Rainbow Six Siege has been changing and shifting since it launched in 2015. Rainbow Six Siege features high-stakes tactical combat between attacking and defending teams on destructible close-quarters maps. Both attacking and defending teams feature their own stable of operators to pick from, each with their own load-outs and abilities. This leads to operators each filling particular roles, and new additions have the potential to shake up the meta significantly. This has led many Rainbow Six Siege fans to be curious about what sort of changes will come with the release of the game's newest operator, Thunderbird.
Thunderbird is Rainbow Six Siege's first operator from the Nakoda Territories, recently highlighted through a new Rainbow Six Siege animation. She is the game's second defensive operator that can provide healing. Previously, only Rainbow Six Siege's Operator Doc could heal by shooting allies with a pistol that also provides temporary over-healing. With Thunderbird being only the second operator who will be able to fill a healing support role for defense teams, she will likely shake up the game's meta significantly. There is no way to know exactly how the meta will change upon her release, but the information released by Ubisoft about her kit and abilities provide many hints as to how the character may fit.
Thunderbird's Loadout in Rainbow Six Siege
Thunderbird is a fast defender with low armor that can choose between a couple of different equipment options, detailed in Rainbow Six Siege's reveal of Thunderbird. For her primary, Thunderbird can equip the Spear .308 assault rifle or the SPAS-15 shotgun. For her secondary, players can pick between the Q-929 and Bearing 9 handguns. Her equipment options include two impact grenades or a single nitro cell.
The biggest part of Thunderbird's loadout is her new piece of equipment known as a Kona Station. Thunderbird gets three Kona Stations on each life and can place them on surfaces all around maps. Once the Kona Station is placed it will heal any operator that passes within its target range. It heals exactly like Doc's gadget, meaning it can over-heal operators as well as revive downed operators if they crawl toward it. However, the Kona Station does not differentiate between which operators it heals, meaning it will also heal any attackers that pass in front of it. The Kona Station is undeniably powerful, which helps make up for Thunderbird's possible load-outs not being as powerful as some of Rainbow Six Siege's other operators.
Thunderbird's Role in Rainbow Six Siege
Thunderbird's primary asset is her Kona Station gadget. Being able to place multiple of the gadget, as well as the Kona Station's ability to automatically heal after Thunderbird's death, makes it much stronger than Doc's healing darts. Of course, this does make Thunderbird's healing not as versatile as Doc's, but her Kona Stations favor setting up a defensive position. Thunderbird will likely play best when the defensive team decides to bunker down around an objective and dedicate all their resources to defending it. Of course, taking such a strong defensive position can be risky and requires Rainbow Six Siege players to play well, as losing a single team member can cause the defense to crumble.
This also means that Thunderbird players will have to be smart and coordinate their Kona Station placements. Placing one in a poor position could easily lead to an attacking operator using it to win a fight or get a high-value kill, so Thunderbird will have to be sure to disable any that are placed in a room the defensive team is giving up. Thunderbird's weapon kit will also require players to play more conservatively. While her guns are by no means weak, Thunderbird's weapons will play best when players take advantage of defensive angles and the equipment of her fellow defenders to help her get the upper hand on attacking operators with some of Rainbow Six Siege's more powerful guns, like Jackal.
How Thunderbird Will Play With Rainbow Six Siege's Other Operators
Of course, one of the most interesting aspects of a new operator in Rainbow Six Siege is how they play with other operators, both on their team and facing against them. With Thunderbird likely favoring a strong defensive position, she should pair well with Operators like Jager and Wamai. Jager's ADS gadget pairs very well with Kona Stations to ensure they don't get destroyed by a stray attacking grenade or explosive. Wamai's MAG-NETs, despite being one of Rainbow Six Siege's harder defense options to play, will also pair well with the Kona Stations to help draw explosives and gadgets like EMP grenades away. Any operators with Deployable Shields that can help maintain a strong defensive position will also pair well with Thunderbird.
On the attacking side, Thunderbird's main counter will likely be Thatcher. Thatcher's EMP grenades can be used to temporarily disable a Kona Station, which will allow defenders to push attackers off that position and use the Kona Station for themselves. Other attackers like Kali, Twitch, IQ, and Zero will all also be proficient at completely removing Kona Stations from the match. With how strong Rainbow Six Siege's attackers currently are, it will take a lot of coordination on the part of the defending team to take full advantage of Thunderbird's Kona Stations.
Thunderbird will undoubtedly be a big addition to Rainbow Six Siege's roster of Operators. Her Kona Station is a pretty unique and powerful gadget that will reward players and teams who properly play around it. Of course, only time will tell just how strong of a character Thunderbird will actually be when she launches. It will also be interesting to see if she makes an appearance in the upcoming Rainbow Six Extraction, which was revealed at E3 2021.
Rainbow Six Siege is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
