I've put 400 hours into Rainbow Six Siege. This weekend, a teammate said something I've never heard before:

"Hey, will one of you guys please play Tachanka?"

If you've been following our coverage of Rainbow Six's 'Lord and Savior,' you'll know that Tachanka is not considered the best operator in Rainbow Six Siege. By Ubisoft's own data, at some skill levels, he was the least-picked defender by a long shot in Year Two Season Three (Q3 2017). In March at the Game Developers Conference, Ubisoft said it didn't have plans to rework the character.

But my teammate's request was serious: against all reason, we needed a Tachanka. As we got into the match, they explained why, describing a technique that sounded so ridiculous that I was convinced they were trolling. "Get on and off Tachanka's turret like five or six times, and you'll get a speed boost," the teammate promised.

A line formed around the static MG. Spending precious time in setup phase, operators hopped on and off the turret, toggling control of it several times in quick succession. They emerged from the gun, as promised, quicker than before, both in base movement speed and when sprinting. The heaviest defenders, like Doc and Rook, were noticeably quicker—as fast as an Ash or an Ela.

Speed and armor are trade-offs in Siege: fast operators have smaller hitboxes, but are fragile, and heavier ones can take an extra bullet or two but are bulkier. This exploit allows any defender (but particularly the three-armor defenders like Rook) to have the best of both worlds.

Based on YouTube video history, the exploit seems to have been in Siege for at least a week. It's definitely an unfair advantage, but it hasn't been game-breaking for me personally—so many of Siege's gunfights happen while standing or laying still, particularly for defenders. The main issue here is how easy it is to execute this glitch: it works reliably and takes seconds to explain to a teammate. Hopefully we'll see a hotfix soon.