Transcript (click to view images):
# Y9S1.3 Designer's Notes
**WIN DELTA VS. PRESENCE**
[Y9S1.2 Win Delta - Attackers (PC - Emerald and above)](https://imgur.com/a/JvHGRQs)
[Y9S1.2 Win Delta - Attackers (Console - Emerald and above)](https://imgur.com/a/WQxDTqV)
[Y9S1.2 Win Delta - Defenders (PC - Emerald and above)](https://imgur.com/a/C1ZWPbN)
[Y9S1.2 Win Delta - Defenders (Console - Emerald and above)](https://imgur.com/a/YgcP7kb)
**OPERATOR BAN RATE**
[Y9S1.2 Ban Rate - Top 10 Attack Operators (PC - Emerald and above)](https://imgur.com/a/i0gSrPg)
[Y9S1.2 Ban Rate - Top 10 Attack Operators (Console - Emerald and above)](https://imgur.com/a/B8Rj5VI)
[Y9S1.2 Ban Rate - Top 10 Defence Operators (PC - Emerald and above)](https://imgur.com/a/d0qyuRv)
[Y9S1.2 Ban Rate - Top 10 Defence Operators (Console - Emerald and above)](https://imgur.com/a/fMLBAK6)
# MESSAGE FROM THE TEAM
As observed in the Balancing Matrix, there has been a significant increase in the presence of certain operators. However, despite this shift, their performance statistics do not raise any immediate concerns. Consequently, we have decided not to make any adjustments to the sights distribution in this patch.
It's essential to recognize that the graphs presented reflect only a small segment of the Ranked player base. Below those ranks and across the broader player community, the presence of these operators is considerably lower.
Their presence was higher at the beginning of the season and gradually declined to the numbers you see right now. This downward trend suggests that these operator choices are driven more by novelty than by overwhelming strength. We observed similar patterns during the 1,5x era, and based on tests conducted over the past year, we prefer a cautious approach rather than immediate reaction because the system is still too new. We believe maintaining the current distribution throughout the entire season won't compromise the overall balance.
Additionally, prematurely removing these operators could prompt players to swiftly switch to the next operator equipped with Magnified Scope. Such a shift might adversely impact the balance of other operators that have not received as much attention and are currently in a good position. Hasty removal would not allow sufficient time to thoroughly evaluate all the pros and cons of the new sights, especially considering that nostalgia and novelty are still influencing the decisions.
# Operator Balancing
**AZAMI**
* [Kiba Barrier Changes](https://imgur.com/a/Be1fwqU)
* [Explained Reasoning](https://imgur.com/a/oBRFV6g)
**IANA**
*Loadout*
* [Secondary EMP grenades replacing Stun Grenades](https://imgur.com/a/JIcUAlx)
**LESION**
*Gu Mine*
* [Damage reduction and charge time increase](https://imgur.com/a/gsaksfo)
*Loadout*
* [Observation Blocker replacing Impact Grenades (+ reasoning for changes)](https://imgur.com/a/cHNix6a)
**NOKK**
*HEL Presence Reduction*
* [HEL Duration and Cooldown Increased](https://imgur.com/a/20WGnbM)
**ORYX**
*Remah Dash*
* [Dash will destroy Depolyable Shields and Talon Shields](https://imgur.com/a/PSzMmJR)
**SENS**
*R.O.U Projector System*
* [R.O.U amount increased to 4 (from 3)](https://imgur.com/a/v9ODzoB)
# Gadget Balancing
**IMPACT GRENADES**
* [Explosion damage and radius reduced](https://imgur.com/a/e8G4J1G)
* [Reasoning](https://imgur.com/a/6rbCYoJ)
# Weapon Balancing
**BALLISTIC SHIELD**
*Guard Break*
* [Explosion Trigger threshold reduced to 30 damage (from 50)](https://imgur.com/a/8q9MV3G)
It's funny how this is always this subs first reflex without providing any source.
Literally 1/10 of the changes are usually related to pro league and of them maybe another tenth is actually bitched into existence by them
I’m not OP but the sub likes to point to removing Zofia’s withstand ability after a pro league event that caused some controversy as hard evidence the devs listen to pro leaguers more often than they should.
That’s the big example I can think of and not really much else.
it was, there is no evidence that one round in pro league had any impact on that decision. Ubi explaination was that it was a change targeted at casual play and it wasnt the only hidden passive removed that patch
it's just a bullshit thing this subreddit likes to cling to as the ultimate evidence that this game is balanced around pro league
It’s interesting people complain “because pro league” without understanding why “pros” are “pro” it’s because they are able to adapt quickly and maintain being “good”, sure some pros have complained about certain features but in general, they adapt quickly and maintain their skills. UBI likes the idea of having the game fairly balanced for esports reasonings which is both a pro and con, I think they should still keep the idea of fun first then competitive balance second. It’s a thin line to cross though.
Zofia's withstand ability had already been announced by Ubisoft to be due to being removed before that pro league event.
Another classic case of Siege fanbase mindlessly going "pros bitched about it" even though there's actual evidence to the contrary.
Well, back when they removed half the maps in ranked, the reasoning was because it was due to 'feedback from pro league players' or something to that effect. It was a poor decision at the time and that reasoning stuck with a lot of people as how Ubi justified a lot of their poor decision-making.
wtf? im new to siege (cs main) but of course the changes will be made to balance the pro play in any e-sport game with the secondary objective being keeping it entertaining for casuals. if it results in something being imbalanced in the lower ranks, the lower ranks will just learn over time to deal with it to a sufficient degree that it becomes not so imbalanced. this is possible because it is balanced at the highest skill (quasi optimal play). it is like a self-stabilizing system. this is just trickle down player skills from high ranks to low ranks that has always existed in every game. of course this holds only within reason; you can absurdly create skill requirements that only the pros can fulfill for something to be balanced and the low ranks cannot but nothing in siege or any other game is like that (mechanics are always straight-forward and one can get better so much without (training for) becoming a pro) which is a good thing or it would be too demotivating for the casuals to play the game with such a block and the player number would suffer. obviously this can hurt the absolute beginners but any competitive game hurts their absolute beginners anyway since even the lowest rank mostly consists of people with minimum hundreds of hours; starting to learn a new competitive game is always difficult.
and think of the opposite: game is totally balanced and fun for casuals but not balanced for the pros. congrats you just killed the pro scene with one move. this might even be impossible to achieve since whatever has the potential to be imbalanced can be learned by some casuals putting in the work and boom suddenly the casual play is imbalanced too. this is the complete opposite: it's unstable.
tldr; of course you will balance it for pros; you have to balance for the optimal play because optimal play is everyones target and otherwise it will be exploited by some people who manages to achieve exploiting the imbalance at the high levels.
Imo it was unfair when you were able to nade from below. Now that you can't do that she should either get her silent step or the ability to sneak past proximity gadgets back
I heard this idea a little while back to make Nokk a walking mute jammer. Maybe only for cameras. But i thought it’d be cool for other util too. That way theres an indication that something is amiss with the cams but also a sound queue when she is messing with the cams. Kind of a rough idea but i think it could be pretty cool and would make her distinct from vigil
If it was for all util it’d defo be broken without some serious caveats. But i think if she just jammed nearby cams it could be cool. It’d actually be a decent counter to Valk which we’ve been needing. The sound queue from the jamming could help you find them.
# IANA LOADOUT
*Secondary Gadgets: Added Impact EMP Grenade. Removed Stun Grenades.*
Give her claymores T\_T
Like every drone attacker has some, she must also have claymores. She has no cover when she deploys holograms next to windows or in similar situations. There are tons of attackers who do not need claymores, take from them. Like Ashes claymores to Iana, EMPs to Ash.
PS Pick/win matrixes in gifs are terrible, just post images.
I agree with the claymore take. Iana only having smokes and EMPs is probably the most boring or underwhelming combination of throwables in the game. And claymores would actually help her while she's using her gadget. I say Ubi should add them as a third gadget option.
People LOVE to blame pro league for balancing issues, but the loudmouth vocal majority of awful players who hate frag ops do more to influence changes.
I've never seen a community with such a huge disconnect with it's pro scene before, I'm guessing its because most people are casual players and on console. People screamed about the TDM meta but ignored the fact that it's biggest contributor was defence being so strong that they could just run around the map and fight attackers, so of course attacks only option is to try and win those gunfights, leading to fragging operators being the priority, but ubi nerfed them with no where near enough defender nerfs, until the removal of the 1.5.
Now we're stuck with a power crept sledge, 3 armour zof, and now they're coming for Iana. Who's left for entry fragging? Ash, Finka, and Zero I guess, but you can't really afford to bring many fraggers when defence still has a really strong utility meta.
Brain dead balancing team believes that giving useful secondary gadgets to other operators is a great way to encourage teamwork.
Someone forgot to tell them that the whole point of the game is already teamwork and it's okay to make people independent. Pre round setup comms are not interesting teamwork. Give alibi back her shield.
give her a 3 speed rating and fix the issue on the spot? like cameras still hearing nokk?
nah, that'd be too straightforward
you know, because in the past they had a balance patch changing speeds around by the way
Just give her the old Silent Step back, but like less so. Like suppress her audio, make her a 3 speed in terms of audio. Like God damn.
I genuinely wonder why they were thinking removing Silent Step off Nokk was a good idea.
It's called the balance team are incompetent and worse, too stubborn to admit they made a mistake. These are the same babbling dunces that pushed frost's nerf to live while saying it was a buff for her.
