Rainbow Six Siege Tier List: Best Operators After Y11S3.3

Ubisoft calls Y11S3.3 a refinement patch, and the official patch notes go out of their way to say so: every weapon and gadget change in this update is described as a "small adjustment that doesn't aim to alter an Operator's overall power level or flexibility." No new operator, no map changes, no season launch. Just eight numbers nudged up or down across seven operators and one shared weapon.

Small on paper doesn't mean small in a ranked lobby, though. A scan gadget that suddenly covers 25% more ground changes how you use it round to round, and a base weapon buff that quietly touches three different operators adds up. Here's our opinion tier list for every operator Y11S3.3 actually moved, and what each change is worth at your rank.

01What Changed in Y11S3.3

Released November 3, the Y11S3.3 update is a mid-cycle patch sitting between the Y11S3.2 designer's notes from mid-October and the start of Year 11 Season 4, which Ubisoft has already started teasing on its news and updates hub. Patches like this one exist to smooth out rough edges discovered during a season rather than to introduce anything new, which is why there's no fresh operator, no reworked map and no headline feature attached. The full operator and weapon list:

• Jackal's Eyenox Model III scan range increases from 12 to 15 meters.
• Commando 9 base damage rises from 36 to 38 HP, a buff shared by Mozzie, Noor and Sentry, every operator who carries it.
• Denari's T.R.I.P. Connector damage rises from 20 to 22 HP.
• Flores' RCE-Ratero Charge self-destruction timer rises from 10 to 11 seconds, giving it slightly more room to be repositioned before it detonates on its own.
• Nitro Cell damage rises from 180 to 185 HP, a shared explosive buff that affects every operator carrying one.
• Brava's Kludge Drone cooldown after a missed hack drops from 1 to 0.9 seconds.
• Aruni's Surya Gate overload duration drops from 30 to 28 seconds.
• ACE's S.E.L.M.A. Aqua Breacher second-charge deployment time slows from 1.0 to 1.1 seconds.

Alongside the balance pass, Ubisoft also tightened Legend Division's entry requirements for competitive ranked play, part of a wider push to keep the top rank meaningful. The studio's own social post put it bluntly: "We're taking steps to ensure that only Legends sit at the Legends' table." It's unconfirmed exactly how much the new threshold raises the bar, but it's worth knowing going into your next ranked push.

We're taking steps to ensure that only Legends sit at the Legends' table! 👑

— Rainbow 6 (@Rainbow6Game) on X

02How We Built This Tier List

This is an opinion ranking, not a leaked win-rate chart. There's no official statistic behind "S-Tier" or "C-Tier" here; every placement below comes from reading the verified numbers in the patch notes against how each gadget is actually used on attack and defense, plus how much a given change compounds with an operator's existing kit. An operator who was already strong before this patch and picks up even a small buff moves up faster than an operator starting from a weaker baseline, because the buff is stacking on top of existing value rather than trying to fix a kit that wasn't working. Treat it as a starting point for your own bans and picks, not gospel, and weigh it against whatever your own team already runs well.

03S-Tier: Jackal

Jackal is the clear winner of Y11S3.3. The Eyenox Model III's scan range jumping from 12 to 15 meters is a 25% increase, and because footstep-tracking gadgets scale in usefulness almost linearly with their radius, that's a much bigger deal than the raw number suggests. Jackal can now pick up a fresh trail from a safer stand-off distance, confirm a defender's rotation without pushing into an unsafe angle, and still relay actionable intel to his team before the first pick of the round.

He was already a solid pick for coordinated teams willing to call out his scans; this patch pushes him into a near-automatic include on attack, especially on sites with long sightlines where the extra three meters means scanning from a doorway instead of a hallway.

04A-Tier: Noor, Mozzie and Sentry

The Commando 9 buff doesn't touch any ability directly, but it quietly strengthens three very different operators who all happen to carry the same secondary or primary weapon. Noor, already the headline S-Tier pick after her Y11S3.2 buffs to the Horus Lance, gets a small damage boost on top of an already dominant kit; she doesn't move tiers, but she gets harder to argue against as a ban.

