Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Squad Leader Skill/Ability Guide (Expansive)
Novice Squad Leader
No bonuses.
System Message Ability - This allows the Squad leader to send a message to the group that appears in the combat message box and across each players screen in the same fashion Experience Messages do. It's of little practical value beyond the novelty factor.
Tactics I
No bonuses.
Rally Ability - This ability improves the "combat defense and to hit modifiers" of the entire group according to the description. It lasts 30 seconds and has a significant mind cost associated with it. It also fails fairly often, causing the loss of mind without any group benefit. When used, it has no noticable affect on a group. I never bother using it at all. Would love to hear comments from someone who has found a use for it.
Tactics II
Group Ranged Defense +10.
No Abilities.
Tactics III
No bonuses.
Retreat Ability - This ability allows the squad leader to suicide in exchange for giving the entire group burst run speed. While this is a dramatic and cool looking ability on paper, I've found it to have no practical value at all in any circumstance. Would love to hear from anyone who has found a use for it.
Tactics IV
Group Ranged Defense +15.
No Abilities.
Overall: The only thing of value in the Tactics line is the Group Ranged defense. 14 skill points will get you a total of +25 of group ranged defense if you take it to level IV.
Leadership I
No bonuses
Form Up Ability - This ability purges negative effects from squad members such as dizzy or stun. It comes with a significant mind cost, but I've never seen it fail. It can be used when the Squad Leader him/herself is stunned, but not if they are knockdowned due to a dizzying effect, which really lessons it's value. I've never found a situation where it was worth the mind cost to use, though I haven't experimented enought to conclusively say it won't have some small use in larger scale PvP.
Leadership II
Group Melee Defense +10
No Abilities.
Leadership III
Group Melee Defense +15.
No Abilities.
Leadership IV
No bonuses.
Boost Morale Ability - This is a very curious ability. It allows the Squad Leader to average wounds across the entire squad. Not damage, but wounds. While the idea may be to help out groups in battle by allowing the SL to reduce the grievous wounds of one member by sharing his wounds with others, it's impractical in reality. With the abilities that doctors have at higher skill level to cure large amounts of wounds with one pack, it is actually more beneficial to have one person with 600 wounds then 10 people with 60. I never use this ability and would welcome any suggestions on effective use.
Overall: The only reason to skill up in the Leadership line is for the Melee Defense bonus. For 12 skill points you can get +25 melee defense by going up to level III in this line.
Strategy I
No bonuses.
Steady Aim Ability - This ability gives group members a to-hit bonus on their next shot. This comes with significant mind cost. Since missing in combat is the exception rather then the rule, this ability is of no practical value. If it lasted for 60 seconds and prevented misses entirely, it might be worth using, but as it stands now I never bother with it.
Strategy II
Steady Aim Bonus +10 - (Which is an increased chance of Steady Aim not failing when you try to do it I believe. Not a bonus that makes Steady Aim more effective. Either way, of no value since the ability is of no value)
No abilities.
Strategy III
No bonuses.
Volley Fire Ability - While this seemed to be the most promising of the Squad Leader's abilities in theory, in reality it too is curiously of little to no value. Volley Fire has a high chance of failure coupled with a high mind cost, in and of itself making the ability of questionable value. When VF is successfully engaged, the entire squad will substitute their next combat round to take an *unstyled* shot at the target the Squad Leader has selected. They group will then return to their previous targets. Against NPC targets, this means that a squad of 6 people will on average do 1200 points of damage to the target (6 members X 200 points of damage). Since this also uses up a round of combat for the squad leader him/herself, it's almost always more advantagous for the SL to use that round to fire a style of their own that hits in the 1100-1400 range. If this ability let all squad members fire their highest damaging style at the Squad Leaders target with no HAM costs to the members, it could be useful in both PvE and PvP. As it stands now, it's just a mind drain for Squad Leaders.
Strategy IV
Volley Fire +10 - (Like Steady Aim, this appears to be an increased chance of Volley Fire going off successfully, not a bonus to the effectiveness of the ability. This is no use since the ability itself is of no use.)
Overall: A line of questionable usefulness. Unless you are hard set on becoming a Master SL, avoid this line entirely and put those 14 points into something useful.
Mobility I
Terrain Negotiation +25 - (This is the same ability that comes in the Scout Exploration line that increases speed when moving uphill except it affects the entire group.)
Mobility II
Group Burst Run Effeciency +25 - (Reduction in the HAM cost for group members when they Burst Run)
Mobility III
Terrain Negotiation +25
Mobility IV
Group Burst Run Effeciency +25
Overall: While helpful when traveling with groups over hilly terrain in PvE, the terrain negotiation offers little affect in PvP. Group burst run effeciency is of no real value at all. Same as Strategy here, if you don't need this line for Master SL, save the 14 points.
Master Squad Leader
Ranged Defense +5
Melee Defense +5
Terrain Negotiation +10
Burst Run Effeciency +10
Overall: The only value in getting Master SL is the +5 Ranged and Melee defense. Since becoming a Master only takes 1 skill point, it's worth grabbing if you have all the other lines maxed. Very weak payoff for Mastering an Elite Profession compared to what the other Elite Professions get.
Conclusion: Unless your heart is set on having that Squad Leader Tag over your head, there is really no good reason to go to Master Squad Leader. For 73 skill points you are essentially getting two group bonuses (+30 Melee and Ranged defense). If you are willing to sacrifice +5 Melee and Ranged Defense, you can save 31 skill points by forgetting everything except Tactics IV and Leadership III.
Well, that would just be laughably bad if they defensive bonuses are not working, essentially invalidating the entire line.
And commandos thought they had it bad. =)
But since there is really no way to prove whether the +25/30 bonus is working or not, I guess we have to assume it is for now.
Nice post Lensar. Very concise and informative.
I think that laying it all out like that in an easy-to-read format can serve two purposes:
1) It may help aspiring Novice Squad Leaders to avoid the unecessary frustration that comes from choosing a profession without understanding it's limitations.
and
2) Perhaps someone with the ability to help us with these dire circumstances will stumble upon your nicely formatted post and come to our rescue.
Stump.
I haven't seen it yet, but it's only a matter of time that groups actually deny a SL into a group. I can see it now "Forming large hunting group, need doctors, combat medics, creature handlers, bounty hunters, elite weapon professions, no starting professions or squad leaders"
Few comments. Through experimentation I have found the /rally bonus is +10 to hit. Don't know about the supposed defensive bonus.
In a friendly duel I was able to determine (from my friend reporting numbers) that when I started as leader of the group and then made someone else the leader there was no change in the number to hit me. So it appears that the passive defense bonus really isn't on, as has been reported.
And for Krisi, while I understand where you are coming from, I could be the leader of my groups without Squad Leader.
Well, wish me luck, I have 400k SL xp til I master, just need Strategy IV now. I'll let you know if more people ask me for groups if I run around with Master Squad Leader as my title.
The only real skill a good Squad Leader has is the experience one gains through leading many groups. I'll try and be clearer: Since getting Squad Leader I am pretty much automatically the leader of the group, even if I did not form the group. Maybe people haven't realized that I don't offer any combat enhancing abilities, but the fact that I've controlled 10-15 person groups so many times more than anyone else is valuable to those I hunt with regularly. Many people know just how hard it is to control so many people, but through gameplay experiences I have learned from mistakes, and recognized things that I did that helped make the group more efficient and organized. Consequently, when you can accomplish those two things, I seem to have more fun, as do my squad members. So yeah, that's the only real value to being a SL so far.... where IS our dev response???