Siege Beginner's Guide: Operator Overview

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This post is intended to just explain the operators in a very basic fashion. It is a basic overview which explains the operators in the most basic form possible while still covering what I feel to be the most important information:

The Operator's Role
Their Primary Gadget
Their Secondary Gadget
Their armor/speed rating

In addition I have explained the different roles and what the Secondary Gadgets do. 

The tables of operators for each side can be found here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XMzLyA4HkLAm8y27TIreRvZDhSRMPeN8778XUs8CtNg/edit?usp=sharing

This will allow you to filter the operators to find specific speed operators etc. If you wish to change anything, please make a copy of it and edit your own copy.

Attack Roles

Hard Breach

Operators that can open reinforced walls and hatches.

Soft Breach

Operators that can open a lot of soft surfaces, including walls and floors. Important for creating lines of sight.

Support

Assists other attackers, typically the Hard Breachers, allows them to easily do their job or buffs the attackers.

Intel Gathering

Gathers information on the positioning and set up of defenders.

Area/Flank Denial

Makes it harder for the defenders to flank and kill attackers.

Fragger

Aims to initiate and then win gun fights, often using their gadgets to assist them .

Angle Watcher

Operators who sit on certain angles where defenders are expected and who are difficult for the defenders to win a peak against.

Shield

Good for leading pushes/covering the plant.

Attacker Secondary Gadgets

Stun Grenades (3)

Temporarily blinds and distorts the hearing of anyone who looks at it or if they are close to it when they detonate. Useful to clear Jager’s ADS gadgets.

Smoke Grenades (2)

Creates a thick smoke where it is thrown which cannot be seen though or seen in. They take 3 seconds to detonate and the smoke lasts for 10 secondsUseful for covering where someone is planting - throw them in front of the plant spot so that defenders have no line of sight but the planter can see freely.

Fragmentation Grenades (2)

Can be “cooked” meaning held for a period of time in hand which means they will explode sooner when they get thrown. They can be held for a maximum of 3 seconds before they will explode which will kill the operator holding them.

Claymore (1)

Can only be placed on the floor. Creates a laser tripwire which will cause the Claymore to explode and kill a defender if they run through it. Useful on possible run our spots or to cover your flank.

Breaching Charges (3)

Creates a hole in a soft wall, opens unreinforced hatches, barricades and castle barricades or opens a portion of a soft floor without destroying the metal bars (can shoot and throw projectiles down but an operator cannot drop down)

Hard Breach Gadget (1)

Creates a crouch sized hole in a reinforced or unreinforced wall. It takes 2 seconds to place and 5 seconds to detonate.

Table of Attackers

Defender Roles

Where

Although not all operators remain on site the whole match, it is vital that they get back to site when it is being pushed by the attackers. Roamers not getting back to site quickly enough can lead to the loss of a match. If one of the anchors is dead you should be rotating a Roamer or Lurker to cover their position.

Roamer

Leaves site to try and slow the attack and to try and find and kill attackers. Typically 3 speed operators as they are quieter and can move around the map quickly.

Lurker

Stays near site, a room or two away. Typically 2 speed operators.

Anchor

Spends pretty much the whole round on site. Typically 1 speed operators as they are cannot move as quickly, but have 3 armor so can hold the site well.

Flex

Can play in 2 or more of the above positions.

What

Intel gathering

Collects information on the location and the direction of the attackers and their push towards site.

Support

Buffs the defending operators, keeping them alive longer.

Traps

Places traps around the map which delay the attack and can give information on the attacker's position.

Wall Denial

Prevents the attackers from opening reinforced walls and hatches

Intel Denial

Makes it harder for the attackers to learn where the defenders are and how the site is set up.

Plant Denial

Prevents, stops or delays the attackers planting the defuser in bomb.

Anti-projectile

Destroys projectiles, thus wasting attacker utility while protecting the defenders

Area Denial

Prevents the attackers from entering an area, thus delaying the attack.

Flank

Aims to come up on the attackers from somewhere the attackers think is clear.

Anti-fragger

Works well against attackers who enter quickly. Warden can see through the stun grenades often used in a quick push and Clash gets in the way of them.

Defender Secondary Gadgets

Barbed wire (2)

Cover a 1.25m radius area when deployed. It makes sound whenever attackers or defenders move through it and slows attackers by 50% and prevents them from sprinting. In addition it will slow drones when they move through it. 

