What’s up guys, Rogue-9 here and with Operation Neon Dawn launching today, here’s a quick
fire recap of all of the operator changes going live today!
Let’s gooooo!
Hibana is getting a mini rework that allows you to switch her X-Kairos launcher from 6
to 4 or 2 pellet groups.
This will make your 18 pellets stretch much further than before.
Unreinforced hatches and Castle barricades can be opened up using only two pellets instead
of the default 6 from the past.
Reinforced hatches only need 4 pellets, letting you save 2 straight away and if you only use
2 pellets at a time, you can make impact tricking much more difficult because the defenders
will only get 2 pellets for each impact they use for denial.
Opening up crawl-able, crouch-able and even walkable holes will also cost you 2, 4 and
6 pellets less than before because you can simply use 2 width stacks instead of the old 3 width.
Just make sure to leave enough space above and below the groups, otherwise it might not work out.
This is a great quality of life update for Hibana but it will also end up as quite a
considerable buff because you will be able to open up so much more than before.
Jäger is getting nerfed, with a 10s cooldown being added to each of his ADS devices.
This will make burning out the ADSs much easier than in the past but, if you’re on attack,
you’re going to have to use that 10s time window because the ADSs will now theoretically
have infinite charges, instead of only 2 each.
The 10s timer can be reset by Jäger picking up and redeploying the gadget but that sequence
of actions will take around 6s in itself during which Jäger will be completely vulnerable.
Personally, I think the consequence of this will be that most of the time, the ADSs will
simply be stacked in groups of 3 and in that case, you are going to need to throw 4 projectiles
within that 10s window and that will usually take a coordinated effort from at least 2 attackers.
So the ADSs will actually still be quite useful, but they’ll most often just be concentrated
in one location instead of being able to cover different spots.
Beyond this announced change, there are also a couple of other changes going on.
One obvious one are the new blue lights, that replace the red and I personally feel that
the blue is somewhat easier to spot.
And then there’s also the sound that the devices make.
Up until now, the range of the chirping and clicking noises was only about 10m but with
the new update, those sounds will travel twice as far, making it far easier for attackers
to know where to expect ADSs.
Something else I noticed on the Test server that I had never seen before, is that ADS
devices will now apparently block each other’s sight.
One of the three devices was still active but failed to catch my smoke grenade here.
Not sure if that’s new or not but it definitely is going to be a thing going forward!
And finally, there is also a change to the interaction between Jäger and Wamai.
With the new season, if a Wamai disc pulls a projectile into the range of an ADS, then
the ADS also gets triggered and the attackers basically get a 2 for 1 deal.
This didn’t happen until now, so this is another little hidden nerf to be aware of.
And since we are talking about Wamai, he is losing 1 of his MAG-Nets and will now only
have 4, instead of 5, which is of course a nerf but at the same time, the explosion effect
of his discs is being removed, which will make them a little easier to use.
If you put them too close together (or you put your MAG-Net too close to another fragile
defender gadget) from now on any non-explosive projectile (like a stun grenade, or smoke
grenade) will be caught by the Wamai but the other gadgets around it will be safe.
Final nerf to Wamai is that he is losing his deployable shield and gaining impact grenades instead.
Echo is getting a massive nerf in that his drones will no longer be able to cloak when
attaching to a ceiling which will make them much easier to spot and then there are also
of course the blue lights when the drone is in use.
This means that Echo will need to be far more active in the use of his drones and to help
with this, his barbed wire is being switched out for a deployable shield.
Ash is being changed to be less of an entry fragger and more of an anti-utility operator
with the addition of one extra breaching charge (3 instead of 2) but the loss of stun grenades,
which are being swapped for claymores.
Also, the damage of the breaching grenades is coming down from 90 to 50… at least on
paper because as I have demonstrated in the past, even rubbing your face right up to one
of these charges, never really did a reliable 90 damage anyway and it won’t do a reliable
50 damage now either.
Twitch is gaining stun grenades in exchange for her breach charges, in order to make her
a little more appealing in the current utility driven META and the hope is that this will
revive her pick-rate a little after all of the recent nerfs turned out just a little
bit too effective.
Sam, is losing his ‘oh so useful’ frag grenades and gaining a hard breach charge instead.
This change is quite similar in its intended effect as Wamai’s shield removal, in that
the devs are specifically targeting operators that they see as too autonomous, too independent
and I’m honestly not sure I agree with this goal.
In my personal opinion, having a few operators in the game that can be quite independent
is a great thing for solo-queuers because if you do ever end up in one of those matches,
where your team just won’t communicate or coordinate with you, then at least you have
a couple of operators to fall back on that will allow you do get some work done on your own.
This is a good thing and on the flipside, it doesn’t harm anyone.
Having an operator who is a bit more independent, isn’t a bad thing for highly organised teams,
it’s not a bad thing for pro players.
I really see no benefit in removing these comfort options from the game when nobody
even benefits from it.
But that’s just my opinion.
Yes, Siege is a team based game but I seriously doubt that the devs will ever be able to force
cooperation on a certain subgroup of the player base and if solo-queuers are denied the opportunity
to be able to play comfortably in games where they might not have reliable teammates, then
I see a significant chance of these players simply quitting the game in future.
Final gadget changes are for Dokkaebi, who is losing stuns and gaining grenades in order
to make her a little more attractive for players and to boost her pick rate a bit.
And Valkyrie is losing her shield and gaining impacts to reduce the number of deployable
shields that will be played in pro-league.
In ranked, most players prefer her C4 anyway and that will probably not be changing any time soon.
And that’s it!
A whistle-stop rundown of all of the operator changes going live today, just as a little
reminder for you, before you jump into the new season.
If this little refresher was useful to you, do leave the video a Like and with that; I
hope you enjoyed the video and I will see you in the next episode.