What’s up guys, Rogue-9 here and as you may have heard, I am in Paris at the Six Majors
and I got the opportunity to try out the new Operators!
In this video, I will give you a first hands-on insight into the new defender Clash coming
to Rainbow Six Siege with Operation Grim Sky.
Clash is a very unique operator, since she is the first shield op on the defensive team.
Many players have been fearing the worst since this news came out only a few days ago, so
let’s take a closer look at how OP she really is and why not start out with the basics.
Just like we are accustomed to with all of the previous shield operators in Rainbow Six
Siege, Clash is a 1 speed, 3 armour operator that does not have access to a primary weapon
slot.This is of course permanently filled by her crowd control electric shield.
Contrary to earlier assumptions made by Get Flanked, Pete and me on our brand new siege
focused podcast (the Hot Breach Podcast, check it out if you haven’t yet!) this shield
is not a deployable gadget after all but much more similar to Monty’s shield.
It does function slightly differently though.
When Clash has her secondary weapons out, the shield is worn on the back.
As soon as you bring out the shield, her weapon will be holstered and the shield auto deploys
into full frontal body coverage.
After this, Clash will only be able to walk and the only kind of attack that she has available
to her, is the electro shock ability of her shield, which deals 3 damage at a fire rate
of what the menu calls 20 but what I managed to test in game as once per second.
So that’s really not very powerful at all but any enemies that are shocked, will also
be slowed down in terms of their movement speed and they will also suffer a visual effect
that makes it harder to see.
All of this perfectly fits into what I like to call the unofficial theme of Operation Grim Sky:
Cooperation!
I already mentioned this in my Maverick video (link to that coming up at the end) and with
Clash, cooperation is even more important.
On her own, Clash can maybe hold off a push from a single attacker for a while but sooner
or later, she is going to be flanked and even more importantly, she can be meleed, which
will make her briefly vulnerable to follow up shots by the enemy.
Maverick is very useful when combined with other operators; Clash is extremely vulnerable
on her own (almost to the point of being useless) but at the same time, she can be extremely
powerful when supported by one or two other defenders.
Being completely bullet proof from 180 degrees to the front is a great and slowing down enemies
and marking them can make them easy targets for teammates.
And as long as these teammates can also stop the attackers from getting in close to Clash, she is pretty safe.
If you are on the attacking side, flashbangs, explosives and stuns can be great tools in
overcoming a Clash and her support.
In our short play session, one of the best uses for clash that we found was blocking windows.
Melee attacks and flanks are her greatest weaknesses but she can block an attacker from
being able to swing into a room and since she cannot be rushed and meleed by a rappelling
attacker, she is pretty safe when blocking the swing in.
That’s pretty much all there is to the EEC shield.
It doesn’t destroy gadgets (not even drones) and will not interact with objects, such as
reinforcements or deployable shields.
When not using her shield, Clash has access to the CZ P10-C pistol, which I will be testing
in detail once the new season goes live but at first glance, it looks very similar to
many of the other semi-auto pistols.
Although, 40 baseline damage is pretty low but I guess the gun makes up for that by having
the same pistol red dot sight as the RG15.
More interesting than this pistol though is her other option, the SPSMG9 machine pistol.
Baseline damage for this weapon is listed as 30 and the magazine capacity is officially
15 but in the demo build I played it was actually 20 in game.
So I can’t quite say what the official capacity for this gun will be but if I had to guess,
I would probably say 20 but this is actually not even the detail I wanted to focus on.
What makes the SMG9 unique in Rainbow Six Siege is that even though the fire rate is
listed as an impressive 980 RPM, you will only be able to shoot this gun in two-round burst mode.
And I think that the best way to picture this weapon is not actually as a machine pistol
but instead as a semi-auto that does 60 damage with each shot because the two bullets are
fired so closely together that they essentially become one.
Now while many guns in Siege have a burst mode and a couple even have a two-round burst
option, it is interesting to see a gun that is locked into the burst and I almost suspect
that this is something that was added after the fact.
Maybe she was supposed to have a regular machine pistol at first and when they discovered that
this made her more powerful in combat than they wanted her to be, they locked the fire
rate down as an afterthought.
But there you have it.
I have to say that I had great fun playing as clash and as long as you have some teammates
backing you up, she can be a formidable defender.
On her own though, her fragging potential is extremely limited.
Is this what you expected Clash to be?
What are your initial thoughts on her?
Let me know in the comments section below and if you haven’t seen my video on the
new attacker Maverick yet, check out the link in the upcoming end card!
And with that, thank you so much for watching; I hope you enjoyed the video and I will see
you in the next episode.