Rainbow Six Siege Lion: Y4S1.3 update, what he can do and how to use him

Lion has gotten a major rework in the latest Rainbow Six Siege update, in that his EE-ONE-D drone is now completely different. Its aim is still to track enemies for all attackers, but there are changes to how it all works that you should probably be aware of.

While his ability is pretty good in the right circumstances, Lion also has a rather decent selection of weapons to choose from. He can be a good operator for newer players who can check out our Rainbow Six Siege guide hub for more information as to how to effectively move around the battlefield and get the jump on enemies hiding from the huge noise emitting drone coming from outside.

Lion operator guide

In this guide, you'll find out when to effectively trigger his ability and also how enemies can avoid it, as well as all the weapons and gadgets that Lion has to offer players.

Lion's Stats

Armour: 2
Speed: 2

Lion's Weapon Loadouts

Since Lion has three primary weapons, there's plenty of options to choose from. His unique weapon is the V308 assault rifle which has a drum attachment, which combined with various attachments can make this rifle a deadly accurate automatic weapon with manageable recoil. He also shares the 417 marksman rifle and SC-CQB pump action shotgun with Twitch and both are really good alternative options.

Lion's sidearms are the P9 handgun with its good capacity and strong recoil management, and the LFP586 handgun that boasts good damage but has a ridiculously high recoil.

Lion's Gadgets

His gadgets are the stun grenade and the claymore. Once again, there isn't a right or wrong choice to make here and it depends on your play style and the map itself, but they don't really correlate with his drone.

Lion's Skill

Lion's EE-ONE-D drone has seen a major update that has been teased for a long time. In it, the idea is to change how oppressive the ability feels to use, while simultaneously maintaining his "intel-gathering role" that Ubisoft have envisaged for the operator. Let's go through the updated skill.

The idea is that Lion sends a countdown, which upon its completion - it sends a pulse that detects enemies for a short period of time. Fundamentally this is still the same, but it's how it does its job that is what Ubisoft were working on.

Firstly, the scan now shows a ping rather than an outline of the opposing players. Enemies can be pinged once every second, though enemies can now also counter-play Lion if they've been detected.

Next, the stats. These changes can be summarised as: More scans and more frequently, but they last nowhere near as long. It's easier to put these in a bullet pointed list, so below are the changes to the timings:

• Ability Warning duration - 1.5 seconds (down from 3 seconds)
• Scanning duration - 2 seconds (down from 4 seconds)
• Cooldown duration - 15 seconds (down from 27 seconds)
• Number of charges - 3 (up from 2).

Despite these changes, it can all be avoided in much the same way. Enemies can avoid this by standing still. They can turn and change their position, as well as aim down sights, but as soon as they walk or fire their guns, they will be spotted. Moving after being seen does not allow enemies to be hidden once more. Tachanka even has his moment in the spotlight as swivelling on the turret doesn't trigger the detection.

The main hard counters to this are Mute's devices and Vigil's cloak. Mute can hide moving enemies. Even if an enemy has already been detected, they can get rid of that detection by walking in range of the jammer. Vigil can hide himself behind the cloak, making him immune to the whole duration of the technique.

Should I pick Lion?

He's a bit of an odd one that Lion. On the one hand, his skill can prove valuable to his teammates when used at the right time. His weapon selection is also very good. On the other hand though, there are some behavioural habits that enemies can adopt to counter this and they get plenty of notice of when you're using it. If his gadget selection complemented his ability, like say giving him the breach charges or impact grenades, then he'd be a lot more useful during breaches.

It's a bit early to tell just how successful Lion's rework will be when the wider audience outside of the test servers get their hands on the update. We'll bring you any developments as they arise. In the meantime, for those who want to find out more about the other operators, head on over to our main Rainbow Six: Siege operators guide which has links to each individual operator, as well as an overview on the more universally useful ones and which ones beginners should consider learning.