Ash Loses Acog in Rainbow Six Siege’s Upcoming Patch, Major Balance Changes Incoming

With only a few days to go before the start of Rainbow Six Siege’s year four, Ubisoft has begun sharing details of the upcoming patch. Operation Burnt Horizon will bring with it some of the most significant balance changes Rainbow Six Siege has ever seen. The ACOG from Ash’s R4-C has been taken away, Maverick has been nerfed, and a handful of other operators have had their abilities tweaked.

Ash

The R4-C, Ash’s most used primary weapon, will no longer support an ACOG sight. According to Ubisoft, the weapon is picked 99% of the time, which shouldn’t be the case.

“Ash is very popular, and very strong,” reads Ubisoft designer notes blog. “Within the balancing team, we are challenging whether or not all Attackers have ACOGs by default, and feel as if Ash is a great place to learn what impact the removal of Attacking ACOGs will have.”

One of Rainbow Six Siege’s base operators, Ash has been the icon of the game since release. The three-speed operator has long been the center of many controversies for many reasons. Regardless of your opinion, Ash is undoubtedly one of the strongest attacking operators.

Lesion

For many reasons, Lesion is considered one of the best defending operators in Rainbow Six Siege. His ability to deny plants and prevent operators from sprinting is extremely powerful. However, Ubisoft believes that the operator’s true strength lies in the high tick damage of his Gu mines. As a result, the total damage per tick of the Gu mines has been reduced from 8 to 4.

Dokkaebi

Dokkaebi is the second operator getting nerfed in the year four season patch. Her Logic Bomb phone call ability now automatically hangs up after 18 seconds. While Mute jammers already keep a defender immune to Logic Bombs, the next update takes it a step further. After the update, simply walking into the range of a Mute jammer will hang up the phone call.

“Our goal with these changes is to reduce the Defender’s frustration when playing against Dokkaebi. By introducing additional options for countering her Logic Bomb will offer more choice for Defenders.”

Capitao

After seasons upon seasons of no changes, Ubisoft has finally reworked Capitao. Released in Operation Skull Rain, the operator was considered extremely powerful, until he was on the receiving end of some heavy nerfs. In the upcoming patch, the developers will deploy a Capitao rework that they have been working on for a “long time”.

As you can observe in this demonstration, Capitao’s asphyxiating bolts now function very differently. The area of effect size has been increased, but the damage per tick has been dropped from 19 to 12.

“Currently, his asphyxiating bolts are being used almost like a frag grenade, so the damage reduction and area of effect increase should reduce the viability of these asphyxiating bolts being used as frag grenades.”

After numerous complaints from players, Maverick will also be receiving a nerf. The time to swap between weapons and his SURI blowtorch has been increased. With no active counter in the game, Maverick’s ability to silently make holes and eliminate defenders made him an infuriating opponent.

Although many players suggested increasing the sound of the blowtorch louder, Ubisoft says that it requires “audio work that we cannot complete right now, and is therefore on the backlog of potential future changes.”

Aside from a few other changes to breach charges and Clash’s machine pistol, year four season one patch will bring two new Australian operators. Ubisoft notes that they are working on changes to deployable shields, Montagne, Blitz, and shield operators in general. The previously announced Lion rework will also be unveiled at the Six Invitational.

The Six Invitational 2019 is underway and Operation Burnt Horizon for Rainbow Six Siege is right around the corner. Tune in to the Rainbow Six Twitch channel on February 17th for a live reveal.