Bulletproof Camera (1)

Camera which can be placed on any wall or floor. They are non-rotatable cameras that can only look straight ahead. It can see through smoke and can be destroyed through melee damage or shooting the side of it.

Deployable Shield (1)

The shield is waist height and bulletproof with small bulletproof windows which allow anyone using it to see through. The shield can be destroyed by explosive damage.

Impact Grenades (2)

Creates a crouch hole in an unreinforced wall and does around 60 damage on impact, however the damage drop off means that if it's 2.5m away from the operator it will do no damage.

Nitro Cell (1)

Nitro cells can be thrown (not as far as other gadgets) and then detonated using the secondary gadget button. The nitro cell deals deadly damage to all operators at up to 2m after which damage drops off massively to 6m where it does no damage.

Proximity Alarms (2)

Makes a loud beeping noise when an attacker is within its range of 5m. Can be thrown onto any surface by the defender. 

Table of Defenders

Eloise Evans is an undergraduate student from the United Kingdom. Her love of games stems from the frustration she experienced playing various Red Alert games when she was young. Since then she has developed a particular love of the Elder Scrolls games and the Fallout series. At the moment she is playing a lot of Rainbow Six Siege and Sea of Thieves - arguably too much.

Beginner's Guide to Siege: The Defenders

This third post will go through the defending operators in the same way as the previous post. The next post will be a more simplified view of all the operators, attackers and defenders before moving on to the next part of the guide which will detail some of the operators I believe are good for new players.

Like in the previous post, each operator will have their name and their armour and speed scores, for example, (1/3) for a 1 armour, 3 speed operator. Below this will be a short description of the operators ability and a picture of their icon.

Pulse (1/3)

Pulse’s Cardiac Sensor has a range of 9m and detects any attackers within that range through walls, floors and ceilings. However if an attacker is under the effect of Finka’s adrenal surge the range increases to 14m. It will show a red circle to indicate an attacker's presence and beep once, this beep gets louder the closer the attacker.

Castle (2/2)

Castle can place up to three barricades on doors or windows. The barricades are bulletproof and require 12 melee hits to break them open, some from of explosive or a single hit from Sledge’s Breaching Hammer

Doc (3/1)

Doc has three stim pistol shots which heal 40 hp to an operator. They can also be used to revive an operator and will revive them with 75hp rather than the standard 20hp. In addition it will only takes 2.75 seconds instead of 4 seconds for normal manual revive.

Rook (3/1)

Places a pack of 5 armor plates which provide a range of benefits to keep operators alive longer. Gives roughly a 20% damage reduction, causes explosives to do less damage, doubles the bleed out timer to 120 seconds and guarantees the operator will be put into a downed but not out (DBNO) state rather than killed when their health goes to 0 unless they are killed by a headshot.

Jäger (2/2)

He has 3 ADSs which can be placed on the walls, floors and other flat surfaces and each one can destroy 1 projectile every 10 seconds. In order to destroy a gadget it must be in line of sight of the ADS. This is a list of the projectiles that the ADS can destroy:

• Frag Grenades
• Stun Grenades
• Smoke Grenades
• Thatcher's EMP Grenades
• Ash's Breaching Rounds
• The sub grenades from Fuze's Cluster Charges - as each charge deploys 5 sub grenades these can be used to quickly clear ADS
• Ying's Candela Grenades when they are thrown, as well as the individual Flash Charges if it detonates
• Zofia's Impact and Concussion Grenades
• Nomad's Airjabs
• Zero's ARGUS Cams

Bandit (1/3)

He has 4 batteries which can each electrify a single reinforced wall, barbed wire or a deployable shield. Electrified objects will do around 9 damage per second (DPS) to attackers and destroy any gadget they come into contact with, with the exception of:

• Other Shock Wires
• Echo's Yokai drones
• Kaid's Electroclaws
• Drones hacked by Mozzie' Pests

Smoke (2/2)

Smoke has three toxic canisters which stick to surfaces and release a poisonous yellow smoke that lasts 10 seconds and does 30 DPS to all operators apart from Smoke himself. When the Finka boost is active for an attacker, the damage is doubled. . The smoke will release a gas cloud that is 5 meters in diameter and can pass through walls if it is close enough. 

