Why is the Six Invitational 2024 so Defender Sided? 

Continually adding oppressive defenders and nerfing attacker weapons is causing a defensive meta to occur, who wouldve thought!?!?

i always knew how stupid Tubarão's design was in practice but watching the entire Club House DarkZero Vs. G2 game actually killed me

who would have thought that buffing defenders and nerfing attacker would make it harder to attack, obviously not Ubisoft.

The “ranked 2.0ification” of pro league

One of the absolute worst attributes of Ubi is nerfing the wrong things for the wrong reasons

Grenade change is the biggest factor in Pro League. There's hundreds of kills from frags per event but I didn't see one this whole SI. Attackers used to rely on nades from below or even to clear out a defender that's stuck.

Not even to mention Fenrir is ridiculous. You lose 5 seconds of vision no matter what. Including if you destroy it instantly, still lose 5 seconds of vision

All of my predictions are coming true- Attackers having little to no bite, people in R6 having less fun because of nerfs, almost none of my R6 friends are playing the game. Six Invitationals and R6 majors can be saved by one thing now- 8 operator bans. There are 70 unique total operators in r6. 8 operator bans should have been the norm since 64 operators in total, Ubisoft is at least a year late.

Haven't watched anything competive siege related in a while. This is a really well done and well-explained video. Keep up the great work!

All the defenders dropped the last 2 years are S tier and only tubarro got a timely nerf. Meanwhile every attacker tool and gun gets hit with nerfs. It's so brain dead azami is going on 2 years without a nerf and they're wasting time reworking her? Drop her to 3 and it's fine. Goyo got a full rework after he got dropped to 2 shields and she gets 5 with more adaptability and placement. That's not even getting into how solis punishes attackers formulating the game tactically

I anticipate a massive attack buff incoming given the overwhelming power of defense atm. Especially since the increase of defender power has been happening over the course of 1-2 years.

I feel like the nerf to grenades is a big one. The grenade was like a ten second commitment to utility at most, and if done right guaranteed a kill. Now the capitao bulbs can be escaped, and buck spends a lot of time having to go open the floors up

I think one thing to consider that has been slowly nerfing attackers is that majority of the defenders have passive gadgets, and majority of attackers have active/line of sight gadgets. The TDM/swing everything meta has made it extremely difficult to use attacker gadgets simply because the risk of being swung while trying to use it isn't worth it.

Not a single map with more attack rounds won is crazy😭 great video‼️

It’s funny how the escalation of insane defenders has slowly caused this meta. First you have someone who can setup cover positions anywhere on the map. Then you have someone who can spot drones with a scanner. Then you have someone who can throw small blinding gadgets in crevices to setup a team for kills. Then you have someone who can stall the main wall breach for 50 seconds. Meanwhile on the attack Sens has STILL not been given QOL buffs, and remains as a worse attacker than fucking Blackbeard.

i dont even play siege any more and haven't in years and you make it so much easier to understand especially after not knowing much of what's been added amazing as always Ryan

I really liked this video. It reminded me of Reaper_en's old videos and I loved those.

Bro make Fenrir only have 2-3 gadgets and only can activate 1 or 2 at a time. SIMPLE AS THAT! if they do this he wont get banned perma in ranked Q.

I completely agree, we still have powerful tools to attack but ppl was so used to nade from bellow that they didnt see anything more

Agree with Doki. I think teams became a little bit lazy with TDM meta. Strong mechanics can’T do everything in a game like siege.

It’s time for multiple bans maybe undo the grenade update and make an attacker that’s actually as good as 1 of the 5 last defenders they’ve released

Great video I would love to see more on any match you find interesting in playoffs

Ubisoft just nerfs nerfs nerfs, they rarely ever try to buff alternative operators. They always go for the nerf

i would like to point out how nowadays the attackers HAS to play more "tactically" as in play closer to your teammates and move as a unit and problem solve on the fly just like how you say they dont bother dealing with the defender's setup they simply find the path with least resistance and overload it. all of that are facilitate by their efficient intel gathering and opponent reading which i wish i can do as good.

Fantastic video, very informative, appreciated hearing your perspective and analysis of the current meta.