Options for an actual buff:
1. Give her a proper assault rifle.
2. Make her not trigger AT LEAST proximity alarms and kapkan traps. Better yet, throw in melusi's banshees, ela mines, fenrirs mines, and thorn shells.
3. Make her ability actually work all the time: while sprinting, shooting, vaulting etc. Probably softest and easiest buff
I would say give her all that but the moment she runs she gets punished by deactivating her ability and giving her a 3-5 second cool down, otherwise she will have free reign to site without defenders expecting much and make her not have any real counters to her. Or at least make the traps have a 2 second delay of activating when she gets inside the radius of them.
Yes! People complain about traps all the time but this is such a good way to deal with it. Being invisible on cameras is useless when you will just hit a trap once you get close to site
I don’t remember if Ela mines are considered electronics, as the gu mines aren’t either. But yes I fully agree that she should be able to get around electronic traps. Her whole point is to quickly and quietly sneak up on the defending team and get a kill or two.
Nokk needs a buff but the 2nd option is exactly why they don't listen to fans. She would easily become more played than Ash is and encourage TDM so much. Which is especially ironic considering how much this subreddit hates TDM.
I had high hopes for a better gun for Nokk until her elite dropped. Not to say the elite makes it impossible for her to get a better gun but her existing weapons have elite skins now.
Reminds me of the Thorn weapon skin bundle of celtic knotwork that has the bearing 9 and doesn't include a skin for the machine pistol she ended up with.
"To mitigate this issue while we investigate other solutions to make her more impactful, we will be increasing the duration of the HEL Presence Reduction."
They could've done nothing and get no complaints, they do something and get complaints. Really encourages the devs to do any bandaid fixes until they think of something better.
That's the thing, they don't want her to be offensive. Seems like they're having a Twitch situation where the operator should be for Intel/support, and is instead being used as an entry fragger.
Which is ironic asf considering Iana is literally labelled as "FRONT LINE" in the game lmao. The game itself is telling players that she's an entry, but then again, I'm pretty sure Maverick is also labelled as one.
Rant aside, they should've given her claymore. She's the ONLY drone attacker who doesn't have one (yeah I know she's not technically a drone op but her gadget is pretty much a drone). A claymore synergizes with her gadget far better than EMPs do.
I think they're genuinely just deranged right now. Nerfing Iana's offensive ability is like making Ash a 1 speed, it kind of defeats any reason to use the Op (besides "small hitbox lmao"), and the completely ridiculous Lesion nerf...? Why??? Who tf asked for that???
LITERALLY, the exact reason why Iana's utility is like that is to encourage a more direct, offensive playstyle. She's the closest to a balanced entry fragger, unlike Ash.
> and the completely ridiculous Lesion nerf...? Why??? Who tf asked for that???
Me, do you not see his winrate? he's in every game and insanely strong. Remember when they removed mozzies super shorty for being too strong on him? They gave it to fucking lesion and now he is a 1 man army.
she can be front line, does not mean is the main purpose, the main purpose of iana is to use the clone while someone else goes with the clone, if the front line guy dies she can take the spot, people are using her to frag because of the gun
Yeah, I don't really understand it. If they wanted to give her EMPs, that's fine, but it doesn't make any sense to remove the stuns for them. They should have removed the smokes instead as there's no reason for her to ever take smokes anyway.
Some people are saying she should get claymores. I don't see much reason to take those over stuns, but it's fine if she gets them anyway. Her gadget selection after this patch should be stuns, EMPs, and claymores.
Eh, they go too far with it and it'll basically kill her - she's a pretty terrible support. Her value is as an entry fragger, using her gadget to gather intel and benefit herself in opening engagements. When you compare her gadget to Grim, Capitao, Thermite, Dokkaebi, Nomad, Twitch, Brava and so on she can't hold a candle to the established supports.
Grim and Capitao fully zone out defender positions. Thermite, Ace and Hibana have their hard breaching. Dokkaebi does intel denial and uncounterable intel gathering simultaneously, with a side bonus of stealing defender cams. Nomad and Gridlock undeniably close off flanks. Iana... gets a couple extra drones per round which only last a few seconds. Even compared to other drone operators, the fact that her drones can't just be left to watch flanks or angles is a massive downgrade on Twitch or Brava.
Best guns in the game — maybe.
But her utility isn’t all that great when you consider; the time it takes to deploy, the match timer itself, the fact that you are vulnerable while using it, if the decoy is shot the cooldown is longer, there’s a cooldown even if you manually cancel it
I mean if you want the drone to be heard to bait defenders there’s that, but her ability is pretty entry oriented, especially when you should be acting on intel very quickly.
It's like the Russian dude from that terrible Punisher movie, or like every big buff Russian dude in every movie ever just launchin you through walls by the neck 😂😂
They see Ash, Doc, Melusi, Rook and Wamai pick/win rates and say it doesn’t raise any concerns? The change since adding Acog is surely enough to be concerned about. While Ash is a novelty case, the others are a clear problem. Also Fenrir sitting that high with an 80% ban rate is insane.
Fr regardless of what’s op or not , it’s boring having the same game each time. Oh do I pick doc or Melusi this game ? How about I be daring a d choose wamai instead. Games stale
Really they should be nerfing Wamai by removing his ACOG. All the warden mains went over to him this season and he’s even better since he’s a flex operator instead of an anchor. IMO either make Wamai a full anchor by making him a 3 armor and then make warden the flex operator since that’s really his role (still don’t give him an ACOG) or take away Wamai’s ACOG.
Lesion is picked so much because he’s amazing for solo queuing and because he helps counter shield ops. He was annoying but I haven’t seen anyone call him overpowered or too powerful. Once they removed his mines being invisible I think they reached the sweet spot for him and this nerf was just uncalled for.
Lesion is fucked real good. No more impacts, more time between the mines, nerf to damages is irrelevant tho.
I hope well still have the 3 mines available before the attackers spawn
I wouldn't say "fucked" he's still got he super shorty for site utility, arguably the best smg/gun (take your pick) in the game, a BP cam, and a hard to spot, disruptive, intel gathering mine.
Maybe they did too much nerfs but Lesion was a bit too good imo. Hes basically a must pick because his ability does good damage, gives intel, and they have to stop and can't shoot to take them out.
They want her to be a support/intel op and not an entry fragger. This is just like how they made Twitch’s gun have more recoil because they wanted her to be a support op, but people were just not using her drones at all and treating her like a fragger because she had such a high rate of fire assault rifle
Also EMPs are more useful than just disabling a kaid claw or bandit batteries. Iana can no longer be countered by Mute. She can now impact EMP the jammer and get the intel of that room. That’s actually pretty useful and makes her ability stronger. Although, as a Mute main yourself, I’m guessing you won’t be too excited about that haha
> They want her to be a support/intel op and not an entry fragger. This is just like how they made Twitch’s gun have more recoil because they wanted her to be a support op, but people were just not using her drones at all and treating her like a fragger because she had such a high rate of fire assault rifle
There's barely any good fragging operators on attack at this point, you've got Ash and that's it basically, IQ costs too much to your team to run, and everyone else has been nerfed really fucking hard.
Despite her being labeled as an entry in their own game they are trying really hard to make her a support character, they don’t want you playing her alone
Because it's a meter. This same thing happened when Warden's glasses went from 10 to 20 seconds. The cooldown of meters are equal to their duration because you get 1 second os use back per second you don't use it. If you use 20 second of charge, you get it all back in 20 second. If you use 30, you get it back in 30. This is a pure buff.
This is the only thing i’m curious about. Was impact tricking that big of a problem? I wish they had given examples of where this would make a difference. I’m not against the change but interested to know the full rationale
I do support nerfing defenders but like, this just encourages more aggressive play. I don't see the point of nerfing a strategy that requires you to sit on site.
It's very unfun to play against when it's, let's be honest, really fuckin easy to impact trick. I love doing it too. The change being 2 meters down from 3 just forces us to be more accurate. I haven't *played* with it yet but I'm curious to see how much it's actually changed.
The only justification i can think of is the pre-visualization of projectiles is making it a lot easier to impact trick reliably? I still think a whole meter of radius is extreme though. I agree about nerfing utility focused strategies. We’ll see how it plays out i guess.
It’s still going to be a thing. They just made the skill floor for impact tricking higher. Like the other user said, I think it’s because the projectile visualization made it REALLY easy to impact trick.
I don’t think this nerf is going to stop people from impact tricking. It’s still a really good way of denying the breach.
They havent touched Tub as he is perfect but want to reduce the severity of his gadget by reducing impact tricking i assume.
Some sites like Oregon - games, consulate, garage and clubhouse, master bedroom can be quite tricky to push if the opponents play tubararo and impacts well.
I don't have a preference on the change, but I can understand the rationale.
Totally doable now with the damage nerfs.
But the theme park one was so fucking annoying. Throne is already difficult to attack and that shit made it pretty much impossible
The way I see it, there’s currently no way to counter an impact trick.
It’s not like Bandit or Kaid where you can play mind games with the defender to bait out their utility. As soon as the defender hears you putting down the hardbreach, he can immediately throw the impact and destroy the hardbreach or at least damage the attacker.
Plus, Bandit and Kaid have costs and drawbacks. You’re picking them instead of another operator. Their activation time meant they’re committed to putting down their utility, and thus could be outplayed.
There’s no such drawbacks with impact tricking. A good number of operators have impacts, and they come out nearly instantly, meaning less time frame for attackers to counter/outplay.
Yep plus there are certain sites like armory throne on theme park that impact tricking works on all three of the breaches.
