Rainbow Six Siege's latest technical test server is testing dramatic changes to make Oryx, Gridlock, and Fuze more fun to play. While there is no guarantee that these new balance tweaks will make it into the production build, these tests are usually a good indicator of what to expect in Siege's mid-season updates.

This may seem like a modest numerical adjustment at first glance, but the quick recovery of Lima Dash is necessary for Oryx to finally feel useful; since its release in March, it has become clear that blasting through walls near enemies is a quick way to get killed. By halving the time required to reposition the gun, Oryx's surprise attack can be taken advantage of before the enemy is ready for a headshot. Dashing through walls does not reset the number of dashes.

Oryx's buffs are similar to those of Amal, introduced in last month's "Operation Steel Wave." His improved weapon readiness speed makes him a more enjoyable and more realistic attacker who specializes in mobility. This is great because Oryx has the same potential on the defensive side.

Gridlock's use of Trax Stingers is overall faster; Trax is now very blunt compared to similar traps that protect attackers from roamers. It's tough to set up a push while waiting 13 seconds for the loud Trax to finish spitting its spikes; the 4-second difference is significant, but Gridlock still pales in comparison to Nomad's sticky air jabs, which can be deployed in seconds and are not easily countered.

Another interesting adjustment is the 0.45 second delay before Trax starts spitting out spike pads. This can be read as both a buff and a slight nerf. When thrown into a room full of enemies, it would be easy to shoot the main device before it deploys the spike mat. Nevertheless, the delay would also give Gridlock time to position his weapon before the trap loudly announces his presence.

Ubisoft states that the reason for adding the cluster charge is to give the Fuze more "presence" in the round, but I read this differently. The additional charge is supposed to give Fuze the power to destroy defenders' utilities, more specifically to eat away at Jäger and Wamai's grenade snatch gadgets and free up space for smoke and flag grenades.

At higher levels of play, Siege is now dominated by a "20-second meta," where the attacker spends most of the round destroying the more restrictive defenders' gadgets (and only the last 20 seconds to actually shoot stuff) before being able to reliably push in where the bomb use) is common; Ubi is looking for ways to mitigate overwhelming defensive gadgets, and another cluster charge from Fuze seems to be part of this goal.

The full TTS patch notes include a few other tidbits, including more feedback on the rare instance of Nomad's Airjabs propelling enemies through walls, and other general bug fixes.