One day after the full reveal of Operation Heavy Mettle, Ubisoft unveiled the Y8S3 Designer's Notes including information on the upcoming changes to Rainbow Six Siege.
Operation Heavy Mettle will introduce important changes to playlists including a new Arcade game mode called Weapon Roulette and updates to Quick Match and Standard.
On top of that, tweaks to Grim, Frost, and Fuze were unveiled. However, Lesion's changes and the arrival of Ram stole the show.
For more information about Rainbow Six Siege's next season, check out our article including every feature coming to Rainbow Six Siege with Operation Heavy Mettle.
Read more: Rainbow Six Siege new operator: Ram
Y8S3 Designer's Notes
Iana and Warden
Although Iana and Warden won't go through any change any time soon, Ubisoft teased a potential nerf coming to Iana and Warden.
According to today's Designer's Notes, Ubisoft is "aware of the situation and the issues behind it." Ubisoft admits that Iana's fragmentation grenades and Warden's 1.5x scope have increased their respective pick rates and and "will take action in an upcoming mid-season patch to make sure they feel less like 'must picks' and more like weighted choices within a squad's lineup."
On top of that, Ubisoft are working on a "bigger solution that will attend the balance situation of Frag Grenades and the 1.5x sight within Siege."
Fuze
Starting from Operation Heavy Mettle, Fuze will be able to place his Cluster Charges on Deployable Shields and Osa's shields.
Grim
Ubisoft is adding a brand-new option to the Kawan Live Launcher that allows the gadget to make the mines bounce from walls and floors.
Lesion
Lesion is getting buffed in Operation Heavy Mettle as the Gu Mine refill timer has been reduced from 30 to 20 seconds. Moreover, his total number of Gu Mines is being increased from 8 to 9.
Lesion's Gu Mines won't be affected by EMPs nor hacked by Brava's Kludge Drone. On top of that, IQ's gadget won't be able to detect Lesion's mines.
If that wasn't enough, Ubisoft is increasing the initial damage from 0HP to 5HP and the poison damage from 8HP to 12HP. The poison timer has also been reduced from 2.5 seconds to 2 seconds.
However, Lesion's Gu Mines cloaking has been removed and the gadget will be more visible.
Finally, Ubisoft is adding the Super Shorty to Lesion's loadout.
Shotgun Buff Explained
Operation Heavy Mettle is introducing a buff to Rainbow Six Siege's shotguns. Today, Ubisoft unveiled more information about the change.
Ubisoft is normalizing ranges into three stages:
- 0-5 meters: Each pellet delivers 100% of the base damage.
- 6-10 meters: Each pellet delivers 75% of the base damage.
- 13 meters and above: Each pellet delivers 45% of the base damage.
Ubisoft is also giving information about shotgun headshots, saying that "a pellet getting the headshot modifier deals 1.5x the damage after its range modifier."
Moving increases the spread, which will be helpful at creating rotation holes.
Bulletproof Glass
A melee hit to a Deployable Shield will shatter the glass.
Quick Match and Standard changes
The Designer Note's for Y8S3 included more information about Quick Match and Standard.
Quick Match will include a reduced Preparation Phase including pre-made rotations and pre-reinforced walls. The timer of the Action Phase has also been reduced to 2:45 (from 3:00).
Meanwhile, Unranked is now known as Standard. Ubisoft is changing the number of overtime rounds (from three to one).
Ubisoft has also created Attacker Safeguard, a 10-second invulnerability that will prevent attackers from dying to spawn peaks.