Rainbow Six Siege's Tachanka Operator has been buffed

If you've been itching to start playing Rainbow Six Siege again, but couldn't really find a good excuse, you might be glad to hear that there has recently been a rather large update. It has brought with it numerous balance changes, Bartlett University has been redesigned for PvP, shield Operators have been buffed, and most importantly, Tachanka - the great memelord, is now finally useful!

For those of you that might not have much experience with Rainbow Six Siege, Tachanka has been the absolute worst Operator for the past year, purely because his gadget involved him standing perfectly still behind a turret, just waiting to be shot in the head. Well, after an entire year of being the laughing stock of the entire RSS community, Tachanka has finally taken the next step forward by adding a shield in front of his turret! If you're interested in all of the details, here's what Ubisoft had to say about his minor rework:

"On November 13th 2016, Alexsandr Senaviev was declared clinically dead for two minutes on the field. While he recovered at the Hereford Base, his mounted RP-46 Degtyaryov Machine Gun was inspected. Having been decommissioned in the 1960s, the RP-46 Degtyaryov was one of the last machine guns manufactured by the Soviet Union. Aware of the Operator’s preference for such antique pieces, Six asked for the weapon to be upgraded to meet safety measures. The team of engineers led by Elena “Mira” Alvarez Del Manzano added a ballistic shield that protects the head from frontal shots. This shield can be destroyed separately from the rest of the turret. Mira was also tasked with adding a light customization on the Mounted LMG as a personal touch for Tachanka."

GAME DESIGN NOTES:

"Since the launch of Rainbow Six Siege more than a year ago, Tachanka has been the weakest Operator, even if he has become one of the most loved. This has most clearly been reflected in his pick rate, which is the lowest in the game.

When looking at Tachanka, the biggest downside lies in the gadget. The tradeoff between his turret’s stopping power and his lack of mobility isn’t good enough. Attackers have several ways to deny him with the element of surprise, and can easily headshot him once they know his position.

In order to introduce a counter to this weakness, we’ve added a shield in front of the turret which protects him from frontal headshots. The objective is for Tachanka to be the king of the angle that he positioned into, while being very vulnerable to other angles.

The shield can be broken separately from the rest of turret and has 500 HP.

We’ve also added recoil and a little bit of spread to the gun, in order to mitigate the strength of the shielded turret in spawn peek situations (long distances).

When looking at Tachanka, the biggest downside lies in the gadget. The tradeoff between his turret’s stopping power and his lack of mobility isn’t good enough. Attackers have several ways to deny him with the element of surprise, and can easily headshot him once they know his position.
In order to introduce a counter to this weakness, we’ve added a shield in front of the turret which protects him from frontal headshots. The objective is for Tachanka to be the king of the angle that he positioned into, while being very vulnerable to other angles.
The shield can be broken separately from the rest of turret and has 500 HP. "

As for the patch notes, there's simply far too much for me to summarize, so if you're interested in reading all of the changes you should head over to the official website. And for those among you that don't own Rainbow Six Siege, I would suggest holding back with your purchase until the Steam Winter Sale arrives. According to recent rumors its supposed to hit at some point next week, so make sure to check out the RSS Steam page every couple of days as its bound to be on a 50% discount, if not even higher.