Operation Steel Wave
Prepare for the unexpected, because Operation Steel Wave is full of novelties! New Operators arrive, with gadgets that are sure to change the flow of every match they participate in. A new NIGHTHAVEN recruit, Ace, swoops in to join the Attackers, while the Defenders gain a new teammate in Melusi, an Inkaba Task Force ranger.
As you’ll find in the Patch Notes below, with this season you can also expect our House rework as well as the new secondary gadget, the Proximity Alarm. Keep an eye out for changes to our Matchmaking Rating system and Amaru’s gadget function, plus brand new seasonal weapon skins and Echo’s Elite skin!
Dr. Harishva "Harry" Pandey
Director of Rainbow
“Ace is a potent mix of the unpredictable and the bombastic, part showman, all professional…“ The natural resting point for the center of attention, Specialist Håvard “Ace” Haugland is never more than a smile away from a perfect on-camera appearance. Nevertheless, his dedication to search-and-rescue operations worldwide, and his long and well-publicized list of personal accomplishments, are a source of inspiration for many…
"Ndlovu doesn’t shy away from responsibility, embracing it as both her duty and her birthright…" There is no shortage of wars to be fought in this world, but Specialist Thandiwe “Melusi” Ndlovu has picked one of the most vital. Conservation is an underappreciated art form, combining tireless vigilance and hair-trigger reflexes. It asks much of its proponents and, in turn, Ndlovu delivers…
ACE | Attacker
2 Armor 2 Speed
PRIMARY WEAPON
SECONDARY WEAPON
GADGET
- Breach Charge
- Smoke Grenade
UNIQUE ABILITIES AND PLAYSTYLE
S.E.L.M.A. AQUA BREACHER
We wouldn’t blame you if the term breaching makes you think of fiery explosions. If not with a hammer or a spark, walls have mostly been compromised by fire so far. With Ace, that’s about to change.
With the S.E.L.M.A. Aqua Breacher, water is the name of the game. It makes use of hydraulic pressure to burst through breakable and reinforced surfaces. The cylinder is thrown on whatever Ace is trying to breach, and then it opens to fully deploy. It explodes one time on floors, ceilings and hatches, but on walls the cylinder rolls down to deploy up to three times, if space allows. Each of these deployments leaves a clean rectangle breach, combining to create a hole big enough for an Operator to go through easily.
The S.E.L.M.A. is quite versatile in nature and with multiple units available to Ace, its ability to be thrown at any height makes him an incredibly reliable hard breacher.
MELUSI | Defender
1 Armor 3 Speed
PRIMARY WEAPON
SECONDARY WEAPON
GADGET
- Impact Grenade
- Deployable Shield
UNIQUE ABILITIES AND PLAYSTYLE
BANSHEE SONIC DEFENSE
Don’t be too alarmed if you find yourself slowed when there’s no barbed wire underfoot. You can trust your ears on this one, the Banshee has caught you in a moment of weakness. While its sound blares and alerts Melusi of your presence, you might not have much time to retreat to a safe distance.
The Banshee Sonic Defence is deployable on surfaces, much like Maestro’s Evil Eyes, but they don’t require any manual control. As soon as an opponent walks close enough to it, it will release its scream and slow them. It can be destroyed, but since it’s bulletproof, Attackers will have to dispense some utility or strike it up close.
One of the best assets of the Banshee is that once Melusi has placed it, her teammates can make use of it just as well as she does.
MAP REWORK: HOUSE
At last, House has undergone some major renovations and is ready for more mayhem. While we strived to keep this map as casual as possible, we still felt there were some things we needed to change in order for it to be well balanced.
The first item we need to discuss is the size of the house itself. With this rework, not only have some of the existing areas been made bigger, we also added an entirely new section on the South side, with two rooms on each floor and a staircase to connect them. With this new space, everyone will have more space to move and breathe, but we were also able to add a new Bomb site in TV Room and Music Room.
Many other areas have changed, but three required special attention. Firstly, Garage has been revamped, with only one of its doors being destructible and a new barricade being added to give a different access option, while still making a Defuser plant harder. Secondly, what was once Workshop is now a finished Girls’ Room with an attached walk-in closet. Thirdly, lines of sight have been reduced on the North side of the building, with the main door being blocked off and the shuttered window replaced with a hallway.