Damn this is the type of siege content I dream of making, these are all great insights into competitive matches

Good analysis mate. Keep up the good work

Amazing video! :) couldnt have worded the current issues at hand any better

G2 played attackers beautifully, but yeah you can still see the one sidedness. Tbf when you are playing as pro vs pro ofc defender side is going to be much easier. You do make some very solid points. One thing i would love to see is a thatcher buff, make his emps destroy things again. Also something funny they can add for the memes, give thermite shock resisting gloves.

Love seeing you do well

I can see a small work around that may be bad in practice at first but could very much work in the long run (or will be added at one point either way) is that the attacking side bans 2 defenders 1 attacker and the attacking side bans 2 attackers 1 defender. As we will be getting more and more options to ban, we may as well give the players more options of banning, this can even stop certain combos like bandit/tubarao or just banning 2 annoying defending ops when you are attacking. This could also shine some light on underutilised attackers as well, as some of them are only viable when certain defenders are in/out of play, and one way or another, we will have more ways of dealing defender gadgets and reinforced walls, as we already have Thermite, Hibana, Maverick, Ace and other ops that have a hard breach device and we have Twitch, IQ, Brava, Flores, Ash, Zofia, Zero, Gonne-6 and Grenades and more to come. Whereas with the defenders, there are only some many that one can use to deny such attack utility, mainly Wamai and Jager for direct projectiles, Mute and Solis for drones/gadgets, and Bandit and Kaid for hard breach denial (Mute can also be used but isnt as rewarding as the attack can just pick it up rather than it being destroyed and gone for good). Giving the players more bans for operators can be more helpful with the current state of the game being defender sided

Almost like when you add multiple Ops that are overpowered and remove key things from attacking side (cooking nades) and add a bunch of underwhelming attackers there’s gonna be a discrepancy in the defensive and attacking side win rate

I probably dont have any credit to be allowed to comment on this but back when I quit playing ranked and siege in general before season 5 ( returned and played a bit casual roughly when Zero came out) one of my main worries and complaints was that for every operator added the game felt like they just extended the amount of time you have to spend before actually entering the site or being able to enter site. Like in year 4 there wasnt that much to take care of, maybe clear a floor from roamers and grab vertical to make sure you can stop any bandit tricking, now its you have to do so much more prep work as an attacker before entering the site from what I can tell.

Couldn’t wait for this video

Goated video as usual 🐐

This was a good informative vid

I really love this style of content and I think this sort of content is highly missing in siege. Keep up the good work

Nice video! Honestly, defence is already kind of inherently easier just because you can setup and force attack to play into you. But it gets even worse when they release completely cancer ops like Azami, Fenrir, Solis and now Tubarao. I get powercreep is kind of important in games just to keep up interest and get people to buy battle passes or whatever, but some of these defensive ops are way too dumb. Look at Brava and Ram and compare them to Fenrir and Tubarao in the same year... laughable. If they want to fix this at all, they need the two attacking ops in year 9 to be giga broken and release some average ass defence ops. And then, like you said, ALL the damn entries are getting nerfed, like wtf are you supposed to even do? That isn't even just killing TDM meta, that just kills the game as a whole. Ubisoft is just taking the piss with the game, sadly.

Very instructing, I only follow esport siege (and don't play so this was a very resourceful video to get a different perspective on the matches to come

Glad to watch a well made video about r6, its very rare. If I could, I would just stop all nerfs, and start to buff the week operators. Flashbang to Ash would be a good start.

Yeah, that bandit nerf seem to be overlooked. When I saw that on the patch notes (with the inclusion of tubarao) I was genuinely shocked. Been running mav like crazy now.

sitting in front of a Tubarao, kaid combo while going for a main wall has to be one of the most helpless things ubi has added.

Nice video, good analysis too

This is really great content and the breakdown of different pro games is fascinating. Ubi should sponsor your content as part of their esports investments.

they should add more time to the round. it's simple really, the more deffensive operators that kill time thru utility are added, the less time the attackers have left for an execute. they should either add an attacker that destroys like 3 deffensive utility with the blink of an eye or add more time. They should add more ways of countering azami and fenrir and wamai and kaid and etc, idk how tho

I wonder if Ubi will add an additional ban option as more and more ops are introduced and more options for electrifying the wall or more hard teachers become available

Darling wake up kangrukenny just uploaded

I noticed virtue on mav practically every round over ace or therm, thast was obviously to counter tub

I noticed a whole lot of Ying & flashes being brought this major, quite interesting considering I don't see that as much in Ranked.

