Since Operation: Blood Orchid was released, many have been mourning a nerf for the now already infamous GROM Operator Ela.
While her Gadget is now not as powerfull as it was, it still is one of the deciding factors of a firefight.
But even wihtout her Gadget, she would still be an overpowered Operator; let me explain why:
Her primary weapon is the Scorpion EVO 3 A1 - probably the best primary in the whole game, even with "just" 41 rounds at maximum capacity.
The unreal fire rate of 1080 RPM is just below Mira's primary.
So why is this gun so much better?
If you look at the stats, you can see that the scorpion does a base damage of 28, with the Vector being close with 21 damage. The firerates are also similar (1080 / 1200). But here comes the major difference: The magazine size;
High fire rate weapons always have tinier magazines, holding a maximum of 31, with most very-high fire-rate weapons having 21 max or in mira's case 26 max. But Ela defies that rule; she has not 31 max but now 41 max; This bringes her weapon's magazine close to the LMG's of Rainbow Six: Siege.
Now this may not seem too drastic yet, with higher firing weapons being quite common, and the damage of the weapon being reasonably low.
But here comes the true problem; Peeking and the peeker's advantage (with pre-fire):
While peeking isnt viable for any three-armour Operators in Rainbow Six: Siege, coming across a peeking three-speed is devastating; mostly roaming operators like Jäger, Cavera and Pulse rely on information to get those peeks to pay off;
Fail a peek and not only your location is compomised, but you will be forced to reload and make yourself vulnerable for the enemy to pick you off.
But again, Ela defies this rule, as she can prefire and still have access to 31+ rounds.
Even if she failes to kill anybody, she can just stick her mines above the door and rotate around.
Noone will be able to contest with her weapon with the mine's effect.
I personally think, that the dev team of Rainbow Six: Siege is not only being pressured by Ubisoft to make the DLC operators more appealing, but they also shy away from the though of modifing real life weapon statistics to fit in with the game's balance; This can be seen by the various nerfs, none of them affecting fire rates.
So enough about her gun; lets talk about her gadget:
Her gadget is one of the lowest risk - highest reward gadgets that are present in Rainbow Six: Siege.
When compared to Echo, who can trigger a similar effect, her Grzmot Mines seem too easy to be true.
While Echo has to stand still while using his drone, aiming at his target and manually trigger his effect, ela has to click once; done.
I personally would suggest that Ela has to trigger her mines manually, adding value to her being alive end-game, while also increasing the value of her mines as Grenades.
All in all i would suggest three changes:
her Fire rate being brought down to ~950; her mines being manually (remotely) detonated and her magazine size being brought down to the standart 31 round maximum.
Thank you all for reading; i hope you enjoyed.
Please follow and upvote for more detailed Operator Change - Suggestions by me.
