Balancing Tacticool is an ongoing process. This season's balance changes focus on improving build variety, refining underused equipment, and addressing several issues reported by the community. As always, we appreciate your feedback and will continue monitoring the meta.

Operator changes

DAVID

The Operator has received new voice lines.

New signature talents

• "Reinforced armor kit": -10% bullet, explosive and physical damage taken.
• "Thermochemical kit": -25% fire and gas damage taken.
• "Active homing": RPG automatically tracks enemies in flight.
• "Explosive resupply": Killing an enemy with an explosion reloads a random special.

JOE

The Operator has received new voice lines.

New signature talents

• "Wounded prey": +30% bullet damage to bleeding, poisoned, or burning targets.
• "Taste of prey": Increases movement speed by 25% for 3 seconds after killing an enemy.
• "Ragged wounds": Shotgun hits apply bleeding.
• "Workwear shirt": -30% damage taken from bleeding, fire, and poison.

FERRY

FERRY performs very well in his role, but we want him to be effective in a wider range of combat situations. To improve his versatility, we've slightly increased the Operator's base survivability.

• Health: 5417...11380 pts. → 5796...12175 pts.

WHISPER

WHISPER is designed around a tactical, stealth-focused playstyle. To make this gameplay more comfortable, we've slightly improved the Operator's mobility and survivability while in Camouflage.

• Movement speed in Camouflage has been increased by 10%.
• Damage reduction while in Camouflage from the "Tough camouflage" talent: 50% → 60%.

THOR

THOR sees much less use in the current meta than we'd like, so we're increasing his overall effectiveness while maintaining a focus on positional gameplay and, at the same time, making the Operator more versatile across different combat situations.

• Vision and Fire Range: 10% → 15%.
• "One shot, one kill" talent: +15% Bullet Damage when crouched → +10% bullet damage, bonus is doubled while crouching.
• "More shots, more kills" talent: +20% Fire Rate when crouched → +15% rate of fire, bonus is doubled while crouching.

CAPISCE

Some of CAPISCE's talents added in recent updates have proven too effective. We've slightly adjusted their values to maintain balance and preserve counterplay options.

• Invisibility duration from the "Escape" talent: 2 sec. → 1 sec.
• Health restoration on kill while dodging from the "Life for Life" talent: 100% → 60%.

VALERA

VALERA's talent has shown similarly high effectiveness, so it has been adjusted as well.

• Frontal bullet damage reduction from the "Head-on Collision" talent: -50% → -30%.

Weapon changes

Throwing weapons (knives) *

Throwing weapons are an important and impactful part of gameplay and play a noticeable role in the current meta. In certain combinations with Operators and talents, they become overly effective and versatile, leaving limited counterplay options. We want to preserve the momentum and positional advantage that throwing weapons provide while making them less decisive in most combat situations.

• Throwing weapons damage is now split into "Thrown damage" and "Melee damage".
• Talents, perks, and mods that increase "Melee damage" no longer affect "Thrown damage".
• "Melee damage" resistance applies to "Thrown damage" from throwing weapons as well.

KLTR & MPM IRONHEAD SMGs

Both SMGs are designed for aggressive close-range battles and provide a noticeable advantage in mobility and melee. We're maintaining their high effectiveness while giving more space for fair fights, so we're slightly reducing their aiming and firing range.

KLTR

• Aiming and firing range: 10.2 m → 9.2 m.

MPM IRONHEAD

• Aiming and firing range: 9.5 m → 8.6 m.

N-TUBE 203 & SOLANUM-9 SMGs

After analyzing game data and feedback, we concluded that both SMGs could benefit from improved usability and effectiveness. As a result, we've reworked several key aspects to enhance gameplay with these SMGs and expand build diversity.

Grenades now fly along a flatter trajectory and at a much higher speed.

The extended manual reload duration has been removed. Automatic reload time — 2 sec.; manual reload time — 4 sec. → Automatic and manual reload time — 2.8 sec.

Mods that reduced manual reload time have been replaced with Incendiary Grenade mods.

• When the mod is installed, the grenade not only deals explosion damage but also ignites all enemies affected by the explosion.
• Burn damage (scales with weapon level): 624...1300 pts. 
• Installing higher-rarity mods increases burn damage.

MP200 & BOYSCOUT Sniper Rifles

Based on feedback, we found that clip capacity mods for these rifles were not impactful enough relative to the base clip size. As a result, we're adjusting their values to provide a more noticeable bonus.

• Clip capacity mods (bonus ammo amount): 1/2/3/4 → 3/6/9/12.

Sniper Rifles

A number of sniper rifles have high combat potential but are used less often than we'd like in the current meta. To improve their effectiveness and make them more comfortable to use, we've increased the Aim area by 10%, a key parameter shared across the entire class.

Affected weapons:

• AW
• LONGSHOT-6
• OSIRIS
• ATHENA
• BULLSEYE
• TICKLE X3
• TITAN S1
• HOWL
• VLR-12
• FR USTR8
• SEE ME NOT
• GF 24
• MIMI 15
• MX 2020
• CT 200M
• TALON S4
• ARX-204

Shotguns

We've slightly increased the pellet count for a number of shotguns. This is a minor change that doesn't increase damage but allows them to deal damage more effectively at medium range.

The number of pellets per shot has been increased from 6 to 8 for the following shotguns:

• UU-10
• DM-SG
• PUNCHER
• SOURCE
• SHORTY
• PAS6
• OOPS15
• REAVER M30
• TYR-9
• SKAT-A

Other changes

• The second Molotov cocktail has been renamed to SPARKLING BOTTLE.
• The required unlock level for some Common and Uncommon weapons has been lowered.
• In the next Elite Clan Pass 69 (starting in February), the reward at level 27 has been changed to 2 Twin Win tokens.

Bug fixes

• Fixed an issue where the Burn damage of the FURN-S and IJ-74 shotguns was displayed incorrectly in the stats cards. This was a visual issue only; actual damage was not changed.
• Fixed an issue where the Burn damage bonus from the SG Ammo Pyrolytic mod for the FURN-S and IJ-74 shotguns was not displayed in the stats cards, despite working correctly in actual matches.
• Fixed an issue where, in some cases, the COOPERATIVE mode would launch instead of the selected VERSUS mode, and vice versa.
• Fixed issues in the functionality of the "Supplies" talent of Operator FERRY. The secondary weapon now reloads correctly in the helicopter when the talent is active.
• Fixed an issue where Operator PHOENIX could use an excess energy drink after resurrection with the "I live, I die, I live again!" talent active.
• Fixed an issue where, in some cases, the bonus from the "Determination" talent of Operator VALERA could trigger on invisible enemies (thanks to [✠UMB✠] Ahimas).

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* The description was slightly updated shortly after release for better clarity.