What a great video game, love the explanation of the team work, amazing utility use and adaptation, just like the real seal team six!

well said

this is what i mean when i say the ops they’re releasing are ridiculous… that it has an impact on high level play (pro league) i mean its been to apparent to me that its defender sided even in lower ranks and quick play.

It turns out if you keep nerfing the attackers they do bad ?😮

I agree with you. Sure, there are some nasty operators, but you have a lot of options to choose and counter them. I think Ubisoft wants to go for another meta in the attack. And I see that in a lot of games, teams also lose because of a lack of plans for attack, losing avoidable gunfights or making strange decisions. I saw a team that opened the side over one bombsite just to go for the other, where the power positions were not clear yet.

Time to introduce more bans for each team during the pick phase. It has to go up with the amount of characters now in the game

Great vid, I also just thought of one way that pros are attempting to counter this "defender" meta. The attacking team usually brings Brava a lot to counter F Natts, laser gates, and cams. It seems obvious but they really to bring her a lot whereas you rarely see her online. Her use and IQ coming back definitely signals just how defender sided the game is.

This happened right after grande cooking was gone… I think it was a good move but idk how balancing will move forward

This explains the new scope changes.

imo it has to do with just how strong so many defenders are compared to attackers

I don’t know. But I enjoyed watching gadgets being used. Don’t know how I feel about the Kaid Tuburou method g2 used against dark zero. But I can most certainly see bans coming next time they meet.

Ubisoft try not to make your game unplayable and unfun because of uncalled for changes challenge LEVEL IMPOSSIBLE

I had been discussing this w my R6 friends the other day that with the number of operators in the game it could make sense to try banning six ops per game instead of 4. Each team could have an extra ban with one team banning an extra attacker and the other team getting another defender ban

slight bit wrong about the bandit tricking. If you already have 2 on the wall and they have to emp it is very possible to trick both aces off the wall if you time your bandit batteries around thatcher UNLESS ace is right next to the wall (hugging it taking electricity damage) to make sure that there is no downtime for throws

Just played two games of ranked tonight and both were 5-4 wins. Every single round defence won😂

because we have stupid op defenders like solis azami and fenrir making attack complete actual hell to push hold or do anything

This games always been defender sided lmao that’s literally the whole reason why the attackers get better guns and scopes

Bc they cant cook more granade

They need to give us more bans especially considering there’s 70 ops now lol

While the attackers do have a lot of tools, I think it's mostly in theory since there are a lot of other tools to use against those attackers. Warden shuts down about half of them, the most promising, and most likely to sadly get nerfs, imo are Ying and Capito. I've recently been running Zofia a lot more recently, those stuns come in hella handy, and her gun is just so good to use. Though with that being said, the attackers are having to choose which of four things they want to deal with the least. Do I want to see? Ban Fenrir Do I want to open wall in time? Ban Tubarao Do I want intel? Ban Solis Do I want less pixel angels to deal with? Ban Azami This is really only a problem in normal siege, and not really in pro-league as most teams can deal with most of those problems aside from the Fenrir one, which has been banned in every game I've seen (I've only seen like 5 games of it so far). It entierly depends on if defenders are ego peaking, or making terrible plays. If the defender team is confident and doesn't let the attackers use any of their tools, then they win, but if the attackers don't let the defenders use their tools then it's an actual fight still.

what happened in the Bleed vs VP match at the end of group stages yesterday? i think that clubhouse game ended in OT match point with only 4(?) defenses won. was that just the two teams recognizing learning the attacking meta?

this video really breaks down how much ubisoft shit on the attackers in the last year

not just proleague, the game is very defender sided and it's making siege very frustrating, i think increasing the rounnnd time by a minute or two might make it better but i'm really not sure

very good video!

Your video made me realise 1 thing. Maybe the reason the TDM meta is a thing in ranked is because going up against the utility of the defenders is just impossible, so why not just take gunfights to win? Just a theory

Azami down to 3, 1 min recharge. Solice- 3 armor, fenrir-2/4 gases, tube is fine. I just nerfed all the most OP defender with a fair and simple update they could get out in two days. If defenders have C4s, attackers need lethal grenades.

Since this new season, in ranked i've seen way more attackers like Grim, Brava, Zero, and Capitao being used

There might be ways to deal with the current defender lineup, but there are definitely more powerful defenders than attackers. Teams that do well on defense have players that can use their gun skill to win gunfights most players don’t wanna take like fighting an azami or fenrir setup.

