Rainbow Six Siege is a game that requires a lot from the player. While it may come off as complex, the more matches you jump into, the more you’ll find yourself growing accustomed to certain techniques and intricacies that essentially define the different ranks. In other words, it takes time to learn what angles of view can be exploited to get the kill on an unexpecting opponent. Learning angles is an example of just one “mechanic” that the competitive scene in Rainbow Six is built off of and there are many more to learn from. Below are five tips that I’ve learned the hard way.

Be Creative on Defense

A lot of the times when you’re first starting out in R6, you’ll feel inclined to reinforce every wall in the objective, in an attempt to bunker down. While in many cases, this isn’t a terrible idea, there are some objectives on some maps that are better served with a more creative spin. For instance, the kitchen objective on the map Chalet is generally a pretty dangerous place to stay in if you’re defending due to the open window looming over your shoulder. Rather than boxing yourself in, you can instead use impact grenades and shotguns to clear out the breakable walls, taking away the cover from your opponents and making it much easier to have gun fights from Trophy room and Dining room (the neighboring rooms).

If you’re contemplating whether or not any given objective could benefit from this treatment, ask yourself this question: Am I in danger by staying in the objective, even if I reinforce these walls? If the answer is yes, it may be helpful to remodel the place. As an added benefit, it gives the attacking team less places to hide when planting the defuser.

Drones are Your Friends

A tip that I can offer for any Attacker is to rethink how you use your drones. The preparation phase is as much a head start for the attacking team as it is for the defenders. Not only does it help to find the bomb site, but your drone can easily save your life by being over your shoulder to peak around a corner. Once the bomb has been found, scout ahead towards the area you’re planning on entering from. This may seem obvious but knowing what’s on the other side of any barricade you’re punching through is important in this game as it only takes a couple of bullets to send you to the bench for the round.

By placing your drone on as high a perch as you can, especially near corners, can provide you with an absurd amount of information. Couple this with an unlucky teammate who can watch the drone in real time to communicate if and when someone is peeking, and you’ll have a strong chance of pushing forward.

Support Your Team with Cams and Callouts

Speaking of cameras and communications, a tip I have for any team is to take a step back and understand that Rainbow Six Siege is truly a team-based game. Only in extremely rare instances can you carry a team singlehandedly on your back, especially against a team that’s working together. What this means is that you’ll need to work on your callouts. When you’re the first to die, don’t just sit back and lament about the angle they had on you. Instead, constantly be flipping through the available cameras and provide your team with as much knowledge as you can from your position. Just because you died doesn’t mean the game is over, in fact it’s often just starting.

Become comfortable with using the cameras efficiently. What I mean by this is that when you’re talking with your team and you seem an opponent approaching, use your microphone rather than the ping system. Doing this will get the information across to your team without alerting the opponent that they’ve been spotted, which often leads to a destroyed camera and the enemy rerouting their approach. This does require a little bit of map knowledge, but it’s none the less important.

Learn. Your. Maps.

Map knowledge is a huge hurdle for many players when it comes to getting better at Rainbow Six, myself included. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said “They’re coming through the hatch on the staircase next to the table next to the…” until I’ve run out of landmarks to describe. While I’m sure your team appreciates the effort you’re giving, it is so much more beneficial to say “Two in Yellow stairs” then it is to describe the general direction that you may have seen them. Map knowledge, in part, comes from playing game after game. It will passively build on you while you’re playing, knowing that a right turn will lead to a hallway or a room with an escape hatch.

Translating this to callouts however can be a little bit more involved as you have to learn each room’s name. A supplement that some people find helpful is the website www.r6maps.com, which provides a bird’s eye view of every map in the game, as well as the names of each room. If you have time, review this on a couple of maps and see if it helps you understand what your teammates are saying. Granted, it can be pretty intimidating at first, but it’s a free resource that may help in the future.

Don’t Get Discouraged by Bad Games, or Even Bad Days

R6 is an incredibly inconsistent game for everyone in terms of results. This was the hardest lesson that I had to learn through playing. Sometimes you’re just off. And while this feeling of helplessness can be infuriating, do understand that it’s the nature of the game. When you have such a big playerbase in a game that is reliant on coming up with new and innovative angles to peek through, you are bound to get caught. You just have to stand back up, dust yourself off, and mark in your head where you went wrong. Sometimes, it can feel as though you’re not doing any one thing wrong and that you still just seem to be getting caught.

In these cases, I’ve found it really helpfully to communicate with my team, even if I’m playing in solo queue. Letting them know that you may need someone to help you cover an area can mean a lot with cooperative teammates. They may be hard to come by sometimes, but you’ll be surprised how many players are willing to accept the role of wingman and guard your flank for little more than a potential kill on their part.

There’s a lot that goes into this game and it can seem like a really big task at first, but playing the game instills these lessons passively. Before you know it, after playing through your first season, you’ll come to find that you’ve already learned these tips, but it’s still good to keep them in mind!

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