Gaming
Games
Rainbow Six Siege's best defenders for solo queue
All alone with no one there beside you? Make sure you're still useful with this guide
Defence in Rainbow Six Siege is more than just bunkering down and hoping to run down the timer. Here, intel is everything: if you know where the attackers are coming from and when they're going to hit, you'll be in a great position to use angles, gadgets and teamwork to blunt the attack.
Remember: your win condition is to stop the attackers placing a defuser down at a bomb site and defend it. If the enemy drops the defuser, you can defend that until the end of the round, often with much more ease.
But this is only possible if you know where the enemy is and where they're heading at any given time. Queuing up to play as a solo player means you're often struggling both for intel and the ability to put together a defensive plan, so we've gathered some of the strongest operators that can both give you intel and the ability to watch your own back.
Lesion
Lesion can throw down poisonous Gu mines
© Ubisoft
Armor 2 / Speed 2
This choice will get some salt immediately, but far from the community cries about Lesion being used as a crutch, it's hard to deny how extremely strong he is. He's so powerful as a defender that it would be a reasonable claim to say that he's too good. However, he's available to be played, and if you don't play him, someone else sure will.
With two impact grenades, a great primary SMG and an armful of Gu mines, he's got a great toolkit for ruining the day of attackers you run into.
Pro-tip: focus your first couple of Gu mines on the main entry points to the level you're on: tis could be the stairs on that floor or any obvious windows. This will act as an early warning device, letting you catch out attackers and lay traps for them, but Gu mines also lock out your ability to sprint, make your screen blur and do damage over time, meaning when they've got one of your mines in their foot, it's a perfect time to jump on them.
Now for the rest of the Gu mines, it depends on your playstyle, if you like to roam you can cover yourself and leave them as deadly breadcrumbs in rooms where you were spotted but have now left - making the chase a terrible experience for the hungry Ash/Jackal/Twitch main trying to follow you.
You can also use them a little differently, placing a mine on default plant spots, making it easier for the defending team to C4 or catch players in a cloud of lethal smoke. Then, if the defuser ever drops, the best bet is to haul over there and scatter mines around it like lethal confetti.
Mozzie
Rainbow Six Mozzie
© Ubisoft
Armor 2 / Speed 2
A real pest, Mozzie is like a super aggressive Mute with a pair of amazing SMGs, a secondary shotgun for blowing holes into things and a choice between C4 and barbed wire giving you a mass of utility. As a solo player, you can help by making rotates and verticle holes during the prep phase, and if you're really lucky you might even be able to steal one of Twitch's drones, making you a real threat.
There are two schools of thought with mozzie, and neither is superior, so pick the one you vibe with the most.
The first involves stealing drones as soon as possible and place them to help gain intel. This can be great as attackers take longer to realise that a drone is spotting them then if they see an obvious defender cam.
The second involves trashing all drones possible during the opening stage and then place your PEST devices to try and capture the second wave of drones entering the site: a really cool trick is to place them on windows where attackers often rappel (take for example the admin area in Consulate. Doing this, the attackers won't get a warning, but when they throw their drones through the window they will instantly be grabbed denying them all intel - this way you can really choke the attackers for intel and make it a much harder job for them to gain map control.
You can also use Mozzie's shotgun to destroy the top layer of the floor to hide a PEST in the floor between the beams, this means no twitch drone can shoot it and they will have to go another way or use utility to deal with it.
Vigil
Vigil can fool electronics with his gadget
© Ubisoft
Armour 1 / Speed 3
Vigil is a classic time-waster: being able to become invisible to drones is strong, and his "white noise" effect, viewed by many players as a huge weakness, can actually be turned into his bigger strength.
When a drone is within range of Vigil as he uses his ability, you will see a static effect which will look like a glitching effect. This means the attackers now know that you're somewhere close, but they have no idea where you could be, with the effect being fairly broad so that you could even be above or below the floor they are droning.
A great example of this is how he is sometimes used in competitive - Vigil will run to the top floor, stay until a drone comes by, shoot it - use the ability to hide or run back to site - when the next wave of drones come they will see the glitch effect but not be able to tell if he is even on the same floor - learn how to use this and trick the attackers and you will waste a lot of the attacker's finite time chasing ghosts and shadows.
This is the main goal of roaming, you're there to burn time. if you actually get a frag, good for you, however, you really want to make the attackers uneasy and create doubt as to whether you're floating on their flanks, while the clock ticks on relentlessly.
Being a 3-speed operator with impact grenades you can also quickly rotate from one end of the map to another. Do try to save these for hatches or rotates on the flank during the round - but if your team needs rotations on-site and there's no one else to do it, please help them
Valkyrie
Valkyrie is an absolute boss when it comes to intel
© Ubisoft
2 armour / 2 speed
As mentioned above, intel is king in Rainbow Six Siege. If Intel is king, Valkyrie is the queen of intel, as her three cameras giving you almost everything you need in terms of intel. You can throw one or two outside to give the team a good idea where the attack is coming from, and let you attempt a runout to trade for a Thermite or some other high-value attackers - or you can play them on and around the site, to help with plant denial or retakes.
If you are going to run out, remember that for the attackers a trade is a positive for them, so you need to guarantee a clean kill and escape, or trade your life for a hard breacher, otherwise, you've just played directly into their hands, and there's nothing more embarrassing than getting clipped hopping out the window to try and spawn-kill attackers with bad information.
There is a million good Valkyrie cam spots but, honestly, if you throw them somewhere half hidden with a decent view then it's a good spot - try to not ping on them unless necessary as that just makes the attacker aware and might cost the cam or make the attacker run to cover
The side-arm Desert Eagle of Valkyrie has a remarkable potential for destruction and can easily make holes in ceilings, floors and furniture to hide your cameras, but if you want to be really invested you can hide your C4 around an area where the attackers are likely to go, ping the spot, and then go to your camera to see exactly where that ping is. Then you just have to sit and wait while watching your camera, before detonating the C4. There's no cleaner kill.
