Rainbow Six Siege is toying with more attacker nerfs, and players aren’t happy

Many believe the Defenders need more nerfs

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Ubisoft is testing out more changes toRainbow Six Siegein its Lab Test Server, and not everyone is happy about what’s in store.

Earlier today (January 15), the Lab Test Server opened its doors, and until January 22 at 4pm ET / 1pm PT / 9pm GMT (January 23 at 8am AEDT), players will be able to test out somebalance changes. There’s bound to be some excitement about the Ballistic Shield rework, which was teased all the way back in February 2023. Notably, players can now sprint with shields and smash straight through barricades.

However, it’s not such good news for certain Attacker mains. For example, the fuse time for operator Ace’s S.E.L.M.A. Aqua Breacher ability has been increased, meaning he can no longer blast through walls and doors as fast as he could before.

Also taking a hit is the G-36C assault rifle, which now has increased recoil. This is one of the weapons available to Attackers Iana and Ash. The SMG-11 (usable by Attacker Amaru, as well as Defenders Smoke, Mute, and Solis) has had its damage reduced, too. Finally, the SPAS-15 - usable by Defenders Thunderbird and Caveira - has had its recoil modified.

Although not all of the nerfs have impacted Attackers specifically, many players believe that more should be done to tone downRainbow Six Siege’s Defenders, who are dominating the game right now. One player, Twitter / X user @devmartajames,wrote: “Bit confused that the latest patch is looking to nerf three of the most popular Attackers while the last four Defenders added to the game are all massively overpowered. Hope we see some [Tubarão]/Fenrir/Solis/Azami nerfs soon to tame the power creep.”

Others are equally confused: “What about Solis, Azami and Fenrir?” @Ke_a_nu_questioned.

User @IceColdR6added: “I think we chose the wrong side to nerf here.”

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It’s worth keeping in mind that since these changes are being rolled out in the Lab Test Server. This means that players are being asked to fill out surveys based on their experience with them and that alterations could end up being made. Players will just have to stay tuned for now.

For more games like Rainbow Six Siege, be sure to check out our recommendations for thebest FPS games, as well as thebest multiplayer PC games.

Catherine is a News Writer for TechRadar Gaming. Armed with a journalism degree from The University of Sheffield, she was sucked into the games media industry after spending far too much time on her university newspaper writing about Pokémon and cool indie games, and realising that was a very cool job, actually. She previously spent 19 months working at GAMINGbible as a full-time journalist. She loves all things Nintendo, and will never stop talking about Xenoblade Chronicles.

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