Mute (2/2)

Mute has 4 Mute Jammers which jam electric gadgets and drones belonging to attackers within a 2.25 meter radius, they also jam gadgets vertically above them the same distance but they don’t jam underneath them. Mute Jammers affect different attacker gadgets differently:

• Gadgets that cannot be activated when in range of a jammer:
• Breach Charges
• Hard Breach Charge
• Thermite's Exothermic Charges
• Fuze's Cluster Charges
• Hibana's X-KAIROS pellets
• Ace's SELMA's will not activate when inside the effective range of a Signal Disruptor.
• Gadgets that cannot be activated if the Attacker is in range of a jammer:
• Remotely detonated gadgets (see above).
• Blitz's Flash Shield
• Jackal's Eyenox; it can still be toggled, and can still see footprints, but Jackal cannot activate its scanning capabilities.
• Jackal's vision when the Eyenox is flipped down is affected by a disrupting static effect as he moves closer to the Disruptor.
• Finka's Adrenal Surge
• Gadgets that do not affect defenders who are in range of a jammer:
• Dokkaebi's Logic Bomb will not affect defender phones in the radius of a Jammer and will stop the buzzing if they move into range of a jammer.
• Lion's EE-ONE-D

Kapkan (2/2)

He begins the round with 5 Entry Denial Devices (EDD) that can be attached at between shin and head level on the frame of any barricadable door or around chest height on any barricadable window. The EDD will trigger when an attacker comes through the door or window. The explosion will do 60 points of damage to light armored operators, 51 to medium and 45 to heavy armored operators.

Tachanka (3/1)

Due to have a massive rework during Year 5 which is rumoured to be giving him a grenade launcher and making his mounted LMG into his primary weapon. Currently has a mounted LMG, that can be taken down and moved throughout the round. The shield in front of the LMG protects the users head and shoulders and has 500 HP. 

Frost (2/2)

Frost has three Welcome Mats which can be placed on the floor anywhere there is space. As soon as an attacker steps on the Mat they will be placed in a downed but not out (DBNO) state in which they cannot move or slow the bleed rate. The only way to be rescued is by a manual revive. 

Valkyrie (2/2)

She begins the round with 3 black eye cameras which are deployed by throwing them at surfaces where they will stick and can be retrieved after being thrown if they are in reach. The camera can look round almost 180° both horizontally and vertically and can be viewed by any of the defenders.

Caviera (1/3)

Caviera effectively has 3 parts to her ability. The first is her Silent Step, this allows her to move silently and can be active for up to 10 seconds continuously before needing to recharge. The maximum recharge time is 5 seconds. She can activate Silent Step with a minimum of 25% charge. When it is active she can only use her special sidearm the “Luison”. The Luison is the second part of her ability. It does an average of 65 damage which is higher than average and has an extended damage drop off (21 meters) as compared to other pistols which start dropping off from 11 meters. It will also only kill an operator if they are downed in order to allow her to use the third part of her ability, her Interrogate. In order to use this ability, she has to interact with a downed attacker and perform a 5 second interaction during which the player must hold down the activation key. Upon successful completion of the interrogation, all live attackers will have their location and identity revealed to  all the defenders for 10 seconds.

Echo (3/1)

He has two Yokai Drones which can either be in ground mode

(where it can move around, but cannot use the concussive blasts) or ceiling mode (in which it is immobile, but i can use the concussive blasts). The concussive blast acts like other concussive effects; hearing is disrupted, the screen is blurred and the peripheral vision is darkened. This effect lasts 10 seconds and has a range of 14 meters. In addition most continuous actions will be disrupted (including planting the defuser), the exception being removing a Gu mine. The Yokai can have up to 2 blasts in reserve and they take 16 seconds to recharge. If the Yokai leaves the building for more than 3 seconds then it will disable and need to be manually retrieved by Echo. 

Mira (3/1)

She has 2 Black Mirrors which are bulletproof one-way mirrors that she can deploy on either reinforced or unreinforced walls. The mirror will only be see-through on the side it is deployed and it will take 5 seconds to deploy. The defenders can break the small gas canister at the bottom of the mirror in order to shoot through the gap that will be left or alternatively the attackers can destroy the gas canister using gunfire, melee, explosive damage or by Twitch’s Shock Drone. It takes 4 seconds for the window to fall and when the gas canister is broken, it will make a small puffing noise audible on both sides of the wall.

Lesion (2/2)

He starts with a single Gu Mine and gains an additional one every 30 seconds for a maximum of 8. The Gu Mines do 4 points of damage every 2 seconds, prevent the attacker from sprinting and prevent them from dropping or planting the defuser. Shield operators are exposed while removing Gu Mines.