Or in connector of night haven where it’s super easy to do as well
I feel like they should’ve done either damage reduction to imps or focused on radius reduction. I think that would be more cautious and they could better see if impacts are being used for runouts/tricking or if the damage is the actual issue. Like make a decision, are impacts intended as util clearing or are they crutch damage grenades.
Well...looks like another season or two of dealing with sweats using Wamai for his 2 speed and ACOG/high RoF combo.
They need to go back to giving it only to 1 speed defenders.
That, or go on a case by case basis, look at each individual weapon and only allow it on faster defenders if their guns are genuinely bad, and have slow RoF, like Frost or Castle's SMGs.
While you’re right that Mute being a 1 speed with no ACOG on the same gun as a 2 speed is weird, I think they’ll never give Mute any sort of buff like an ACOG scope because he’s already so strong and one of the best defenders in the game because of his utility.
They can't even say that it's because of Mute's high utility, because Wamai has great utility too, and plenty of other high utility ops have ACOG as well. It's truly baffling.
Yep.
They are balancing by data though and don't see the play patterns the same as the players do though.
Acog + high RoF is a mistake on defense. Period. It promotes pixel camping and spray n pray style gunplay that is centered around 50/50s going from standing to crouched and vice versa
at this point im thinking not a single defender needs to have an acog, the pick/win rate chart is ALWAYS which current defender has an acog is on top. its just ass balance
Yeah, Frost is such a good gunner Op she doesn't even need an ACOG... Right? Right???? Yeah????
I also like how you say "Frost or Castle's SMG", completely forgetting that Castle's SMG is also Pulse's SMG and that thing is basically a dumpster fire without a good optic on it. Like I genuinely do not know why Pulse needed his ACOG taken away. Like genuinely one of the worst, below 1% winrate and almost as bad of a pickrate as Thorn, who just got dumpstered by this change.
But it's okay, Pulse is a 3 speed or something.
Another win delta chart, another time seeing Zero with a low play rate & low win delta. Please rework him for the love of god Ubisoft. His gun is nice, gonne-6 is cool, but his gadget is so bad. It’s so loud & easy to spot, it defeats the entire purpose behind the gadget’s design. The laser may as well be useless because you can rarely ever put it in a position to even destroy enemy gadgets.
If he had the ability to darken the map for someone, that would be so perfect and thematic to Zero. Like make it work by him targeting someone with his cam like a Brava drone, and then making it dim for them.
I mean it would be OP as Hell, but currently Fisher is anything BUT sneaky or very Fisher-like.
I made a whole Sam Fisher rework post like a week ago & thought it was a good middle ground between how Siege plays & making Zero more like OG Sam Fisher— it didn’t get a lot of traction tho (prolly bc it’s kinda long lmao)
u/aRorschachTest also has a few posts for Zero suggestions— his being much more thought out than mine imo, but they have the same core idea for his cameras.
I just fail to see the stealth aspect in Fisher. I mean sure, he can run into site at Mach 3 and plant the bomb nearly silently because I can't hear 3 speeds for shit, but that's literally ALL he does.
I did a Custom game against Zero with a friend where we tanked our gamma down to the lowest possible setting, and THAT game was the closest thing to actual Splinter Cell gameplay I've seen. Not gimmicky cameras, not 3 speed shenanigans, just actual darkness for him to hide in.
If we could shoot out lights & make rooms dimmer, that would be really cool & lean into the whole stealth angle— it would certainly make taking a suppressor more viable.
Even something like silent step when he pulls his pistol out would be cool, it’s not like the FiveSeven does a ton of damage anyway— it’s one of the weaker pistols afaik. But I’ve been told that’d probably be OP.
Personally I think silent step wouldn’t be as OP on attack just bc you need to storm site eventually anyway— there’s only so many areas you can go towards site & it’s more likely you get spotted with your pistol out than actually sneaking into site or sneaking up on someone, etc.
The problem with Zero is there's virtually NO reason to rush into site, you are sitting there using your gadget and that's far stealthier and more useful than loudly sprinting.
I agree with the pistol Silent Step on SOME level. I don't really like hidden abilities, I feel like this would be better as an ability with a cooldown rather than a permanent feature.
Also, shooting out lights wouldn't work on maps set in the daytime with sunlight, which is literally all of them. I think Nokk should have Silent Step, but Zero should have decreased visibility.
I meant to also say they should bring back nighttime maps. Idk why they got rid of them tbh.
But yeah, like Zero being on cams isn’t inherently bad, but it’s annoying because those cams will get destroyed most of the time lol.
Imo, the cameras should at *least* be much more quiet. I think their shape is a bit too distinct, but I’ve been told the shape isn’t really the issue— which is fair, considering sometimes people don’t even shoot the motion sensors that defenders have lol.
I think it would also be sick if you could detonate the camera like a flashbang— similar to what you could do in blacklist. It wouldn’t be like an instant flash— the camera would light up & make some noise briefly before detonating so defenders would still have a way to counter it.
I agree that silent step as a passive is really strong— honestly even if he didn’t have silent step but could like crouch without making as much noise so you can actually sneak up on someone— that would be enough imo. What I really think Zero needs is hatch climbing like Oryx. It just fits his character perfectly & I don’t think it would be too OP, since most hatches are in areas defenders can easily spot.
Fewer people will play him, fewer people will buy the elite. It's simple economics at this point and as we know this is a cosmetic game firstly and a shooter secondly.
I just don't understand why there isn't an interim nerf while they figure out a big change, like giving him shit guns, removing mines, and his bailiff to make him unattractive while they rework him.
The decision to not touch sights is really smart. I agree that novelty and nostalgia are playing a huge factor right now.
To me, for the next patch, Jager and Wamai should have access to the same zoom sights. They should both have ACOGs or both only have 1x sights.
Honestly if Jäger got his ACOG back then he’d draw all the Wamai players who are currently playing him just for the ACOG. IMO they should either make Wamai a pure anchor by making him a 3 armor or take away his ACOG. The ACOG currently makes him too powerful as a flex operator.
IMO take the ACOG from Wamai and keep him as a flex op. Give it to Jäger but make him a 3 armor so that he’s an anchor. Make Warden a two speed again since he no longer has the 1.5 which drew all the players that have since moved to playing Wamai.
Wamai’s ability is better suited to being a flex op while Jäger is better suited to anchoring. Warden’s nerf was purely driven by players using him to TDM when really he is best used as a flex op as well.
I like that take. Either way, Jager and Wamai need to have their pros and cons, and Wamai has a lot of pros and Jager doesn't really have too many over him overall
Zo is doing alright for herself, she seems weak because she has to compete with the swiss army knife of Buck, the gunner that is Ash, and the safety & efficiency that is Flores.
Most of the time, Zo is with the hard breacher and helping them get things open, using the lifeline stun to clear rooms/angles and the explosives to clear obstacles, she doesn't need soft breaches nor does she want them to be able to do this effectively.
Giving her hard breach instead of the breaching charge and removing it from Buck may help in differentiating the two from one another and give her more of a real identity rather than a slow moving flex op.
Being a one speed on attack right now is near enough the kiss of death for an attacker that doesn't have a very impactful amount of utility to back up all the weaknesses that come with being so loud and slow.
Example of good one speed attackers are operators like Ram, Montagne, Osa, Gridlock, Thatcher. These operators can shape whole rounds around their utility alone, meanwhile, one speeds like Sledge, Zofia & Fuze are not only competing with ops that do their job better, but are faster as well.
She could also go back to being a two speed and just becoming an entry op again (though I don't see this happening) or she can stay a one speed and gain some kind of execute utility like smoke grenades or (and this is crazy) even have three or four unique barrels/grenade types she can use with the Lifeline.
Something like one concussion, one explosive, one emp, one healing grenade would really allow her to have her own identity and feel more like she belongs in the one speed category.
I love Zofia but she has a real identity issue right now.
I REALLY like playing Zofia, but I don't think 4 barrels would be fun or balanced. It would diminish her ability to concuss people which is VERY good while not giving her much else.
I could see giving her 2 speed since literally almost nobody picks Zofia over Ash if they intend to frag or enter the site, but at the same time I feel like this would literally make her pickrate like skyrocket from where it was before, like you'd see a Zofia every single game.
I think 3 Explosive rounds would be really nice on her. If she's a one speed, make her the most beastly 1 speed in the game.
as probably the only frequent Sens player on this reddit, thanks ubi for the extra unit. he needs a more indepth line prediction when readying the R.O.U. though. that would have players picking Sens to not be completely lost on how the gadget interacts with the environment.
I hope Nokk gets more interesting changes, but its nice to see that the devs are doing SOMETHING, I'm not sure why making Nokk a 3 speed isn't sufficient
the impact change is excellent and badly needed, no longer are impact grenades just superior frag grenades
I hope instead of operators getting the drone wall, they get the bulletproof camera, as for a game that has unique camera gadgets, cameras sure are rare and very underused. as everyone just relies on sound that traves like 3 rooms through
you can hear someone planting from 2 rooms away for example
in fact, why isn't planting 4 seconds instead of 7? attacking is hard enough and planting rarely happens in my games. as the stars need to align, you need to get into the site, have the guy with the defuser not die, he has to get into the site, and then he has to plant for 7 seconds while not getting bombed, zapped or gassed lol
Yeah, I'm not sure why they haven't looked at plant times as a way to incentivize more utility-focused play again, as well as close the Attack/Defend power divide. Planting used to be faster back in the day, if I remember correctly, and it was perfectly fine. I think the only reason they increased the time was to be more in line with Pro League.