Mozzie and Sentry benefit more noticeably. Mozzie's utility has always been about denying enemy gadgets with the Pest launcher, and a stronger Commando 9 gives him a real answer in close-range duels he used to lose on raw gun skill alone. Sentry, a pick that lives or dies on map-specific anchor spots, gets the same quiet buff to his fighting chance once a site is breached. Neither is a must-pick, but both are a tier stronger than they were before Y11S3.3, and both are worth a second look if you'd written them off.

05B-Tier: Denari and Flores

Denari and Flores both received buffs that help in specific situations without changing their fundamental role. The T.R.I.P. Connector's damage increase from 20 to 22 HP makes Denari's chain-reaction playstyle slightly more punishing when you link multiple charges together, but it's a marginal gain rather than a reason to add him to your lineup if he wasn't already there.

Flores gets a genuine quality-of-life improvement: an extra second before the RCE-Ratero Charge self-destructs gives you a touch more time to drive it into position before losing control of it. It's not going to turn Flores into a meta pick, but it removes one of the small frustrations that made his gadget feel clunky to use under pressure.

Brava's Kludge Drone also lands here. Shaving the post-miss cooldown from 1.0 to 0.9 seconds is a small forgiveness buff rather than a power increase: it means a whiffed hack attempt on an enemy gadget costs you slightly less time before you can try again, which matters most in the scramble of a contested hack during a push. It doesn't change what Brava is good at, it just makes the attempt-and-retry loop a little less punishing.

06C-Tier: Aruni and ACE

Aruni's Surya Gate losing two seconds of overload duration, down from 30 to 28, is a real nerf for a defender whose entire gimmick is denying a lane for as long as possible. It's not a gutting, but it shaves a meaningful chunk off her ability to lock down a rotation while her team repositions, and it nudges her further down the pick order behind defenders who deny space more cheaply.

ACE takes the smallest hit in the patch: the S.E.L.M.A. Aqua Breacher's second charge now deploys a tenth of a second slower. On its own that's barely noticeable, but ACE's whole value proposition is speed of entry, and any slowdown works against that identity. He remains a strong hard-breach pick, just very slightly less snappy than he was last patch.

Operator changes at a glance

Quick Adjustments for Y11S3.3

1. 1Queue him into your next few ranked matches and call out scans from further back now that the Eyenox Model III covers more ground.Attack
2. 2If your roster runs Mozzie, Noor or Sentry, don't shy away from close-range duels you used to avoid — the extra 2 HP per hit adds up across a full magazine.Attack / Defense
3. 3Since the Surya Gate now holds a lane two seconds less, back her up with another defender who can deny the same angle.Defense
4. 4The slower second charge deployment can cost you a crucial second against a stacked defense, so call the breach timing ahead of it.Attack
5. 5If you're pushing for the top rank, expect a tougher qualification bar after Ubisoft's announced tightening.Ranked

07What This Means for Ranked Play

None of these changes are big enough to reshape bans on their own, which is exactly what Ubisoft intended with a refinement patch. The practical takeaway is narrower: Jackal is worth re-testing if you'd shelved him, the Commando 9 users are a hair more reliable in close-quarters trades, and Aruni loses a little of her staying power as an anchor. Pair that with the tightened Legend Division requirements and the next few weeks of ranked are likely to reward players who adapt their site strategies around small intel and timing edges rather than chasing a single overpowered pick, because this patch deliberately didn't create one.

If you queue competitive regularly, the operators worth actually changing your habits around are Jackal on attack and Aruni on defense; everyone else on this list is a marginal upgrade or downgrade you'll only notice over a long session, not a single round. Keep an eye on Ubisoft's own patch notes page for the Season 4 reveal, since a full season launch typically brings far larger balance swings than a refinement update like this one.