Ela (1/3)

She has 3 Grzmot Mines which can be thrown and stuck to any surface and will trigger when an attacker enters their radius (roughly 4 meters). The radius of effect on the mine is around 6 meters and will affect attackers and defenders. The effect lasts around 6 seconds. 

Vigil (1/3)

His ERC-7 allows him to become invisible to all Attacker cameras, including cameras hacked by Dokkaebi and he will not trigger pings from Lion’s EE-ONE-D. The ERC-7 can be activated for a maximum of 12 seconds at a time and will then need to recharge. It recharges when not active and recharges at twice the rate it depletes so it has a maximum recharge time of 6 seconds. It can be activated with a minimum of 25% charge. Shooting or performing a melee attack will deactivate the ERC-7.

Alibi (1/3)

Has 3 Prisma holograms which do not change to match the cosmetics equipped by the player. If an attacker moves, drones or throws something through the hologram or shoots it, then their location will be pinged for all defenders once a second for five seconds. As a 3 speed with a solid gun she can work well as a roamer, especially if she uses the Prismas to protect her flanks. She can also throw her Prismas outside which will cause the “enemy detected outside” message to flash for the attackers until it is destroyed. This can allow a different defender to run out and have it disguised.

Maestro (3/1)

Maestro can place two Evil Eye cameras on any solid surface. The Evil Eye can see through smoke unlike most cameras. In addition it can shoot lasers that can destroy defender gadgets (hard breach gadgets, breaching charges etc) and drones. It does 5 HP of damage to an operator and can shoot four shots per second up to a maximum of 20 shots, at which point it will overheat and become disabled for 5 seconds. In order to shoot, it needs to open which is done by Aiming Down Sight and takes one second. While the turret is open to fire it can be destroyed by bullets, melee attacks or by Twitch’s Shock Drone. However when not open to fire, the cameras are bulletproof and cannot be destroyed by melee hits. They require explosive damage, Maverick’s Torch or Sledge’s Hammer in order to be destroyed when closed. Although all defenders can view the camera, only an alive Maestro can turn them or use the laser function.

Clash (3/1)

Clash’s CCE Shield works in a similar way to Montagne’s Extendable Shield when she takes it off her back. It covers her whole body and she cannot use her sidearm or any gadgets or access cameras while she has it out, however unlike Montagne, her whole shield is see-through. She is unable to perform a typical shield melee attack. Instead her shield has tasers which slow and damage (5 DPS) any operators in a cone in front of her, however they have no effect on gadgets. The range of the taser is around 12 meters and it can work for up to 5 seconds before needing to recharge. It recharges 20% per second and if it is fully depleted it will have to fully recharge before she can use it again. Clash can prevent attackers from entering windows and doors.

Kaid (3/1)

Kaid has two Electroclaws which he can deploy by throwing the at any surface. It will take four seconds for it to charge up, during which time you will be able to see the radius it will electrify. After the four seconds, all metallic objects within the Electroclaw’s radius will become electrified and will act in the same way as objects shocked by Bandit's wire (doing around 9 DPS and destroying gadgets that come into contact with it). It will affect metal objects through surfaces such as walls.

Mozzie (2/2)

Mozzie comes with 3 Pests which are devices that are able to hack attacker’s recon drones and Twitch’s Shock Drones. When he hacks a drone, the attackers lose control of it and instead Mozzie has complete control of the drone, he can move it, scan and ping on it and use the taser on Twitch’s Shock Drone. All defenders will be able to see through the drone but only Mozzie can move it. If he drives the drone outside for longer than 3 seconds then he will lose control of it. Mozzie can hack the drones by either shooting a Pest at a drone or by shooting it on a surface to wait for a drone to come into its radius and line of sight, at which point it will jump onto the drone and hack it. It takes 3 seconds for the Pest to hack a drone and once it has completed the hack it will self-destruct meaning Mozzie can hack a maximum of 3 drones. 

Warden (2/2)

Warden has Smart Glasses, which when activated allow him to see through smoke and flashes. The Smart Glasses last for a maximum of 10 seconds, after which they will need to recharge which takes 12 seconds. They cannot be activated unless they are fully charged. If he deactivates his glasses before they are out of charge, they will lose any charge that was left. His ability to see through smoke will fade the more Warden moves.

Goyo (2/2)

2 Volcan Shields which from the front look like normal shields but can be detonated to create an explosion which does 30-40 damage to anyone close to it depending on their armour class and leaves fire for around 12 seconds which does 36 DPS.