As you play this new version of a classic map, you’ll notice some other things. The Living & Training Bomb site has been removed in favor of Master Bedroom & Boys’ Room. Most floors are now breakable, so vertical play will be a lot more viable. Some hatches have been added or moved. Overall, we applied our vision of competitive maps while keeping it fun and making it safer.
AMARU CHANGES
While Amaru has always been acrobatic and dynamic, she hasn’t always been as unpredictable as we wanted her to be. This season, we hope to give her the tools she needs to fulfill her role with a few tweaks.
While her hook animations and timings will be smoother, what’s really important to point out is that from now on, she will only break barricades when she goes through them (although her hook will still break the glass on a window), and she will no longer need to break a hatch before going up, as she will breach it in the action itself.
SECONDARY GADGET: PROXIMITY ALARM
Our brand new secondary gadget is finally fine-tuned and ready to be used on the field. This thrown sticky gadget is an essential intel-gathering tool, and it works just as well for anchors as it does for roamers.
The Proximity Alarm’s small size makes it easy to place in a spot where Attackers might not see them as they navigate their way to the objective, making it all the more easy for Defenders to capitalize on the chaos that ensues when the alarm goes off.
UNIFIED MMR & CHAMPIONS RANK
A big change is coming to our Matchmaking Rating system. In order to prevent matchmaking abuses while switching regions, we will be changing to unified MMRs for each playlist. This means that you will not have different MMRs depending on the region you play in. However, your matchmaking ranking will remain separate in different playlists.
For those of you who are or aspire to be in the Champions rank, this change will in fact cause the Champions’ leaderboard to be worldwide, making it all the more challenging to reach that top spot. Additionally, we want to reinforce that the notion that Champions is not just about skills but also about dedication, so a minimum of 100 matches is now required to get the rank, on top of the 5000 MMR threshold.
ELITE ECHO
Have you ever wondered what each Operator might be like, in an alternate universe? In the future? Would they still be with Rainbow, and would they even still be good people?
Echo’s Elite Set is one such glance into another world, where he is the hero of his own city, and no criminal can hope to match him in combat. This set contains Echo’s Tenkamusou uniform, victory animation, gadget skin for his Yokai Drones and weapon skins for the SUPERNOVA, MP5SD, P229, and BEARING 9, as well as the Elite Echo Chibi charm.
OPERATORS PRICE DECREASE
Four Operators are getting a price decrease with this season. This time, Alibi and Maestro are going down to 15,000 Renown or 350 R6 Credits, and Nøkk and Warden’s prices will be 20,000 Renown or 480 R6 Credits.
STEEL WAVE WEAPON SKINS
This time, two new seasonal weapon skins are coming your way to spice up your loadouts in two different ways.
Let the Wooden Carvings skin lead you into battle, with its aged wood and chiseled symbols.
Take a chill pill, the Beach Trip skin is here to make things a little more lighthearted and fun.
Seasonal weapon skins are released upon season launch and can be purchased during that season. Once unlocked, the seasonal weapon skins can be applied to all available weapons
OPERATOR BALANCING
CLASH
- Clash's SMG will switch from having a red dot to using the reflex's green triangle.
ECHO
- Removed the camera shake effect from from Yokai's concussion effects.
- Length of concussion effect is no longer affected by movement. Now has a fixed duration of 10s and the intensity of the vision disruption stays fixed throughout the effect.
- Replaced the Deployable Shield with Impact Grenades.
FINKA
- Increased base hp to 30 (from 5) for teammates revived by Finka's Nanoboost. DBNO Players will stand up with 50 hp (30 from own base hp + 20 from Finka boost). KAID
- Added LFP586 secondary to loadout.
KALI
- Reduced LV Explosive Lance's fuse time to 1.5s (down from 2.5s).
- Improved CSRX 300 recoil through reduced weapon climb after each shot.
- Replaced P22 Mk5 with SPSMG9 in loadout.
NOMAD
- Added PR892 secondary weapon to loadout.
ORYX
- Reduced damage taken when dashing through walls to 5 (down from 10).
- Bulletproof Camera replaced with new Proximity Alarm secondary gadget.
- Added angled grip option to Oryx's MP5.
ELA, ZOFIA
- Eliminated the mouse sensibility modifier from concussion effect of the Bosak sisters' gadgets.
YING
- Removed a Candela to bring it down to 3 (from 4 Candelas). - Changed for PC on 04-30-2020.
