Jedi Archive

Squad Leader Enhancements

Publish 24 will be bringing you significant changes and enhancements to the Squad Leader profession. The goal of these enhancements is to maintain the essence of the Squad Leader skills, leadership and group enhancement, while making the profession more robust and entertaining to play.

Here's just a few of the things that we've changed:

• Squad Leaders no longer need to be the group leader to benefit the group.
  
• Multiple Squad Leaders can combine their skills for greater group enhancement.
  
• New group buffs that give Squad Leaders more control and flexibility for how they enhance the group.
  
• All passive abilities changed to more easily used and understood active abilities.
  
• New group waypoint ability

The changes and enhancements are all intended to better allow a Squad Leader to enhance and lead their group. Lots of new abilities have been added and most of the existing abilities have been changed. The most useful of the existing abilities have stayed the same though their names may have been changed to keep things a bit more cohesive. The Squad Leader skill set concentrates solely on group enhancing abilities, while they do include a full set of combat skill mods (defense, accuracy and speed) a Squad Leader is still strongly encouraged to pick up another combat profession skill set to flesh out their combat abilities.

All the passive abilities of the Squad Leader have been removed and changed to active buff abilities. This will make it easier to understand exactly what benefit is taking affect when. Also Squad Leader's no longer need to be the group leader for their abilities to take affect. This allows them more flexibility to benefit the group even when they are not the "official" leader as well as allowing multiple Squad Leaders in a group to combine their abilities.

Squad Leader New Group Buffs

The buff system has been enhanced to allow group buffs. The core of the Squad Leader abilities are based on these new group buffs. Any group buff that a Squad Leader has active will automatically take affect on all the members of the group. The Squad Leader group buffs have been designed so only one buff can be in effect at a time so care will need to be taken by the Squad Leader to make sure the most important enhancement is active when it is most needed. Multiple Squad Leaders can have different group buffs active and they will all stack.

Steady Aim (Strategy I) - Enhances group accuracy.

Call to Arms (Strategy III) - Enhances group armor ratings.

Volley Fire (Strategy IV) - Gives group members the chance to bypass enemy armor.

Tactics (Tactics I) - Enhances group defenses.

Blaze of Glory (Tactics III) - Gives or enhances the chance to score a critical hit.

Double Time (Tactics IV) - Reduces cooldown times for group members.

Boost Morale (Leadership IV) - Enhances group Action/Mind regeneration.

Form Up (Mobility II) - Enhances group movement speed.

Retreat! (Mobility III) - Significantly enhances group movement speed for a short duration.Prevents all other combat actions.

Charge! (Mobility IV) - Significantly enhances group movement speed for a short duration. Places the Squad Leader at heightened risk by reducing their defenses.

Squad Leader New Individual Buffs

In addition to the ability to enhance overall group performance a Squad Leader can choose to place their attention towards a single group member to give them even greater benefits than the general group enhancements. Like the group buffs these enhancements are designed to only allow one to be in effect at any one time though multiple Squad Leaders can combine their abilities for increased enhancement.

Toughen (Tactics II) - Increases the armor rating of a single group member.

High Yield (Strategy II) - Increases the damage output of a single group member.

Verbal Assault (Leadership II) - Increases the amount of aggro generated by a single group member.

Combat Feint (Leadership III) - Decreases the amount of aggro generated by a single group member.

New Squad Leader Abilities

Group System Message (Novice SL) - Sends an on screen system message to all group members. (Same as previously.)

Called Shot (Novice SL) - Significantly increases the accuracy and damage of the next attack to the designated target. Only works for one attack and then must be reapplied. The accuracy and damage bonus increases as the Squad Leader learns more skills.

Rally Point () - Creates a waypoint for all group members. (Functions similar to the /waypoint command.)

Paint Target (Leadership I) - Increases the accuracy and damage for allattacks to the painted targetin the next 20 seconds (Same as old Volley Fire.)

Second Chance (Master Squad Leader) - Equalizes all damage and wounds across all group members in the area. This ability has a very long recharge time.

SO after seeing SL getting their loving, I have some concerns.

Will the BH/JEDI TEF cancel the buff, or prevent other SL from giving buffs? What about the passive ones?

If the answer tois no, then a whole new can of worms is opened.

Points to ponder: How much will armor increase with their buff? How much more damage will players do? How exactly will the buff to "Bypass enemy armor" work?

Ho'mer