc
are more valuable when they use their gadgets on teammates with higher amour levels but
if we compare the additional efficacy of both gadgets we can see that they gain the exact
same advantage and so what we can do here to simplify our conclusion is to just ignore
armour levels altogether.
As long as the respective gadgets are used on the same targets, their helpfulness is
comparable and to keep things nice and simple, let’s stick to level 1 armour teammates going forward.
And now that we have established this, time to compare.
Doc can provide between 3 times 40 and three times 75 points of additional health (usually
provided retroactively) and Rook can provide 5 times 25 additional hit points up front.
That means that the total extra health pool from Rook is 125HP and from Doc is between 120 and 225HP.
That means that in theory (looking only at additional health), a skilled Doc player can
add more benefit to the team than a Rook player.
As long as Doc is able to use all three stim shots and at least one of them is used to
resurrect a downed teammate or himself; OR if he manages to resurrect two teammates in
a round, then the additional health he has granted will always be more than the maximum
support that Rook can provide.
But of course there is a significant risk/reward trade-off here.
Trolling teammates aside, there is almost nothing that can go wrong when you play as Rook.
Plonk the plates down immediately and everyone gets a guaranteed health boost of 25%.
Doc on the other hand, needs to stay alive and needs his teammates to survive their fights
if he is going to get the most out of his gadget.
And then of course, there is the guaranteed down-but-not-out and the slower bleed-out
advantages that come with the plates.
Without having access to the hard data that would allow me to draw a firm conclusion here,
I would guess even at higher skill levels, the chances of successfully getting the most
out of Doc and therefore making him more valuable to the team than Rook are actually quite low.
My personal recommendation when trying to help the team would therefore be to take the
safe pick and to stick with Rook most of the time.
But that doesn’t mean that there is no argument to be made for Doc either.
If you are in a game where the team isn’t really communicating all that well and you
can’t rely on your teammates that much, then Doc may be the better pick after all.
The benefit Doc brings is that you can focus your support on yourself or just one reliable teammate.
For example, if you are going to play mostly solo and your plan is to peek aggressively,
then Doc can allow you to give yourself up to 120 or even 155 extra hit points throughout
the round and that will be more valuable to you than the mere 25% boost provided by a single plate.
So there you have it.
Even though Doc can theoretically provide up to almost double the health boost of Rook,
this utility comes with significant additional risk and you may well end up providing less
support to the team as Doc in most rounds.
But if you are playing solo and need to rely on yourself then Doc may well be the better choice.
Yes, both operators are similar and actually look almost identical but once you really
dig into the specifics of each of their abilities, the choice between the two becomes far more
situational and nuanced than you might have thought at first.
Over to you: Which of the two GIGN smol bois is your favourite pick?
Let me know in the comments section below and with that, thank you so much for watching
I hope you enjoyed the video and I will see you in the next episode!