From my own experiense as someone who came back to siege after a 3-4 year Break I can fully agree that Siege is currently defender sided. I had so many ranked games where both teams won all 3 defender Rounds and in overtime the team won that had to defend twice and not attack twice. You just feel so hopeless sometimes as an attacker not knowing how you could break these defensives...

I think a 60% defense win rate ok each map should be the aim of the balance team. Siege is a game that should be easier to defend, like you have 5 players to defend 1 relatively small are. Attack shouldn't be easy, you should need a plan and execute it well, maybe take some risks. I think the teams winning are showing that with a good plan you can get it done.

if only ubisoft knew what they were doing

Very good video, and i hope there are proper plans to balance in Y9 but the first season operator of Y9's gadget (from leaks) seems like its gonna be more useless than anything. I dont wanna see this game fail

There are so many nerfs that need to be undone. Especially to attackers. Here’s what I’d do: Jäger: undo the last 3 recoil nerfs since they finally nerfed his gadget. Then they made his gadget unnecessary with frags becoming glorified EMPs. Tachanka: increase launcher’s reload speed with an option for igniting on impact rather than bouncing. IQ: bring back frags Bandit: give option for 3 barbed wire for him like he used to have or nitro cell. Twitch: gift back F2 vertical grip, and undo only 2 of the recoil nerfs Ash: undo one R4-C recoil and g36-C recoil nerfs Thatcher: make EMPs destroy electrics again to make him worthy of being picked over secondary EMPs Smoke: bring back deployable shield Sledge: make 2 speed again and give back SMG-11 Mute: make 2 speed again since he has 4 jammers to place and he must make rotates and head and feet holes. Forget about reinforcing with all of that. Frost: undo frost mat rework, buff shotgun but don’t make it as powerful as it once was. Buck: undo the numerous recoil nerfs to be in like with what he had in Operation Grim Sky Valkyrie: since she cannot place cameras outside anymore, try giving her 4 cams again in the test server and see player reception. Blackbeard: rework: give him a gadget like the Goo Grenade from The Finals to be an attacking Azami. No more shield. However, the idea of cover from bullets still remains a part of his kit, just in a different way. Capitão: increase gadget deployment time Caveria: undo the pistol damage nerfs and recoil nerfs to make her pistol in like with other pistols in the game since it is a very weak pistol today. Buff SMG damage Echo: drones are invisible only when echo is off the drone. Yellow pings are not available for dead teammates on echo drones Habana: undo bearing 9 nerfs to be more in like with Y2 recoil giving people the option of running an ACOG on her primary, or bearing 9 for short ranges like back in the day. Mirra: windows must be meleed 3 times instead of 1 Zofia: 2 speed Vigil: SMG-12 recoil buffed slightly Maverick: make blowtorch silent again Kaid: bring back 1.5x for his SMG Nomad: players affected by air jab no longer end up prone. Players affects are affected the same way as when she launched Mozzie: give back super shorty Warden: remove 1.5x Nøkk: give back 1.5x give her choice between silent step and invisibility from cams in a similar way to how Zofia can change gadgets Iana: unnerf MVP screen Meluci: give 1.5x or swap her MP5 to lesion’s SMG without 1.5x Thunderbird: undo last gadget nerf to make her variable vs doc Azami: remove on barrier and make it where if one barrier touches another, it will break apart. Sense: individual parts of the wall of her gadget cannot be shot out Grim: bees become a flank watch remaining active until a defender walks through it. Solis: remove SMG-11, make her gadget scan every few seconds like how pulse was at launch rather than being a life feed. Fenrir: after a prolonged amount of exposure, gadget will go on 10 second cooldown before automatically reactivating. Tubarão: make capitão is a counter and make it where gadget placed have a second delay before activating because they have to warm up. This means, if a thermite charge is already ignited, it will continue instantly when the ice melts. Meanwhile, a bandit battery will be under something similar to an EMP effect after the ice is melted. General changes: While aimed down sights: a 1 speed and 3 speed go different speeds. This way, we can once again used the speed stat to see who deserves optics. Now, it doesn’t matter if warden is a 1 speed, or 15 speed with the 1.5x, it’s the same movement speed as a 1 speed. This rework just ruin’s balancing and needs reversed. Secondary gadgets need to do 5 damage if a player is injured. //Here is an example of how it could work if (playerInjured == true){ damage = 5; } else{ damage = 1; } //This way, we can troll players again while still keeping the general gameplay the same to have a hybrid of the two systems. If players are queued together in quick match, they should be able to team kill each other without reverse friendly fire activating so long as they went into matchmaking together.