Wamai (2/2) 

Starts with 1 Mag-NET and gets a new one every 40 seconds, up to a max of 5. Discs which can be tossed pretty much anywhere, they catch projectiles and then self-destruct, detonating the gadget as they do so. 

• Thatcher's EMP Grenades
• Ash's Breaching Rounds
• Fuze's Cluster Charges
• Capitão's Smoke and Fire Bolts
• Ying's Candelas
• Nomad's Airjabs
• Zofia's Concussion and Impact Grenades
• Gridlock's Trax Stingers however, they will still trigger and release Stingers normally as they won’t be detonated by the MAG-Net
• Kali's LV Lances
• Frag Grenades
• Smoke Grenades
• Stun Grenades
• Zero's ARGUS Cams.

Oryx (2/2)

Oryx’s Remah Dash allows him to smash through soft walls (causes 5 points of damage) and barricades (causing no damage). The Dash replenishes every 12 seconds and he can have a maximum of 3 charges at a time. In addition, Oryx can jump up through open hatches, he hangs on the ledge and can either drop back down or jump up.

Melusi (1/3)

Melusi has three Banshees which are bulletproof devices that slow attackers and make a low humming noise alerting defenders to the attacker’s position. The effects of the Banshee start when an attacker is 4 meters away by reducing an attacker's movement speed by 25%, increasing to a 50% reduction by 2 meters away. The Banshee can only be destroyed by melee attacks or explosive damage.

Eloise Evans is an undergraduate student from the United Kingdom. Her love of games stems from the frustration she experienced playing various Red Alert games when she was young. Since then she has developed a particular love of the Elder Scrolls games and the Fallout series. At the moment she is playing a lot of Rainbow Six Siege and Sea of Thieves - arguably too much.

MTG Arena: Top 3 Janks You Wouldn't Use in Ranked

 As with all new MTG sets Zendikar Rising has brought a selection of new, fun card combos which are so incredibly off meta that not only will they never be used, many of them will never even be known about by many players. Not only does this mean many will miss out on enjoying these interactions and abilities, but it also means on the rare occasion they are used your opponent is rarely expecting them. Without further introduction, and in no particular order, here are the top three card abilities and combos from Zendikar Rising I’ve found and enjoyed so far in the first week of release.

3. Ashaya, Soul of the Wild

This mythic rare five mana legendary green creature is an absolute delight to run in pretty much any deck with green as an option. Ignoring how it increases in power as you ramp, the biggest feature Ashaya provides is turning all nontoken creatures (including itself) that enter the battlefield into Forest lands. Not only does it allow you to fully exploit the set’s landfall mechanic by triggering landfall abilities whenever a nontoken creature enters the battlefield, and give you extra mana equal to however many nontoken creatures you have, and increase Ashaya’s own power by playing creatures, but by making creatures into lands it shuts down any removal an opponent might use to target nonland permanents. The most common victim of this ability is Banishing Light, one of the most popular white removal spells in Standard at the moment, which opponents invariably play in response to dropping Ashaya only to realise they can’t target it or any other opposing creature. Cards like Into the Roil, Kiora Bests the Sea God, Ondu Inversion, and Ruinous Ultimatum also fall to Ashaya’s removal of any nonland creatures from your side of the battlefield, making it fun and useful against a variety of deck archetypes to block their interactions.

2. Leyline Tyrant & Chromatic Orrery (& Nyxbloom Ancient)

If you can get these three cards in play, you have the setup for a great joke that starts with a four mana cost dragon saying ‘knock knock’ and ends with your opponent staring at their life wondering just how it got that far into the negative without you even attacking. Pop out Leyline Tyrant and start hoarding mana like you yourself are a dragon, all the while positioning to get out Chromatic Orrery and Nyxbloom Ancient. Assuming you get the full seven land required to play the latter two cards without using something like Irencrag Feat, you can tap everything for 36 potential damage the turn after everything is in place. You can always just keep adding to that, of course, by tapping everything for up to 12 more damage (the red mana at least is cumulative thanks to Leyline Tyrant) per turn. If that isn’t enough, you can increase it further by throwing in a couple of Fiery Emancipation enchantments, or even just a Dryad of the Ilysian Grove to make sure all your land taps for red mana. At that point the only problem you should have is how to make sure your Leyline Tyrant dies when you want to pull off this incredibly fun but janky combo, which is easy with a couple of targeted red damage spells or a sacrifice (other options include a Fiery Emancipation boosted Ugin, the Spirit Dragon).

