Rainbow Six Siege’s upcoming Operation Grim Sky update doesn’t even launch in full until next month, and yet Ubisoft is already implementing some noticeable changes to one of the update’s new playable operators, the blowtorch-wielding Maverick.
Operation Grim Sky is currently available to play via Siege’s PC-exclusive testing server, and it seems that testers had a lot of Maverick-focused feedback to provide. In response to that feedback, Ubisoft is implementing the following changes to Maverick’s kit and functionality:
- Smoke Grenades are being swapped out for Stun Grenades since being able to cloak himself in smoke gave Maverick too much utility.
- The amount of time and damage needed to destroy barbed wire with Maverick’s blowtorch is being increased. It will now require half of a blowtorch canister (two seconds of continuous use) to fully destroy a single patch of barbed wire, though players will still be able to just spray the wire with one second’s worth of flame and then destroy it with a single melee attack.
- The amount of noise Maverick’s blowtorch makes has been upped slightly to ensure that alert defender players are more consistently rewarded for their caution.
Ubisoft has also said it’s considering a reduction in the overall ammo reserves and range of Maverick’s blowtorch, but it wants to gather more data before implementing either of those changes. Ideally a reduction in range won’t be necessary since implementing such a change would require a great deal of time and effort.
Funnily enough, as of this writing Ubisoft doesn’t see any major changes that need to be made to Operation Grim Sky’s other new operator, the shield-bearing defender Clash, though the studio will continue to monitor Clash’s performance once Grim Sky is up on Siege’s public game servers. Operation Grim Sky doesn’t yet have a set release date but it is expected to launch sometime in September.