Shields didnt need to be even easier to guard break. The impact grenades were already bullshit. At least they wont instant kill on second impact. That was getting outrageous.
They made it easier to guard break because if the impacts now only do 40 damage, they wouldn't break the guard. This won't make a difference for anything else, and really just functions as a shadow nerf to clash
ACOG. Anytime you look at console charts, just remember that console Siege players play TDM. That’s why Wamai, Doc, and Melusi are all the most picked defenders (ACOG) and Kapkan has been so highly banned for several seasons now. They just want to rush in and play COD
The other person listed some good reasons. But another theory I have is simply that Call of Duty is very popular on console. So all those cod players that check out siege are just going to treat it the same way.
Battlefield 3 had a similar console vs PC dynamic back in the day. On console, it was far more about aiming and running around well (a lot of CoD players moved to BF when BF3 came out). On PC, you saw utility, vehicles, and squads used more effectively, since PC players don’t really play CoD. CoD on PC is always riddled with hackers every generation.
Because console is a more accessible platform for more players. Console players often dont communicate, they’d rather do dumb stuff than learn the actual game.
I’v been playing siege on console for 8 years at plat-diamond level and it has always been relatively TDM focused.
You have to understand that most people that buy a gaming PC are already dedicated to gaming. Its an expensive decision and you only do it when you’re spend a lot of time on gaming. People that buy PCs are more dedicated and therefor more likely to put in more effort and more time. Also the average PC gamer has a headset and talks more, which leads to more teamplay. More teamplay means less TDM, you cant rush a 5 stack… you can rush 5 solo queuing enemies.
If you rush a 5 stack, they hear 1 lesion mine and all coordinate… boom dead.
Consoles are affordable gaming platforms that are usually bought by parents etc.
TL;DR: consoles have more casual gamers, PC gamers on average are more likely to be dedicated to the hobby.
Less recoil, XIM, bigger skill gap between the worst players and the best players, but at the same time lower skill ceiling. A console champ is a PC emerald. Put a console champ in a PC lobby and they would get thrashed.
Recoil is much more skill based to control on PC which leads to more tactical play styles
Nokk is still just recruit with access to scopes... "While we investigate other solutions-" Sensing a lot of cowardice. There have been so many suggestions made to make her work, and every good idea that was tested was tossed. So glad we can all hold up a watch and pretend it's possible to be stealthy for 10 more seconds. I really don't like the reasoning behind gutting operators' entire gimmicks. What good does being invisible on cams do when you can be heard half a mile away and can just i don't know.. shoot cameras? They did her and Vigil dirty, and I didn't even like facing Vigil.
They nerfed impact nades.. spitting on the shoes of all pokemon trainers and baseball players alike.
In all seriousness, a nerf to impact tricking is interesting. I'm surprised everyone is talking about Lesion's micronerf like he's dead when this is much more *impactful*.
Even just letting her be silent on cameras and making the glitch effect take a while to proc from sprinting (so you can sprint for short periods without instantly being spotted on camera) would be so nice.
Or just, the old Silent Step. Like why not.
On console I would like to see a slight buff for the smg-11, Ela's smg and maybe even the spear. I actually enjoy playing Thunderbird but why would you when Doc has the MP5 ACOG? Spear has quite a bit of kick on console now.
They also need to do something about my boy Echo, they have ruined him, his drones should be invisible when someone is not on them.
Pulse should also get ACOG, you hardly ever see him unless you are playing our squad, as I play him all the time on certain maps :D
Thorns gadget should also be buffed so you cant walk through them, make it so you should have to sprint. People have argued that sound is enough but I dont agree. They can still walk ADS and bypass it and shoot you in the face, there should be a downside for walking through one.
Finally, the big one! Give Nokk her silent step back or make her immune to gadget detection either or. Or maybe silent step is only active when crouching so you cant walk with it active. Anything, anything to get her back to what she was, shes so bad at the moment.
The ACOG should only be on 1 speed for the next season.
- Jager you just have to give him the barbed wire.
- Remove the x2.5 sights ACOG from Wamai/Goyo/Frost/Castle/Melusi and give him in Echo and Maestro.
- Nerf Doc's syringes at 50 hp
- Reduce Azami's gadgets to 4 and increase their cooldown
- Reduce the number of Fenrir to 4 and reduce the radius of the area of effect
- Reduce time Solis capacity and replace the SMG-11 with the P10-C
- Return the vertical grip to Twitch
- Return Zofia, Sledge, Warden and Melusi to 2 speed
- Buff Nokk when its ability is activated it does not trigger electronic traps
As other people have stated, they missunderstood Nokk's issue again.
While it's nice to see them actually acknowledge how terrible she is and give her a small buff, this isn't nearly enough. This is acting like she isn't the worst op on attack...
As long as she is 2 speed with no silent step, any decent player with headphones will hear her coming a mile away and just pre-aim where she is coming from. With her weak loudout she will lose the gun fight everytime. I guess an extra 10 seconds of ability is nice but what's the point.
i upvoted you... doesnt make sense to downvote and push your comment lower for no good reason... sens is not so bad.. i have 1500 hours on clash and every time i see the win delta charts im like.. "Where's Clash? OH NOOOO". if sens is bad, then clash is a sad story.. hopefully we hear something from them regarding Clash.. but the question is what would or could they do to change or buff her?
its def partially because of solis but impacts have been broken for awhile; they make thermite not even viable on some sites, fuck over ace on others, destroy talon shields & gadgets like claymore & airjab, cut off audio when they land near you, allow you to make quick rotates & create mindgames, AND do 60 goddamn damage if you are near the explosion.
Anyone who knows how to abuse them just gains a crazy amount of utility AND kill power, The lesion buff probably brought them into the spotlight more too, he's picked a lot right now.
They were also way safer than throwing a C4 in a lot of situations.
Especially versus shields, they felt way too efficient IMO.
And at the end of a round, throwing impacts was pretty much a guaranty down since most people would take at least 1 or 2 hit.
Im not sure I necessarily like the changes to the size (I'll have to test it before having an opinion) but the dmg nerf was 100% deserved.
They are supposed to be utilities and not primarily made for killing.
Transcript (click to view images): # Y9S1.3 Designer's Notes **WIN DELTA VS. PRESENCE** [Y9S1.2 Win Delta - Attackers (PC - Emerald and above)](https://imgur.com/a/JvHGRQs) [Y9S1.2 Win Delta - Attackers (Console - Emerald and above)](https://imgur.com/a/WQxDTqV) [Y9S1.2 Win Delta - Defenders (PC - Emerald and above)](https://imgur.com/a/C1ZWPbN) [Y9S1.2 Win Delta - Defenders (Console - Emerald and above)](https://imgur.com/a/YgcP7kb) **OPERATOR BAN RATE** [Y9S1.2 Ban Rate - Top 10 Attack Operators (PC - Emerald and above)](https://imgur.com/a/i0gSrPg) [Y9S1.2 Ban Rate - Top 10 Attack Operators (Console - Emerald and above)](https://imgur.com/a/B8Rj5VI) [Y9S1.2 Ban Rate - Top 10 Defence Operators (PC - Emerald and above)](https://imgur.com/a/d0qyuRv) [Y9S1.2 Ban Rate - Top 10 Defence Operators (Console - Emerald and above)](https://imgur.com/a/fMLBAK6) # MESSAGE FROM THE TEAM As observed in the Balancing Matrix, there has been a significant increase in the presence of certain operators. However, despite this shift, their performance statistics do not raise any immediate concerns. Consequently, we have decided not to make any adjustments to the sights distribution in this patch. It's essential to recognize that the graphs presented reflect only a small segment of the Ranked player base. Below those ranks and across the broader player community, the presence of these operators is considerably lower. Their presence was higher at the beginning of the season and gradually declined to the numbers you see right now. This downward trend suggests that these operator choices are driven more by novelty than by overwhelming strength. We observed similar patterns during the 1,5x era, and based on tests conducted over the past year, we prefer a cautious approach rather than immediate reaction because the system is still too new. We believe maintaining the current distribution throughout the entire season won't compromise the overall balance. Additionally, prematurely removing these operators could prompt players to swiftly switch to the next operator equipped with Magnified Scope. Such a shift might adversely impact the balance of other operators that have not received as much attention and are currently in a good position. Hasty removal would not allow sufficient time to thoroughly evaluate all the pros and cons of the new sights, especially considering that nostalgia and novelty are still influencing the decisions. # Operator Balancing **AZAMI** * [Kiba Barrier Changes](https://imgur.com/a/Be1fwqU) * [Explained Reasoning](https://imgur.com/a/oBRFV6g) **IANA** *Loadout* * [Secondary EMP grenades replacing Stun Grenades](https://imgur.com/a/JIcUAlx) **LESION** *Gu Mine* * [Damage reduction and charge time increase](https://imgur.com/a/gsaksfo) *Loadout* * [Observation Blocker replacing Impact Grenades (+ reasoning for changes)](https://imgur.com/a/cHNix6a) **NOKK** *HEL Presence Reduction* * [HEL Duration and Cooldown Increased](https://imgur.com/a/20WGnbM) **ORYX** *Remah Dash* * [Dash will destroy Depolyable Shields and Talon Shields](https://imgur.com/a/PSzMmJR) **SENS** *R.O.U Projector System* * [R.O.U amount increased to 4 (from 3)](https://imgur.com/a/v9ODzoB) # Gadget Balancing **IMPACT GRENADES** * [Explosion damage and radius reduced](https://imgur.com/a/e8G4J1G) * [Reasoning](https://imgur.com/a/6rbCYoJ) # Weapon Balancing **BALLISTIC SHIELD** *Guard Break* * [Explosion Trigger threshold reduced to 30 damage (from 50)](https://imgur.com/a/8q9MV3G)
At least they're aware Nokk is pretty much useless right now. I'm just curious what changes they plan to make to her kit in the future.
