What’s up guys, Rogue-9 here and as you may already know, Patch Year 3, Season 4 .2
is currently live on the Rainbow Six Siege test servers and this patch includes some
re-balancing for a hand full of characters.
Caveira, Clash, Kaid, Rook and Doc are all going to change somewhat in the future and
especially the Cav changes have been the source of a lot of discussion.
The patch notes claim that she is getting nerfed but is that actually true?
Let’s go and find out!
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Back to the patch notes and as you can see, they are arranged in reverse order of complexity,
so why don’t we start with the simple stuff at the bottom before working out way up!
The MP5 used by both Rook and Doc is getting a max. damage nerf from 30 points, down to 27.
This will make this version of the MP5 the weakest of the three types, with Mute’s
MP5K and Echo’s MP5SD remaining at 30 points (I double checked just to be sure).
After drop-off, the GIGN MP5 will now do 18 points of damage, down from 20.
So that’s basically a 10% decrease at all ranges.
What does this mean in terms of the gun’s combat efficiency?
Well, in this chart, I have calculated the number of shots required to down or kill an
opponent at all ranges, for all three armour types.
The average kill distance in Siege is just below 10m and as you can see, up to a distance
of 19m there is no change against level 1 and 3 armour opponents while level 2 armours
will already require one shot extra.
Once you get out to long range spawn peeks of 25/26m plus, you will need one extra shot
against all three types of armour.
So even though this nerf is only 2 or 3 points of damage less, we can see that the effect
is quite significant, especially when we consider that level 2 armour is the most common character
type on the attacking side and spawn peeks are going to become just that little bit harder
against all types of attackers.
Moving up the patch notes, we can see that Kaid’s AUG A3 SMG is getting a faster Aim
Down Sight time of 300ms instead of the old 450ms.
This brings the gun in line with all of the other SMGs and to me that makes perfect sense.
There was no reason for the AUG para to be the only SMG in the game to have the slow
ADS time and the new time should have really been in the game from the very start of the season.
On to Clash and she is getting a pretty decent buff that will turn her SPSMG9 into a quasi-primary
weapon by giving it full-auto capability.
This will allow Clash to be a little more independent which is an important improvement
for players that tend to solo-queue and don’t always have the luxury of being able to play
with reliable teammates.
I do find it a little bit of a shame though that Clash’s P-10C pistol is basically becoming
redundant because why would anyone choose to run the sidearm when you can pick a full-auto
SMG instead?
But that aside, let’s look at what the changes mean for Clash’s combat effectiveness.
Full-auto instead of the 2 round burst, new recoil and 40 extra bullets to carry.
Relatively straight forward and as you can see in the background the new recoil actually
stays quite manageable up until the 7th shot of a burst.
From shot number 8 onwards, the recoil can become quite unpredictable but as long as
you aware of that and you time your bursts accordingly, you should be able to control
the gun just as easily as before.
And to round things off, the SMG9 is also getting a 10% damage buff across the board
from 30/20 to 33/22.
A 10% decrease for the MP5 made a significant difference but the same is not true for the SMG9.
As you can see, against level 1 and 2 armour opponents, the required shots to down/kill
stays exactly the same, both at short and long range with only minor differences at mid-ranges.
The only real benefit we will see for Clash is against level 3 armour attackers… so
that’s Montagne, Fuze and a couple of the recruits… that’s it.
Basically, the damage upgrade is nice to have when dealing with opponents that have already
lost just the right amount of health for it to make a difference, but against full health
opponents, you’re going to benefit only against a small group of operators.
And finally, the most controversial changes of all.
Caveira is getting a major damage nerf to her pistol, a change in damage drop-off, a
recoil increase and increased hip fire spread.
I compared the hip fire spread before and after the nerf and we will basically have
to deal with a 50% increase in spread at all stances.
This definitely makes hip firing less viable for Cav from now on.
As you can see in the side by side comparison, the recoil increase is also no joke.
After the patch goes live, we will face more vertical recoil for each shot, plus the gun
will have a distinct tendency to wander off to the left, whereas it used to stay relatively straight.
Three less bullets per magazine is not a huge change in and of itself but it just adds that
little bit of an extra burden to Cav players going forward.
Long pre-fire bursts or taking out three or more opponents in one mag will become just
that little less viable from now on.
For the damage nerf, let’s go straight back to the spreadsheet and as you can see, not
only are the minimum and maximum damage numbers changing but the drop-off curve is getting
pushed back quite a bit.
As of the current test server build, the damage drop-off will start at 12m (like for all other
pistols) but it is very shallow and won’t bottom out until around 35m, making the Luison
actually more powerful at mid-ranges from 16-31m.
This means that we get a mixed effect on the required number of shots to down.
As long as you are hitting upper body shots, at the average combat distance of 10m or less,
there will be no change at all against any of the three armour types.
You will still get a down in 2 shots.
Leg shots are a different matter though.
With those, you will already need more hits, even up close.
As already mentioned, at medium ranges, the new drop-off makes the Lusion more powerful
but once you get out to those really long ranges of 33m plus, you will notice that the
new damage stats are very weak and you will need a whole bunch of extra hits, even if
every shot hits the upper body.
So: nerf or buff?
Well, the Lusion is becoming harder to control, it will have less ammo and it will be significantly
weaker at very long ranges.
And even at close range, you will need to be more accurate in future, because 2 leg
shots just won’t be enough to get a down anymore.
Yes, at medium ranges from around 16-31m (depending on armour type of your opponent) you will
occasionally need up to two shots less to get a down (and that’s with upper body shots)
but all in all, once you add all of the changes to the gun together, I would still call this a nerf.
Cav players will need to be a bit more accurate and will need a bit more manual recoil control
in order to remain as effective as they are now BUT I believe that skilled players will
adapt to these changes pretty quickly.
And that’s it!
What are your thoughts on these balancing changes now that you have a deeper insight
into what they will mean for us?
Leave your comments below!
As always, thanks for watching, I hope you enjoyed the video and I will see you in the next episode!