Im brand new to the game and my biggest complaint to all my friends so far has been. Defense is fine but i feel so lost on attack. I got a lot to learn but even from a new player perspective it feels very Def sided and i think that speaks volumes.

Yeah DZ vs G2 matched showed us the true meta. The kaid and Tubarao combo

i blame the frag grenade nerf!! Can't even use it effectively to clear some defender gadgets! Example the bulletproof gadgets that can put high up on the wall...

I feel they need to increase the amount of banned characters as the roster increases, I remember in League of Legends that you can ban 5 Characters in a ranked match, maybe increase it to 3-4 characters.

Haven't gotten into the video yet but i feel like giving us an operator that can deny wall for almost half the timer, removing cooked nades(when literally no one asked btw), and giving a ton of defenders acogs just might have something to do with it

Just a thought. How would making each team able to ban 3 operators work to help this? (You ban 1 defense 1 attack and then 1 your choice)

It is really crazy to me that ubi have been nerfing attackers for years now just to add three of the most oppressive defenders back to back to back... I really feel like devs don't play, and if they do they fucking suck.

Really feels like all the attacker ops are designed to be as weak as possible, where if they get one good thing like a good gun, their gadget is usually just very situational and they are 3 armor like Ram or Osa. (Or if they are an old operator with a good gun, it just gets nerfed into oblivion like the F2, G36 etc.) Meanwhile defenders are overtuned for no reason at all: Tubarao is a 2-2 op with a Nitro and 3 no skill required uncounterable gadgets, a two shot no recoil DMR with a 1.5x. Solis is also a 2-2 with an amazing SMG like P90 and an ability to go Shotgun x SMG-11. Fenrir has one of the nicest SMGs with an insane gadget and a sidearm shotgun. Azami's gadget is something that attackers should have had and not defense, it also should not be a 3 hit gadget to break. The attack-defense balance was bad before, but they just really amplified it this year with the horrible decisions of "NERF NERF NERF".

Tubarao and fenrir is the simple answer when players know how to use them at their peak efficiency it’s damn near impossible to win an attack round

I felt this was always the case since like addition of clash.

Noticed how there was alot of G2 or Penta players in the winners. That cause they are embedded in them to adjust.

I don't understand their idea of punishing people for mastering the game. even if we're forgetting all that stupid crap about self-revive and the reason for it removal being that "character's shouldn't have abilities that based on lore" (hello Aruni), what's wrong with nade cooking? if you're throwing them willy-nilly, you: 1) wasting utility 2) have a good chance blowing your toes off. getting blown up from below feels bad, but the attacker who did that is not some moron who found easy abusable mechanic. he needs to masterfully place a drone in exact place that will give him information about the opponent AND hide it from them OR he needs to know the map as the back of his hand, and he needs to calculate the exact timing to throw the nade. that's mastery, that's something that takes years of practice and developing a gamesense. you can't nail it after watching coconutbrah vid on tips and tricks on chalet why are they punishing players for investing time in the game?

if you don't mind me asking, where did u get the stats from? I've been looking for maps stats in general and invitational stats!

I didn't even realize Sledge went to a one-speed

That professional teams can and should adapt to massive changes in the games meta is essential. The problem for me is that this meta is terrible for ranked players like me. Ubisoft keeps nerfing attacker ops that nobody really has a problem with and they are not quick enough nerfing obviously op defenders like tubarao, solis and fenrir. This game lives off of the normal playerbase so I don't understand why seemingly all recent balancing changes were targeted towards the pro scene.

In simple way for conclusion is, for some reason on Defender side have new operator and every operator is so OP or so good, while in Attacker side only have niece and hard to use operator.

Can’t twitch destroy his canister after he throws? I’ve done this a few times I think earlier in the season haven’t been on, but was effective if I could recall, just have to hide the drone and be in placement ready to go as your team tries to breach and they freeze.

All Ubisoft have done for the past year or two is nerf attack and buff defence... It's frustrating. I get onto the operator selection screen when I'm on attack and I panic because I have NO idea who to pick... But when we are defending? I have no problem picking, there's a definite problem in there somewhere.