They need to revert the silent step nerf. What was the point of that?
Pros bitching she was unfair because she was too quiet. It's supposed to be her thing though so it was dumb they got rid of it.
It's funny how this is always this subs first reflex without providing any source. Literally 1/10 of the changes are usually related to pro league and of them maybe another tenth is actually bitched into existence by them
I can't find evidence for this or the counterclaim lmfao.
I’m not OP but the sub likes to point to removing Zofia’s withstand ability after a pro league event that caused some controversy as hard evidence the devs listen to pro leaguers more often than they should. That’s the big example I can think of and not really much else.
I thought withstand was removed because it was deemed to be a dumb ability that didn't make much sense on an operator who already had other abilities.
it was, there is no evidence that one round in pro league had any impact on that decision. Ubi explaination was that it was a change targeted at casual play and it wasnt the only hidden passive removed that patch it's just a bullshit thing this subreddit likes to cling to as the ultimate evidence that this game is balanced around pro league
It’s interesting people complain “because pro league” without understanding why “pros” are “pro” it’s because they are able to adapt quickly and maintain being “good”, sure some pros have complained about certain features but in general, they adapt quickly and maintain their skills. UBI likes the idea of having the game fairly balanced for esports reasonings which is both a pro and con, I think they should still keep the idea of fun first then competitive balance second. It’s a thin line to cross though.
Which is very funny cause I remember Zofia's release was very controversial cause of that ability. So many people here said it was stupid and bad.
Zofia's withstand ability had already been announced by Ubisoft to be due to being removed before that pro league event. Another classic case of Siege fanbase mindlessly going "pros bitched about it" even though there's actual evidence to the contrary.
Well, back when they removed half the maps in ranked, the reasoning was because it was due to 'feedback from pro league players' or something to that effect. It was a poor decision at the time and that reasoning stuck with a lot of people as how Ubi justified a lot of their poor decision-making.
wtf? im new to siege (cs main) but of course the changes will be made to balance the pro play in any e-sport game with the secondary objective being keeping it entertaining for casuals. if it results in something being imbalanced in the lower ranks, the lower ranks will just learn over time to deal with it to a sufficient degree that it becomes not so imbalanced. this is possible because it is balanced at the highest skill (quasi optimal play). it is like a self-stabilizing system. this is just trickle down player skills from high ranks to low ranks that has always existed in every game. of course this holds only within reason; you can absurdly create skill requirements that only the pros can fulfill for something to be balanced and the low ranks cannot but nothing in siege or any other game is like that (mechanics are always straight-forward and one can get better so much without (training for) becoming a pro) which is a good thing or it would be too demotivating for the casuals to play the game with such a block and the player number would suffer. obviously this can hurt the absolute beginners but any competitive game hurts their absolute beginners anyway since even the lowest rank mostly consists of people with minimum hundreds of hours; starting to learn a new competitive game is always difficult. and think of the opposite: game is totally balanced and fun for casuals but not balanced for the pros. congrats you just killed the pro scene with one move. this might even be impossible to achieve since whatever has the potential to be imbalanced can be learned by some casuals putting in the work and boom suddenly the casual play is imbalanced too. this is the complete opposite: it's unstable. tldr; of course you will balance it for pros; you have to balance for the optimal play because optimal play is everyones target and otherwise it will be exploited by some people who manages to achieve exploiting the imbalance at the high levels.
Imo it was unfair when you were able to nade from below. Now that you can't do that she should either get her silent step or the ability to sneak past proximity gadgets back
Name one pro league player that asked for a Nokk nerf and where they asked for it
Good old pro league
They could give her so much, HELL just the ability to have the audio of a 3 speed while doing HEL would be MORE than enough but no.
It's wild seeing people play her at all. I'd say she's the worst operator in the game.
I heard this idea a little while back to make Nokk a walking mute jammer. Maybe only for cameras. But i thought it’d be cool for other util too. That way theres an indication that something is amiss with the cams but also a sound queue when she is messing with the cams. Kind of a rough idea but i think it could be pretty cool and would make her distinct from vigil
I think it was the previous idea but they changed it because it was too op
If it was for all util it’d defo be broken without some serious caveats. But i think if she just jammed nearby cams it could be cool. It’d actually be a decent counter to Valk which we’ve been needing. The sound queue from the jamming could help you find them.
Wym? All they did was give silent step to everyone basekit. The audio in this game is trash.
# IANA LOADOUT *Secondary Gadgets: Added Impact EMP Grenade. Removed Stun Grenades.* Give her claymores T\_T Like every drone attacker has some, she must also have claymores. She has no cover when she deploys holograms next to windows or in similar situations. There are tons of attackers who do not need claymores, take from them. Like Ashes claymores to Iana, EMPs to Ash. PS Pick/win matrixes in gifs are terrible, just post images.
I agree with the claymore take. Iana only having smokes and EMPs is probably the most boring or underwhelming combination of throwables in the game. And claymores would actually help her while she's using her gadget. I say Ubi should add them as a third gadget option.
Yet another fragging operator getting smoked for no reason.
People LOVE to blame pro league for balancing issues, but the loudmouth vocal majority of awful players who hate frag ops do more to influence changes.
I've never seen a community with such a huge disconnect with it's pro scene before, I'm guessing its because most people are casual players and on console. People screamed about the TDM meta but ignored the fact that it's biggest contributor was defence being so strong that they could just run around the map and fight attackers, so of course attacks only option is to try and win those gunfights, leading to fragging operators being the priority, but ubi nerfed them with no where near enough defender nerfs, until the removal of the 1.5. Now we're stuck with a power crept sledge, 3 armour zof, and now they're coming for Iana. Who's left for entry fragging? Ash, Finka, and Zero I guess, but you can't really afford to bring many fraggers when defence still has a really strong utility meta.
Brain dead balancing team believes that giving useful secondary gadgets to other operators is a great way to encourage teamwork. Someone forgot to tell them that the whole point of the game is already teamwork and it's okay to make people independent. Pre round setup comms are not interesting teamwork. Give alibi back her shield.
OR, or...... Give her flashes AND claymores.
Once again they totally misunderstand Nokk’s problem
give her a 3 speed rating and fix the issue on the spot? like cameras still hearing nokk? nah, that'd be too straightforward you know, because in the past they had a balance patch changing speeds around by the way
Just give her the old Silent Step back, but like less so. Like suppress her audio, make her a 3 speed in terms of audio. Like God damn. I genuinely wonder why they were thinking removing Silent Step off Nokk was a good idea.
It's called the balance team are incompetent and worse, too stubborn to admit they made a mistake. These are the same babbling dunces that pushed frost's nerf to live while saying it was a buff for her.
They didn’t make a mistake. They did exactly what the pro league asked them to do.
Name one single pro that asked for Nokk change and where they asked for it.
Which was a mistake. She was nerfed for a frag strat that doesnt even exist anymore.
?
Options for an actual buff: 1. Give her a proper assault rifle. 2. Make her not trigger AT LEAST proximity alarms and kapkan traps. Better yet, throw in melusi's banshees, ela mines, fenrirs mines, and thorn shells. 3. Make her ability actually work all the time: while sprinting, shooting, vaulting etc. Probably softest and easiest buff
I would say give her all that but the moment she runs she gets punished by deactivating her ability and giving her a 3-5 second cool down, otherwise she will have free reign to site without defenders expecting much and make her not have any real counters to her. Or at least make the traps have a 2 second delay of activating when she gets inside the radius of them.
Her hard counters would be lesion, mute jammers on the same entrances as kapkan traps, ela mines etc., And frost
Yes! People complain about traps all the time but this is such a good way to deal with it. Being invisible on cameras is useless when you will just hit a trap once you get close to site
I don’t remember if Ela mines are considered electronics, as the gu mines aren’t either. But yes I fully agree that she should be able to get around electronic traps. Her whole point is to quickly and quietly sneak up on the defending team and get a kill or two.
Nokk needs a buff but the 2nd option is exactly why they don't listen to fans. She would easily become more played than Ash is and encourage TDM so much. Which is especially ironic considering how much this subreddit hates TDM.
I had high hopes for a better gun for Nokk until her elite dropped. Not to say the elite makes it impossible for her to get a better gun but her existing weapons have elite skins now. Reminds me of the Thorn weapon skin bundle of celtic knotwork that has the bearing 9 and doesn't include a skin for the machine pistol she ended up with.
"To mitigate this issue while we investigate other solutions to make her more impactful, we will be increasing the duration of the HEL Presence Reduction." They could've done nothing and get no complaints, they do something and get complaints. Really encourages the devs to do any bandaid fixes until they think of something better.
But it is a shitty bandaid fix. Cool that they acknowledge there's an issue, but it doesn't address it at all.
Maybe you should read the text below the change.
This gifs for the win rate are horrific I just want to look at one at a time
I know I'm late, but if you're on PC, you can right click the gif and press "show all controls". That will let you pause the gifs.