1. Lithoform Engine

It copies. It copies abilities! It copies spells! It copies permanents! It copies all the fun stuff, including planeswalker abilities. Do you want to draw some cards and gain some life but the seven Ugin is giving you isn’t enough? Double it! Think two +1/+1 counters and two token creatures would be more fun than one but Basri Ket’s -6 ultimate ability is too slow to build towards? Play this four mana colourless artifact you can throw in any colour deck and watch as abilities so powerful many players immediately concede when used against them are used twice as much! Or I suppose you could just copy one of the hundred thrice mutated into Auspicious Starrix Scute Swarm ability triggers currently trying to resolve in the stack?

Chris Jackson is a postgraduate historian from the United Kingdom and lifelong video game lover. He went to university to do two degrees in History not because it was a viable career path but because he was inspired by Civilization III as a child to conquer the world (at least virtually). His favourite games at the moment are MTG Arena and Divinity: Original Sin 2, and while his CV describes him as a bartender, his current job title is really Dungeon Master for his four ongoing Dungeons & Dragons campaigns.

Beginner's Guide to Siege: The Attackers

This is the second in a series of posts explaining some of the basics of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege. This post will hopefully help to explain what each attacking operator can do.

Each operator will have their name written, next to which will be their armour and speed scores, for example, (1/3) for a 1 armor, 3 speed operator. Below this will be a short description of the operator's ability and a picture of their icon.

Ash (1/3)

She has a breaching round gadget which has 3 shots. Each shot can open any barricade including castle barricades and opens soft floor or walls. The breaching rounds have no projectile size and therefore can go through any sized hole. 

Thermite (2/2)

He has 2 exothermic charges which open a walkable hole in a reinforced or unreinforced wall. They take 3 seconds to deploy and then roughly another 3 seconds to detonate. If an operator is within a few meters of the charge when it goes off then they will be killed or damaged. 

Montagne (3/1)

Has an extendable shield which covers the whole front of his body, is bulletproof and protects from explosives. When his shield is fully extended, he is unable to use his gun, melee, run, vault, crouch, prone or interact with objects. Unlike normal shields, when fully extended, Montagne's shield will only shake slightly instead of being knocked aside.

Twitch (2/2)

She has 2 shock drones which can shoot a shock dart up to 7.5 meters. Each drone start with 3 charges and replenish over a period of 15 seconds. Shots can be used to destroy or disable all defender gadgets or do a single hitpoint of damage to an operator. Her drones cannot jump.

Blitz (2/2)

Has a shield which has the ability to flash someone up to 5 metres away (4 meters to achieve full blindness). Looking away will not prevent the blinding effect. The shield has 4 charges of the flash with a 7 second cooldown between each one.

IQ (1/3)

Her device can detect all defender electronic gadgets that are up to 20 meters away from her, including through walls and floors. She can see defenders on their phones, Pulse when he’s using his gadget, Vigil when his gadget is active, the bomb in bomb mode and the biohazard container in secure area.

Sledge (2/2)

Sledge can use his Breaching Hammer to create large holes in soft walls and destructible floors, as well as destroy hatches and barricades in one hit. The Hammer has 25 charges. Breaking a wall or killing an operator will use 2 charges, while all other uses will use one. 

Thatcher (2/2)

Thatcher has 3 EMP grenades that disable all electronic defender gadgets in a 5.2 meter radius, which includes above and below it. The gadgets are disabled for 10 seconds. The EMP grenades will not affect attacker gadgets.

Thatcher’s EMP grenades will disable the following:

• Nitro Cells.
  
  
  
• Proximity Alarms.
• Smoke's Gas Grenades
• Mute's Signal Disruptors.
• Kapkan's Entry Denial Devices.
• Jäger's Active Defense Systems.
• Bandit's Shock Wire.
• Valkyrie's Black Eyes.
• Lesion's Gu mines.
• Ela's Grzmot mines.
• Kaid's Electroclaws.
• Mozzie's Pests.
• Pulse's Heartbeat Sensor. It freezes the screen; so it won’t pick up any more 
• Echo's Yokai drone. It will make the drone fall to the ground if it was on the ceiling when it was hit by the EMP.
• Vigil's ERC-7.
• Maestro's Evil Eyes. The EMP causes the Evil Eye to be stuck halfway open meaning it can be destroyed by an attacker.
• Alibi's Prismas.
• Clash's CCE Shield's Taser.
• Attacker Drones hacked by Mozzie's Pests.
• Warden's Smart Glasses.
• Wamai's Mag-NETs.
• Surveillance Cameras.
• Melusi's Banshee.

