Rainbow Six Siege Update 5.2 Today Buffs Tachanka, Adds University Map to PvP

Available by 8:30am PT/11:30am ET on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, Rainbow Six Siege update 5.2 is a Mid-Season Reinforcement patch that adds the Bartlett University map to PvP, introduces major changes to Tachanka, and more.

Reportedly a 2.18GB download on PS4, here’s the highlights of today’s Rainbow Six Siege update (version 1.22 on PS4):

Reworked Operators

Tachanka – Game Design Notes

Since the launch of Rainbow Six Siege more than a year ago, Tachanka has been the weakest Operator, even if he has become one of the most loved. This has most clearly been reflected in his pick rate, which is the lowest in the game.

When looking at Tachanka, the biggest downside lies in the gadget. The tradeoff between his turret’s stopping power and his lack of mobility isn’t good enough. Attackers have several ways to deny him with the element of surprise, and can easily headshot him once they know his position.

In order to introduce a counter to this weakness, we’ve added a shield in front of the turret which protects him from frontal headshots. The objective is for Tachanka to be the king of the angle that he positioned into, while being very vulnerable to other angles.

The shield can be broken separately from the rest of turret and has 500 HP. We’ve also added recoil and a little bit of spread to the gun, in order to mitigate the strength of the shielded turret in spawn peek situations (long distances).

New Map

Bartlett University Map

• Launching with the Mid-Season Reinforcement patch is the Bartlett University map redesigned for PvP. The map used to only be available in PvE and is going to be available for everyone starting December 15th, 2016.
• The newly redesigned map removes all the gas and PvE elements from the original design, and introduces better destruction, improved visual layout for better orientation, and a new two-layer destruction.

Operator Tweaks

Fuze Is Getting Another Cluster Charge

Fuze is getting an additional Cluster Charge and each sub-grenade has a larger radius.

Fuze is literally a hit or miss Operator. We wanted to help him be more on the “hit” side of things while not making him too frustrating to play against either. He’s getting an additional charge to apply offensive pressure more often throughout the round. That change alone would not have changed much on itself since it’s rather easy to dodge the pellets. That is why we are also making the radius of the pellets’ larger, from 2.5 meters to 4.2m.

As it was before, the lethal area for all armor types was up to 1.2m. From 1.2m to 2.5, it would be non-lethal damage except for light armor who only suffered non-lethal from 2m to 2.5m. We are expanding the zone of non-lethal damage up to 4.2m. This should help Fuze move Defenders out of rooms, exposing them to other Attacker’s fire or preventing them from holding crucial lines of fire. Have at it, and be careful of where the hostage is before detonating those Cluster Charges!

Bandit Adds a Battery

We’ve added a fourth Battery to Bandit. Batteries are relatively easy to get rid of in most situations, and defenders need some help countering Thermite and Hibana wall breaching abilities.

Smoke’s Gas Canisters Now Throw Like Grenades

Smoke’s Gas Canisters follow the nitro cell curve and speed when thrown; however, we want to give him better deployment options for his gadget. In 5.2, we’ve replaced this with a normal Frag Grenade throw curve.

Blackbeard’s Killing Efficiency Is Getting Balanced

In this episode of a series of very fortunate nerfs: Blackbeard. His killing power is without a doubt the greatest in the game right now. He has one of the highest pick rates, as well as the highest kill/death ratio of all operators. Because of his shield, he is able to out-trade almost anyone in any situation. That is a problem.

Blackbeard’s role is meant to hold an angle while being fully covered and catching rotating defenders. Right now, he excels at doing that while also excelling at getting kills in about any situation. This change is going keep him strong at his role of holding angles while making sure he isn’t as strong at running and gunning.

• Shield health points reduced from 150 to 60
• Aiming down sights increased from 0.25 to 0.7 seconds
• Aiming down sights from sprint increased from 0.35 to 0.8 seconds

Other Improvements

Shield Resistance Against Explosions

In general, Shield Operators are currently too weak. One of the reasons is how easily they get countered by explosives like nitro cells.

Because of this, we have implemented a system that make shields offer directional resistance versus explosions.

When an explosion occur close to a Shield Operator, it will now take into account how much of the Operator’s body was protected from the explosion by the shield. Every body part that is fully covered by the shield will resist up to 80% of the explosion damage, and the total damage will take into account which body parts were hit. Feet and hands take less damage than torso and head, for instance.

Typically, a nitro cell thrown in front of a shield will be a lot less of a threat – but one that is carefully thrown behind a shield will force him to make a hard choice: look back at it to mitigate damage while being exposed, or keep advancing forward and hope the explosion won’t be close.

Note that this does not apply to Blackbeard, or Tachanka.

Grenade Explosions Are More Consistent

We have recalculated the behavior of grenades to make them to more consistent with the destruction system. Here is how they are changing:

• The Impact Grenade now uses a radial explosion for a more consistent hole shape.
• Explosions now create holes that decrease in size with the distance.
• The Frag Grenade now uses a radial explosion for damage near the frag itself and shrapnel destruction at longer ranges.

You can learn about the weapon changes and bug fixes by heading over here.

As Ubisoft detailed last month, Rainbow Six Siege will have another full year of content in 2017.

[Source: Rainbow Six Siege, Rainbow Six, Ubisoft Forums, Reddit (1), (2)]