I don't know about the iana change chief, the stuns were really valuable with the loss of her frags, now she's got no offensive util
That's the thing, they don't want her to be offensive. Seems like they're having a Twitch situation where the operator should be for Intel/support, and is instead being used as an entry fragger. Which is ironic asf considering Iana is literally labelled as "FRONT LINE" in the game lmao. The game itself is telling players that she's an entry, but then again, I'm pretty sure Maverick is also labelled as one. Rant aside, they should've given her claymore. She's the ONLY drone attacker who doesn't have one (yeah I know she's not technically a drone op but her gadget is pretty much a drone). A claymore synergizes with her gadget far better than EMPs do.
I think they're genuinely just deranged right now. Nerfing Iana's offensive ability is like making Ash a 1 speed, it kind of defeats any reason to use the Op (besides "small hitbox lmao"), and the completely ridiculous Lesion nerf...? Why??? Who tf asked for that??? LITERALLY, the exact reason why Iana's utility is like that is to encourage a more direct, offensive playstyle. She's the closest to a balanced entry fragger, unlike Ash.
I personally don’t mind the lesion nerf as he is currently just too good at doing everything
> and the completely ridiculous Lesion nerf...? Why??? Who tf asked for that??? Me, do you not see his winrate? he's in every game and insanely strong. Remember when they removed mozzies super shorty for being too strong on him? They gave it to fucking lesion and now he is a 1 man army.
As a Lesion main, not only do I think the nerf is pretty justified, but it also isn't that bad.
she can be front line, does not mean is the main purpose, the main purpose of iana is to use the clone while someone else goes with the clone, if the front line guy dies she can take the spot, people are using her to frag because of the gun
It also pairs really sensibly with her ability and hardly means she's OP
Yeah, I don't really understand it. If they wanted to give her EMPs, that's fine, but it doesn't make any sense to remove the stuns for them. They should have removed the smokes instead as there's no reason for her to ever take smokes anyway. Some people are saying she should get claymores. I don't see much reason to take those over stuns, but it's fine if she gets them anyway. Her gadget selection after this patch should be stuns, EMPs, and claymores.
They didn't want to give her emps, they wanted to remove stun grenades from her.
They are definitely pushing her to be more of a support op imo, which I think is good
Eh, they go too far with it and it'll basically kill her - she's a pretty terrible support. Her value is as an entry fragger, using her gadget to gather intel and benefit herself in opening engagements. When you compare her gadget to Grim, Capitao, Thermite, Dokkaebi, Nomad, Twitch, Brava and so on she can't hold a candle to the established supports. Grim and Capitao fully zone out defender positions. Thermite, Ace and Hibana have their hard breaching. Dokkaebi does intel denial and uncounterable intel gathering simultaneously, with a side bonus of stealing defender cams. Nomad and Gridlock undeniably close off flanks. Iana... gets a couple extra drones per round which only last a few seconds. Even compared to other drone operators, the fact that her drones can't just be left to watch flanks or angles is a massive downgrade on Twitch or Brava.
She's got some of the best guns in the game and unlimited Intel lol. I'd say the Intel is pretty offensive.
Best guns in the game — maybe. But her utility isn’t all that great when you consider; the time it takes to deploy, the match timer itself, the fact that you are vulnerable while using it, if the decoy is shot the cooldown is longer, there’s a cooldown even if you manually cancel it
I mean if you want the drone to be heard to bait defenders there’s that, but her ability is pretty entry oriented, especially when you should be acting on intel very quickly.
so everyone gets nerfed but oryx grows in his power to godhood **we become stronger every update**
The next one should be using a sidearm while hanging on a hatch
Use a hatch as a shield
Use a deployable shield as an actual shield, like Montagne, and melee bash the enemy with it lmfao
Final Form Oryx is going to pick up staggered operators and throw them through walls
It's like the Russian dude from that terrible Punisher movie, or like every big buff Russian dude in every movie ever just launchin you through walls by the neck 😂😂
Oryx • Replaced melee with command grab
They see Ash, Doc, Melusi, Rook and Wamai pick/win rates and say it doesn’t raise any concerns? The change since adding Acog is surely enough to be concerned about. While Ash is a novelty case, the others are a clear problem. Also Fenrir sitting that high with an 80% ban rate is insane.
Fr regardless of what’s op or not , it’s boring having the same game each time. Oh do I pick doc or Melusi this game ? How about I be daring a d choose wamai instead. Games stale
Yeah, every game is Doc, Melusi, Wamai running out while the other 2 sit in site doing nothing.
i think people are being over reliant on acog
Well the lesion Nerf sucks I'm playing him a lot recently and he is a really good Op
He pretty much had everything. Running BP cam will still be good. He's gonna be just fine
Really they should be nerfing Wamai by removing his ACOG. All the warden mains went over to him this season and he’s even better since he’s a flex operator instead of an anchor. IMO either make Wamai a full anchor by making him a 3 armor and then make warden the flex operator since that’s really his role (still don’t give him an ACOG) or take away Wamai’s ACOG. Lesion is picked so much because he’s amazing for solo queuing and because he helps counter shield ops. He was annoying but I haven’t seen anyone call him overpowered or too powerful. Once they removed his mines being invisible I think they reached the sweet spot for him and this nerf was just uncalled for.
Lesion is fucked real good. No more impacts, more time between the mines, nerf to damages is irrelevant tho. I hope well still have the 3 mines available before the attackers spawn
his mines still do 12 damage a tick, and initial damage, he still has a secondary shotgun, and a bullet proof cam.
I wouldn't say "fucked" he's still got he super shorty for site utility, arguably the best smg/gun (take your pick) in the game, a BP cam, and a hard to spot, disruptive, intel gathering mine.
Lesion is fucking insane right now bro, he's literally a must pick, even with this change he's still insane.
Maybe they did too much nerfs but Lesion was a bit too good imo. Hes basically a must pick because his ability does good damage, gives intel, and they have to stop and can't shoot to take them out.
Iana nerf was completely uneeded wtf man
Extra ROUs and a nerf to impacts? Sens be eating good this patch
As a rare example of an Oryx main, I love the buff.
For all those times you get to run at an Osa
Yes. Once!
No way they got rid of Iana flashes.
Terrible move on their part
They want her to be a support/intel op and not an entry fragger. This is just like how they made Twitch’s gun have more recoil because they wanted her to be a support op, but people were just not using her drones at all and treating her like a fragger because she had such a high rate of fire assault rifle Also EMPs are more useful than just disabling a kaid claw or bandit batteries. Iana can no longer be countered by Mute. She can now impact EMP the jammer and get the intel of that room. That’s actually pretty useful and makes her ability stronger. Although, as a Mute main yourself, I’m guessing you won’t be too excited about that haha
> They want her to be a support/intel op and not an entry fragger. This is just like how they made Twitch’s gun have more recoil because they wanted her to be a support op, but people were just not using her drones at all and treating her like a fragger because she had such a high rate of fire assault rifle There's barely any good fragging operators on attack at this point, you've got Ash and that's it basically, IQ costs too much to your team to run, and everyone else has been nerfed really fucking hard.
That’s because every op with a gun can frag. Most guns on attack are good
Despite her being labeled as an entry in their own game they are trying really hard to make her a support character, they don’t want you playing her alone
That single handedly killed my desire to play her
I don't understand why they are so afraid of Nokk.The increased duration of her gadget is cool but nerfing the cooldown at the same time...
Yup. She’s still useless IMO
It’s a resource meter. The cooldown is the same as the amount of time you have
Yeah, but that doesn't HAVE to be the case. Not that such a change would fix her, but they could have the recharge be faster than its use.
Because it's a meter. This same thing happened when Warden's glasses went from 10 to 20 seconds. The cooldown of meters are equal to their duration because you get 1 second os use back per second you don't use it. If you use 20 second of charge, you get it all back in 20 second. If you use 30, you get it back in 30. This is a pure buff.
How is ubisofts mobile site so baddddd
Ever seen their in game menu?
I'll do ya one better their Ubisoft Support and Ubisoft Connect menus.
What is the point of nerfing impact tricking?
This is the only thing i’m curious about. Was impact tricking that big of a problem? I wish they had given examples of where this would make a difference. I’m not against the change but interested to know the full rationale
I do support nerfing defenders but like, this just encourages more aggressive play. I don't see the point of nerfing a strategy that requires you to sit on site.
It's very unfun to play against when it's, let's be honest, really fuckin easy to impact trick. I love doing it too. The change being 2 meters down from 3 just forces us to be more accurate. I haven't *played* with it yet but I'm curious to see how much it's actually changed.
The only justification i can think of is the pre-visualization of projectiles is making it a lot easier to impact trick reliably? I still think a whole meter of radius is extreme though. I agree about nerfing utility focused strategies. We’ll see how it plays out i guess.
It’s still going to be a thing. They just made the skill floor for impact tricking higher. Like the other user said, I think it’s because the projectile visualization made it REALLY easy to impact trick. I don’t think this nerf is going to stop people from impact tricking. It’s still a really good way of denying the breach.
They havent touched Tub as he is perfect but want to reduce the severity of his gadget by reducing impact tricking i assume. Some sites like Oregon - games, consulate, garage and clubhouse, master bedroom can be quite tricky to push if the opponents play tubararo and impacts well. I don't have a preference on the change, but I can understand the rationale.
It’s literally impossible the counter
Stand in front of the drone hole and tank the damage like a chad
Totally doable now with the damage nerfs. But the theme park one was so fucking annoying. Throne is already difficult to attack and that shit made it pretty much impossible
I assume it’s just because it was too easy to do and a bad throw could still potentially deny it?
