The time is nearly here for the fourth and final 2022 season of Rainbow Six Siege and this season aims to be the brightest for the game so far. Operator Solar Raid is bringing with it a new operator as well as some huge balance changes that are sure to shake up the current meta of Rainbow Six Siege. Let’s go over all of the changes as well as the new operator coming with Operation Solar Raid in Rainbow Six Siege.
Rainbow Six Siege New Operator Details
Solis is the name of the new operator that will be joining the defending side. They are bringing a P90 SMG or the ITA12L shotgun with them and they have some decent killing potential either on a roam or holding down the site. They can also choose to bring a bulletproof camera or impact grenades to suit whichever playstyle they are going for.
Being a two-armor operator will allow them to take a gunfight with ease as well as quickly move around the map to get where they need to be. This pairs well with their gadget which is the SPEC-IO Electro-Sensor. This gadget works similarly to IQ’s gadget with some slight changes. To begin with, the SPEC-IO has a charge so you can’t speed the whole round staring at the attacker’s electronics through walls. You can also only see up to 15 gadgets during a single use of the gadget.
The big difference is that you can ping up to five gadgets for your teammates to see. While telling someone what is going on can work most of the time, giving a direct ping of a gadget will assure that everyone is on the same page. The scanner can be disabled for a short amount of time by Thatcher’s gadget, which makes him an even stronger attacker than he already was.
Nighthaven Labs Has Arrived
Although this map was promised sometime during the Brutal Swarm operation, we are going to finally see it added to the game with the release of Operation Solar Raid. Nighthaven Labs will be quite the shake-up for the player base as it will take many players a decent amount of time to fully understand the layout of the map.
Once players have had enough time to figure out all the pathways the map has to offer, it will become quite obvious that Nighthaven Labs is a roamer-designed map. The map has three floors to play around and plenty of odd pathways to get behind any attacks when they are inside the building.
Balance Changes are Making Everyone Heavy This Season
The largest balance change is something many players are not going to notice until their first gunfight as all operators will now move at the same speed when aiming no matter their armor class. Currently, a one-armor operator will move faster while they are aimed than a three-armor operator will. However, in the new season, all operators will move at the same speed when aiming no matter the armor class or attachments.
While that is a large sweeping change that will impact all operators, there are still plenty of changes to individual operators to go over.
Alibi
- MX4 Storm no longer has the 1.5x sight available to equip
- Prisma devices will not show up as detected when thrown outside
Aruni
- Changed to a three-armor operator
Dokkaebi
- Changed to a one-armor operator
Echo
- Changed to a two-armor operator
Ela
- Changed to a two-armor operator
Melusi
- Changed to a three-armor operator
Mute
- Changed to a three-armor operator
Osa
- Changed to a three-armor operator
Sens
- Changed to a one-armor operator
Sledge
- Changed to a three-armor operator
Thatcher
- Changed to a three-armor operator
Thunderbird
- Changed to a two-armor operator
Zero
- Changed to a one-armor operator
Zofia
- Changed to a three-armor operator
AK-12
- Damage reduced from 45 to 40 per shot
C7E
- Increased magazine capacity from 25 to 30 bullets
FMG-9
- Increase horizontal and vertical recoil (PC only)
6P41
- Increased vertical recoil and first bullet kick (Console only)
LMG-E
- Increased vertical recoil and first bullet kick (Console only)
The final change that we will see coming with the new season is friendly fire being disabled during the prep phase. While this won’t have any impact on attackers, it will allow defenders to open up rotate holes without worrying about doing damage to their teammates.
This might help to prevent toxic teammates from killing each other as soon as everyone loads in, but the friendly fire will be re-enabled as soon as the action phase begins. So make sure to run as far as you can to prevent yourself from being tk’ed when prep time is over. All of these changes should be coming to the live server on December 6.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege is available now on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC.