Fuze (3/1)

Fuze has four cluster charges which take 1.5 seconds to be placed on all soft surfaces and when activated releases 5 cluster charges which launch in a line going from left to right before detonating in the same order. Each charge has an explosion radius of 4.2 meters. It deals lethal damage at up to 1.2 meters away from Medium and Heavy Armored operators and up to 2 meters for Light Armored Operators

Glaz (2/2)

The first sniper in the game, he has a thermal flip sight which shows enemy operators as bright yellow, even through smoke. This ability is deactivated if he moves for 2.5 seconds but will fully reactivate if Glaz stops moving for around 2.5 seconds.

Buck (2/2)

He has an under-barrel shotgun called the Skeleton Key which has 31 rounds. It has the most destructive power of any shotgun in the game with the ability to create large holes in soft surfaces. 

Blackbeard (2/2)

He has 2 shields which he can attach to his gun to give some protection to his head. Each shield has 50 HP meaning they can take a few hits from bullets. When equipped they apply a movement penalty making him one of the slowest operators in the game, however the shield can be unequipped to remove this effect. 

Capitão (1/3)

Capitão has a tactical crossbow. It comes with 2 fire bolts and 2 smoke bolts. The fire produced by the fire bolt has a maximum radius of roughly 6 meters which takes around 2 seconds to achieve. Like the fire from Goyo’s shields, it deals around 36 damage per second (DPS) and lasts around 10 seconds. The smoke bolt works similarly to a smoke grenade but has a diameter or 5 meters meaning it covers a wider area. Neither bolt has a projectile size so can pass through any opening, including bullet holes.

Hibana (1/3)

Hibana has 3 sets of 6 X-Kairos pellets which can be launched in clusters of 2, 4 or 6 and take five seconds to melt through the surface. They can be destroyed by gunfire, explosive or melee hits. Only 1 pellet is needed to destroy a Black Mirror, 2 for a castle barricade while 4 are required to destroy a hatch.

Jackal (2/2)

He can use his gadget to see enemy footprints which he can then scan (taking around three seconds) to learn the identity and location of the enemy operator. Upon the scan’s completion, a ping will be created at the location of the tracked enemy, this will update once every five seconds for a total of four pings over 20 seconds. It will not work on Caviera while her Silent Step ability is active. Footprints are only created when the defender crouches, moves or stands, not when they crawl. The footprints change colour depending on how long ago they were made, going from red at 0 seconds, to yellow at 20 seconds, light green at around 45 seconds, light blue at 65 seconds before disappearing at 90 seconds. 

Ying (2/2)

Each of her 3 candelas contains 6 flashes that function similarly to Stun Grenades. They can be deployed either by throwing like a regular grenade, (which causes it to release the 6 flashes in a star- shaped pattern with 1 at each of the 5 corners and 1 in the centre) or it can be placed on a breakable surface  (it will then fire 5 chargers from right to left and the 6th will drop in front of the Candela). The flashes are fired and detonated every fifth of a second. It is important to note that the Candela will not bounce, it will roll smoothly upon contact with the ground.

Zofia (2/2)

Zofia’s Lifeline has 2 Impact Grenades and 2 Concussion Grenades. These can be switched between using the fire mode key. The Impacts function much like impact grenades and the Concussion Grenades act like Ela’s Mines in that they cause visual and movement disruption, in addition they will detonate when close to an enemy, otherwise they detonate after a small delay. Like Capitão’s crossbow bolts, the grenades have no projectile size and can therefore pass through holes as small as a bullet hole. 

Dokkaebi (2/2)

She has 2 Logic Bombs which cause all defender phones to start buzzing, unless they are by a mute jammer, this effect lasts for 12 seconds and in order to stop the buzzing before it ends naturally, the defenders have to perform a 3 second animation during which they cannot move or shoot. In addition, when the Logic Bomb is active, the defenders have no access to cameras. Killed defenders drop phones which she can use to hack defender cams giving access to all cams for the attackers

Lion (2/2)

Lion can use his drone 3 times in a match with a 15 second cooldown between activations. It will give a 1.5 second warning to all operators before the scan after which there will be a 2 second scan phase, during which if a defender moves, they will be detected and pinged repeatedly for the Attackers to see. Mute jammers and Vigil’s ability both prevent pinging.