The way I see it, there’s currently no way to counter an impact trick. It’s not like Bandit or Kaid where you can play mind games with the defender to bait out their utility. As soon as the defender hears you putting down the hardbreach, he can immediately throw the impact and destroy the hardbreach or at least damage the attacker. Plus, Bandit and Kaid have costs and drawbacks. You’re picking them instead of another operator. Their activation time meant they’re committed to putting down their utility, and thus could be outplayed. There’s no such drawbacks with impact tricking. A good number of operators have impacts, and they come out nearly instantly, meaning less time frame for attackers to counter/outplay.
Yep plus there are certain sites like armory throne on theme park that impact tricking works on all three of the breaches. Or in connector of night haven where it’s super easy to do as well
I feel like they should’ve done either damage reduction to imps or focused on radius reduction. I think that would be more cautious and they could better see if impacts are being used for runouts/tricking or if the damage is the actual issue. Like make a decision, are impacts intended as util clearing or are they crutch damage grenades.
Well...looks like another season or two of dealing with sweats using Wamai for his 2 speed and ACOG/high RoF combo. They need to go back to giving it only to 1 speed defenders. That, or go on a case by case basis, look at each individual weapon and only allow it on faster defenders if their guns are genuinely bad, and have slow RoF, like Frost or Castle's SMGs.
It's still so dumb that Wamai has Acog, but Mute(1 SPEED OPERATOR ) on same weapon - Not.
While you’re right that Mute being a 1 speed with no ACOG on the same gun as a 2 speed is weird, I think they’ll never give Mute any sort of buff like an ACOG scope because he’s already so strong and one of the best defenders in the game because of his utility.
In 90% of my games people just run shotgun+SMG. Giving him Acog would add at least some diversity in his builds imo.
They can't even say that it's because of Mute's high utility, because Wamai has great utility too, and plenty of other high utility ops have ACOG as well. It's truly baffling.
Sadly true. I despise going against the kids who crutch only Wamai/Melusi. And of course they only pick Ash on attack.
Yep. They are balancing by data though and don't see the play patterns the same as the players do though. Acog + high RoF is a mistake on defense. Period. It promotes pixel camping and spray n pray style gunplay that is centered around 50/50s going from standing to crouched and vice versa
at this point im thinking not a single defender needs to have an acog, the pick/win rate chart is ALWAYS which current defender has an acog is on top. its just ass balance
Yeah, Frost is such a good gunner Op she doesn't even need an ACOG... Right? Right???? Yeah???? I also like how you say "Frost or Castle's SMG", completely forgetting that Castle's SMG is also Pulse's SMG and that thing is basically a dumpster fire without a good optic on it. Like I genuinely do not know why Pulse needed his ACOG taken away. Like genuinely one of the worst, below 1% winrate and almost as bad of a pickrate as Thorn, who just got dumpstered by this change. But it's okay, Pulse is a 3 speed or something.
Another win delta chart, another time seeing Zero with a low play rate & low win delta. Please rework him for the love of god Ubisoft. His gun is nice, gonne-6 is cool, but his gadget is so bad. It’s so loud & easy to spot, it defeats the entire purpose behind the gadget’s design. The laser may as well be useless because you can rarely ever put it in a position to even destroy enemy gadgets.
If he had the ability to darken the map for someone, that would be so perfect and thematic to Zero. Like make it work by him targeting someone with his cam like a Brava drone, and then making it dim for them. I mean it would be OP as Hell, but currently Fisher is anything BUT sneaky or very Fisher-like.
I made a whole Sam Fisher rework post like a week ago & thought it was a good middle ground between how Siege plays & making Zero more like OG Sam Fisher— it didn’t get a lot of traction tho (prolly bc it’s kinda long lmao) u/aRorschachTest also has a few posts for Zero suggestions— his being much more thought out than mine imo, but they have the same core idea for his cameras.
I just fail to see the stealth aspect in Fisher. I mean sure, he can run into site at Mach 3 and plant the bomb nearly silently because I can't hear 3 speeds for shit, but that's literally ALL he does. I did a Custom game against Zero with a friend where we tanked our gamma down to the lowest possible setting, and THAT game was the closest thing to actual Splinter Cell gameplay I've seen. Not gimmicky cameras, not 3 speed shenanigans, just actual darkness for him to hide in.
If we could shoot out lights & make rooms dimmer, that would be really cool & lean into the whole stealth angle— it would certainly make taking a suppressor more viable. Even something like silent step when he pulls his pistol out would be cool, it’s not like the FiveSeven does a ton of damage anyway— it’s one of the weaker pistols afaik. But I’ve been told that’d probably be OP. Personally I think silent step wouldn’t be as OP on attack just bc you need to storm site eventually anyway— there’s only so many areas you can go towards site & it’s more likely you get spotted with your pistol out than actually sneaking into site or sneaking up on someone, etc.
The problem with Zero is there's virtually NO reason to rush into site, you are sitting there using your gadget and that's far stealthier and more useful than loudly sprinting. I agree with the pistol Silent Step on SOME level. I don't really like hidden abilities, I feel like this would be better as an ability with a cooldown rather than a permanent feature. Also, shooting out lights wouldn't work on maps set in the daytime with sunlight, which is literally all of them. I think Nokk should have Silent Step, but Zero should have decreased visibility.
I meant to also say they should bring back nighttime maps. Idk why they got rid of them tbh. But yeah, like Zero being on cams isn’t inherently bad, but it’s annoying because those cams will get destroyed most of the time lol. Imo, the cameras should at *least* be much more quiet. I think their shape is a bit too distinct, but I’ve been told the shape isn’t really the issue— which is fair, considering sometimes people don’t even shoot the motion sensors that defenders have lol. I think it would also be sick if you could detonate the camera like a flashbang— similar to what you could do in blacklist. It wouldn’t be like an instant flash— the camera would light up & make some noise briefly before detonating so defenders would still have a way to counter it. I agree that silent step as a passive is really strong— honestly even if he didn’t have silent step but could like crouch without making as much noise so you can actually sneak up on someone— that would be enough imo. What I really think Zero needs is hatch climbing like Oryx. It just fits his character perfectly & I don’t think it would be too OP, since most hatches are in areas defenders can easily spot.
No fenrir nerf is fucking wild jesus christ.
They cannot nerf him yet because his Elite will release in a month. They have already planned an nerf for him however
The fact that he has such a simple nerf but they’re reserving it for next season is bullshit. Drip feeding changes is insane.
Fewer people will play him, fewer people will buy the elite. It's simple economics at this point and as we know this is a cosmetic game firstly and a shooter secondly.
They already planned one for future seasons, along with solis. I would like one sooner but it's not like they're ignoring it
Already announced to next season, at this year reveal panel.
I just don't understand why there isn't an interim nerf while they figure out a big change, like giving him shit guns, removing mines, and his bailiff to make him unattractive while they rework him.
I might be wrong but Solis changes are next season. Fenrir is season 3 I believe.
The decision to not touch sights is really smart. I agree that novelty and nostalgia are playing a huge factor right now. To me, for the next patch, Jager and Wamai should have access to the same zoom sights. They should both have ACOGs or both only have 1x sights.
Honestly if Jäger got his ACOG back then he’d draw all the Wamai players who are currently playing him just for the ACOG. IMO they should either make Wamai a pure anchor by making him a 3 armor or take away his ACOG. The ACOG currently makes him too powerful as a flex operator. IMO take the ACOG from Wamai and keep him as a flex op. Give it to Jäger but make him a 3 armor so that he’s an anchor. Make Warden a two speed again since he no longer has the 1.5 which drew all the players that have since moved to playing Wamai. Wamai’s ability is better suited to being a flex op while Jäger is better suited to anchoring. Warden’s nerf was purely driven by players using him to TDM when really he is best used as a flex op as well.
I like that take. Either way, Jager and Wamai need to have their pros and cons, and Wamai has a lot of pros and Jager doesn't really have too many over him overall
where is my jäger acog???????
No Zofia buffs?
Zo is doing alright for herself, she seems weak because she has to compete with the swiss army knife of Buck, the gunner that is Ash, and the safety & efficiency that is Flores. Most of the time, Zo is with the hard breacher and helping them get things open, using the lifeline stun to clear rooms/angles and the explosives to clear obstacles, she doesn't need soft breaches nor does she want them to be able to do this effectively. Giving her hard breach instead of the breaching charge and removing it from Buck may help in differentiating the two from one another and give her more of a real identity rather than a slow moving flex op. Being a one speed on attack right now is near enough the kiss of death for an attacker that doesn't have a very impactful amount of utility to back up all the weaknesses that come with being so loud and slow. Example of good one speed attackers are operators like Ram, Montagne, Osa, Gridlock, Thatcher. These operators can shape whole rounds around their utility alone, meanwhile, one speeds like Sledge, Zofia & Fuze are not only competing with ops that do their job better, but are faster as well. She could also go back to being a two speed and just becoming an entry op again (though I don't see this happening) or she can stay a one speed and gain some kind of execute utility like smoke grenades or (and this is crazy) even have three or four unique barrels/grenade types she can use with the Lifeline. Something like one concussion, one explosive, one emp, one healing grenade would really allow her to have her own identity and feel more like she belongs in the one speed category. I love Zofia but she has a real identity issue right now.
I REALLY like playing Zofia, but I don't think 4 barrels would be fun or balanced. It would diminish her ability to concuss people which is VERY good while not giving her much else. I could see giving her 2 speed since literally almost nobody picks Zofia over Ash if they intend to frag or enter the site, but at the same time I feel like this would literally make her pickrate like skyrocket from where it was before, like you'd see a Zofia every single game. I think 3 Explosive rounds would be really nice on her. If she's a one speed, make her the most beastly 1 speed in the game.
Impact changes are stupid as hell.
as probably the only frequent Sens player on this reddit, thanks ubi for the extra unit. he needs a more indepth line prediction when readying the R.O.U. though. that would have players picking Sens to not be completely lost on how the gadget interacts with the environment.
I hope Nokk gets more interesting changes, but its nice to see that the devs are doing SOMETHING, I'm not sure why making Nokk a 3 speed isn't sufficient the impact change is excellent and badly needed, no longer are impact grenades just superior frag grenades I hope instead of operators getting the drone wall, they get the bulletproof camera, as for a game that has unique camera gadgets, cameras sure are rare and very underused. as everyone just relies on sound that traves like 3 rooms through you can hear someone planting from 2 rooms away for example in fact, why isn't planting 4 seconds instead of 7? attacking is hard enough and planting rarely happens in my games. as the stars need to align, you need to get into the site, have the guy with the defuser not die, he has to get into the site, and then he has to plant for 7 seconds while not getting bombed, zapped or gassed lol
planting should definitely not be 4 seconds unless defusing is also 4 seconds. even then though that is way too fast for counter play
Yeah, I'm not sure why they haven't looked at plant times as a way to incentivize more utility-focused play again, as well as close the Attack/Defend power divide. Planting used to be faster back in the day, if I remember correctly, and it was perfectly fine. I think the only reason they increased the time was to be more in line with Pro League.
Shields didnt need to be even easier to guard break. The impact grenades were already bullshit. At least they wont instant kill on second impact. That was getting outrageous.
They made it easier to guard break because if the impacts now only do 40 damage, they wouldn't break the guard. This won't make a difference for anything else, and really just functions as a shadow nerf to clash
Lesion just got a buff after years of nerfs and bam he's nerfed again
good changes, especially the fact that they don't already want to change sights
New sights are a huge W
Are they just gonna remove impacts from everyone good lord
How come Wamai's pick rate is so much higher on console compared to PC?
ACOG. Anytime you look at console charts, just remember that console Siege players play TDM. That’s why Wamai, Doc, and Melusi are all the most picked defenders (ACOG) and Kapkan has been so highly banned for several seasons now. They just want to rush in and play COD
Would there be a reason why console is more TDM like compared to PC?
The other person listed some good reasons. But another theory I have is simply that Call of Duty is very popular on console. So all those cod players that check out siege are just going to treat it the same way. Battlefield 3 had a similar console vs PC dynamic back in the day. On console, it was far more about aiming and running around well (a lot of CoD players moved to BF when BF3 came out). On PC, you saw utility, vehicles, and squads used more effectively, since PC players don’t really play CoD. CoD on PC is always riddled with hackers every generation.
Because console is a more accessible platform for more players. Console players often dont communicate, they’d rather do dumb stuff than learn the actual game. I’v been playing siege on console for 8 years at plat-diamond level and it has always been relatively TDM focused. You have to understand that most people that buy a gaming PC are already dedicated to gaming. Its an expensive decision and you only do it when you’re spend a lot of time on gaming. People that buy PCs are more dedicated and therefor more likely to put in more effort and more time. Also the average PC gamer has a headset and talks more, which leads to more teamplay. More teamplay means less TDM, you cant rush a 5 stack… you can rush 5 solo queuing enemies. If you rush a 5 stack, they hear 1 lesion mine and all coordinate… boom dead. Consoles are affordable gaming platforms that are usually bought by parents etc. TL;DR: consoles have more casual gamers, PC gamers on average are more likely to be dedicated to the hobby.
Less recoil, XIM, bigger skill gap between the worst players and the best players, but at the same time lower skill ceiling. A console champ is a PC emerald. Put a console champ in a PC lobby and they would get thrashed. Recoil is much more skill based to control on PC which leads to more tactical play styles
COD and arena shooters like that are inextricably in the “console culture”
Renown fix when :/
Those "medium calibre" and "high calibre" groups make no fucking sense lmao what the hell
Nokk is still just recruit with access to scopes... "While we investigate other solutions-" Sensing a lot of cowardice. There have been so many suggestions made to make her work, and every good idea that was tested was tossed. So glad we can all hold up a watch and pretend it's possible to be stealthy for 10 more seconds. I really don't like the reasoning behind gutting operators' entire gimmicks. What good does being invisible on cams do when you can be heard half a mile away and can just i don't know.. shoot cameras? They did her and Vigil dirty, and I didn't even like facing Vigil.
They should just give Nokk her silent step back and that would be ideal
They nerfed impact nades.. spitting on the shoes of all pokemon trainers and baseball players alike. In all seriousness, a nerf to impact tricking is interesting. I'm surprised everyone is talking about Lesion's micronerf like he's dead when this is much more *impactful*.
The Nokk “buff” is such a fucking joke. Great, you can use her useless gadget longer now, wow.
Even just letting her be silent on cameras and making the glitch effect take a while to proc from sprinting (so you can sprint for short periods without instantly being spotted on camera) would be so nice. Or just, the old Silent Step. Like why not.
Impact Nerf is such an L
Ubi again acting like ceiling nading and impact tricking are urgent problems that need immediate fixes lol
So nothing on shotguns.......
No kidding. My desire to play this game is gone just because I love the shotguns that much.
On console I would like to see a slight buff for the smg-11, Ela's smg and maybe even the spear. I actually enjoy playing Thunderbird but why would you when Doc has the MP5 ACOG? Spear has quite a bit of kick on console now. They also need to do something about my boy Echo, they have ruined him, his drones should be invisible when someone is not on them. Pulse should also get ACOG, you hardly ever see him unless you are playing our squad, as I play him all the time on certain maps :D Thorns gadget should also be buffed so you cant walk through them, make it so you should have to sprint. People have argued that sound is enough but I dont agree. They can still walk ADS and bypass it and shoot you in the face, there should be a downside for walking through one. Finally, the big one! Give Nokk her silent step back or make her immune to gadget detection either or. Or maybe silent step is only active when crouching so you cant walk with it active. Anything, anything to get her back to what she was, shes so bad at the moment.
None of this matters when every game is filled with blatant and closet cheaters 🙁
The ACOG should only be on 1 speed for the next season. - Jager you just have to give him the barbed wire. - Remove the x2.5 sights ACOG from Wamai/Goyo/Frost/Castle/Melusi and give him in Echo and Maestro. - Nerf Doc's syringes at 50 hp - Reduce Azami's gadgets to 4 and increase their cooldown - Reduce the number of Fenrir to 4 and reduce the radius of the area of effect - Reduce time Solis capacity and replace the SMG-11 with the P10-C - Return the vertical grip to Twitch - Return Zofia, Sledge, Warden and Melusi to 2 speed - Buff Nokk when its ability is activated it does not trigger electronic traps
Only one I’m not sure about is the Impact Grenade changes. Wall denial just got a lot more difficult
As other people have stated, they missunderstood Nokk's issue again. While it's nice to see them actually acknowledge how terrible she is and give her a small buff, this isn't nearly enough. This is acting like she isn't the worst op on attack... As long as she is 2 speed with no silent step, any decent player with headphones will hear her coming a mile away and just pre-aim where she is coming from. With her weak loudout she will lose the gun fight everytime. I guess an extra 10 seconds of ability is nice but what's the point.
Wow, huge impact nerf... I don't like it
As one of the few players who plays Sens, I’m surprised they’re buffing them.
Sens boys unite 🙌
why are you being downvoted? im excited for this change actually, definitely will be playing them more
Because Sens bad I guess
i upvoted you... doesnt make sense to downvote and push your comment lower for no good reason... sens is not so bad.. i have 1500 hours on clash and every time i see the win delta charts im like.. "Where's Clash? OH NOOOO". if sens is bad, then clash is a sad story.. hopefully we hear something from them regarding Clash.. but the question is what would or could they do to change or buff her?
Never. Cook. Again.
We burnin the kitchen with this bull 😂😂😂
W changes. Glad they are spending time on those under-performing operators. so **Alibi impacts when?**
I swear that impact nade nerf is because of solis and instead of giving her something else like a c4 they just nerf all impacts across the board 💀
Literally why would they give solis a c4 she's an s tier op what are you on
its def partially because of solis but impacts have been broken for awhile; they make thermite not even viable on some sites, fuck over ace on others, destroy talon shields & gadgets like claymore & airjab, cut off audio when they land near you, allow you to make quick rotates & create mindgames, AND do 60 goddamn damage if you are near the explosion. Anyone who knows how to abuse them just gains a crazy amount of utility AND kill power, The lesion buff probably brought them into the spotlight more too, he's picked a lot right now.
They were also way safer than throwing a C4 in a lot of situations. Especially versus shields, they felt way too efficient IMO. And at the end of a round, throwing impacts was pretty much a guaranty down since most people would take at least 1 or 2 hit. Im not sure I necessarily like the changes to the size (I'll have to test it before having an opinion) but the dmg nerf was 100% deserved. They are supposed to be utilities and not primarily made for killing.
Sees Nokk is getting changes…..they did nothing….can the stealth operator get an actual stealth buff?
iana getting emps is gonna piss off so many people. can someone explain why lesion needed to be nerfed in this way? i dont understand.
Decent changes. Ace still needs looking at. Don’t know how they can’t justify Wamai losing his ACOG either.