Finka (2/2)

She can activate her Adrenal Surge three times a round. The Surge has a range of effects on attackers:

Positive Effects

• Gives a temporary boost of 20HP
• Reduces recoil while aiming down sights by 45%
• Reduces ADS time by 20%
• Reduces reload speed by around 15%
• Increases movement speed in Barbed Wire by roughly 40%
• Doubles recovery speed from stun or concussive gadgets
• Reduces concussion effects by 70%
• Removes tinnitus effect from explosions
• Revives downed players with 30HP + 20HP from the boost and takes 2.75 seconds vs the usual 4 seconds

Negative Effects

• Can be detected by Pulse’s Cardiac Sensor from 14 meters instead of 9 meters
• Increase damage from Smoke’s Gas Canisters by 50%

Maverick (1/3)

Has a Breaching Torch for burning holes in breachable surfaces. The breaching torch requires reloading when it has been fully used, it can also be reloaded prior to this however any spare fuel will be lost. Maverick begins the round with 5 canisters of fuel.  The Breaching Torch can be used to very quietly create holes in any breachable surface. It can also be used to destroy barbed wire, deployable shields and other bulletproof gadgets. He can either create small holes to shoot through or larger holes which players can move through.

Nomad (2/2)

She has three Airjabs which push the defender back around 3 meters and knocks them down if they enter its radius and it has line of sight on the defender. It will affect all operators in the area of effect. Once deployed the Airjabs cannot be picked back up.

Gridlock (3/1)

When deployed, Gridlock’s 3 Trax Stingers act like barbed wire in that they slow down enemy operators and make noise, however they also damage opponents therefore working as flank protection and area denial. The maximum number of patches that can be deployed is 19, which takes 9 seconds and they deploy in a circular fashion, with the first patch deploying six around itself and those six each deploying a further two.

Nøkk (2/2)

When activated, Nøkk's gadget dampens her sound and erases her image from cameras. It lasts for a maximum of 12 seconds, before requiring a maximum of 6 seconds to recharge. It can be activated with a minimum of 25% charge. She will be completely invisible to cameras unless she sprints, fires her weapon, walks through Barbed Wire, takes damage, or does anything, such as pulling out a Gu Mine. If she does any of these then the peripherals of her screen will have a yellow interference to alert her. Nøkk does not trigger Alibi’s Prisma holograms.

Amaru (2/2)

Amaru has 4 uses of the Garra Hook which allow her to rapidly move through windows, unreinforced/open hatches and up to skylights and rappel-able ledges at the same level as her or higher. There is an 8 second cooldown between her uses of the Garra Hook.

Kali (2/2)

Kali has a sniper rifle with the highest possible zoom of any gun in the game. Kali’s gun can shoot through multiple breakable walls and open barricades and soft hatches with one shot. With a body shot we will kill a 1-armor operator, down a 2-armor and cause a large amount of damage to a 3-armor operator. In addition the rifle can fire Explosive Lances which are capable of burrowing into walls, including indestructible walls, and causing a small explosion on both sides of the wall. This explosion does not cause much damage to operators but destroys any gadgets nearby. 

Iana (2/2)

She is able to create an exact replica hologram of herself, including her equipped uniform, headgear and weapon skin. The replica cannot rappel or climb down ladders, but also takes no fall damage. It has a time limit of around 15 seconds or can be exited at any time. It will always have a cooldown before it can be reactivated which is longer if it is destroyed.

Ace (2/2)

He comes with 3 SELMA Breaching Devices. They can be thrown at breachable surfaces and automatically detonate. It creates a wide opening and if there is room below it, it will lower and detonate once more, creating an opening through which operators can crouch or vault. Two SELMA Breaches are needed in order to open a reinforced hatch.

Zero (2/2)

Zero has four Argus cameras which he can launch into reinforced or unreinforced surfaces.  They can then see either side of the surface. In addition each camera can fire a single laser to either destroy a defender gadget or deal 5 HP of damage to an operator.

Eloise Evans is an undergraduate student from the United Kingdom. Her love of games stems from the frustration she experienced playing various Red Alert games when she was young. Since then she has developed a particular love of the Elder Scrolls games and the Fallout series. At the moment she is playing a lot of Rainbow Six Siege and Sea of Thieves - arguably too much.