Squad Leader Archive

Following is the description of theLeadership tree from the Prima's Official Strategy Guide. Please submit your comments as to the success or failures of skills from theLeadershiptree here. Use this area to report any bugs, or issues you find with theLeadershipbranch of the Squad Leader Profession

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From the Prima's Official Strategy Guide:

The Squad Leader learns the /formup command. This has the effect of reminding the squad of their situation, clearing them of dizzy and stunned effect. The Squad Leader earns a group bonus for defense against melee attacks. The Squad Leader gains the /boostmorale command. When used the command averages the total wounds in the group across all group members. This can be used to extend the amount of time the group can fight before needing to return for healing.

LeadershipI: Cost: 175,000 Squad Leader Experience - Commands Granted: Form Up

LeadershipII: Cost 250,000 Squad Leader Experience - SKILL MODS: Group Melee Defense +10

LeadershipIII: Cost: 350,000 Squad Leader Experience - SKILL MODS: Group Melee Defense +15

LeadershipIV: Cost 450,000 Squad Leader Experience - Commands Granted: Boost Morale

Boost Moral doesn't appear to effect Will Power or Focus and it is my belief that it in fact only effects the primary stats: Health, Action and Mind.

The description of this ability gives the impression that it should work on all wounds in all pools.

Is this a bug?

/formup has been useful a few times. I am not sure if the group Melee Defense works or not. We do well against Melee but we are the Borg of PA's "resistance is futile".

IMO form up is easily the best ability we have, and it is easily the one I use the most. Boost Moral is my LEAST favorite ability we have. Nothing upsets a doctor more then taking 100 wounds (which a good doc can cure in one shot) and making tons of tiny wounds on everyone so that it takes him more woud packs. Also other group members are less then happy when I move wounds onto them. I think this ability needs a total refaul. I think this should be our temp stat buff ability. Maybe something small like +100 or +200 to all HAM's for a short time. Something usefull not something that makes people mad.

The group melee defense bounsus is nice to have but I personally think it's far to low, when you really look at it, I'm giving my group about a 2-4% bounus to defense and really that's not all that tangible I really think that they should increase it so I could give a more significant defensive bounus.

I agree about the defenses being low. Pistoleers get +45 to melee defense now, on their own. +30 used to be huge before the elite classes got modified. Now we are just a little drop in the bucket.

I like /formup. I wish it did blind as well though. Wipe the blood out of your eyes soldier. This would make a PVP SL so much more desired. I will say /formup was not as useful when I only had Pets and ranged people in my group. The ability doesn't affect pets. Now that I have some people climbing melee trees it helps a lot because they get hit with the state effects more often than before.

Let me tell you about boostmorale. This one is irritating. It really shouldn't be our only fourth tier ability. It should be...maybe second tier. It is useful in one situation only. CMs using their mind heal. You redistribute their mind wounds to the rest of the group and allow them to continue healing mind. Otherwise it makes no sense to take wounds from one person and spread them to the whole group when your Docs can take care of that one person much more efficiently. And by the time you are an SL your groupmates will have at least one Doc (if you group with the same people most often, as I do.)

I use formup in pvp, TKA doing dizzy to my grp mates, I just use formup, the only problem is the high ham cost for all SL abilities.

This was my second column, once again I thought the passive melee defenses would be cool to have...once again I am unsure if they work. The boost morale command I didnt even bother to take, seems totally worthless and once again doesnt belong in this column anyway...come to think of it the title "Commisar" doesnt fit either..? Russian Commisars in world war 2 were Psycho "morale" officers (see Russian equivalent to SS) and were know for shooting thier own troops in battle if anyone fleed or retreated. As for the form up command, when it works its pretty cool being able to clear effects, esp. dizzy, however if does not work on pets or faction pets also in the group I fail to clear effects about 25% of the time.

This is the most odd of all the tree's, were not even required to be a medic? And I find anything to do with mind healind should not be a combat medic, should be some kind of ent, to help them be of more demand in combat groups but hay who am I? But if this is the way of things I do have a few things to say that might help improve the tree.

Novice: +2 Group Combat Equilibrim, +5 Group Meele Def, +5 Group Block

Level 1: +2 Group Combat Equilibrim, +5 Group Meele Def, +5 Group Block

/formup very few people find this to be of any real vaule, and the reason it is, it is used in such limited places, inoder to incease the value of this skill it should cover Blind, Dizzy, Stun, and Intimidate

Level 2: +2 Group Combat Equilibrim, +5 Group Meele Def, +5 Group Block

/Secondwind This command should allow you to share pool pints with all members group to include pets. And should be shared on all bars. But I don't think any player incaped should recive this buff. The pools should be based on percentages not on even numbers. If Player A has 50 health and a pool cap of 300, and Player B has a health of 400 and a cap of 600. Player A would have recive 1/3 of the pool points for a 150. And Player B would recive 2/3's of the pool points for 300. While this might no be the best solution. I think most people will agree even points is not the best solution.

Level 3: +2 Group Combat Equilibrim, +5 Group Meele Def, +5 Group Block

/boostmoral While I think this skill might have worked as intended before the combat medic recived the mind pool heal. After they recived that, thisskillthus became broken. To Fix this skill you now need to include all wounds and BF. Then this skill would once again work as intended. I understand some people find this skill unusefull do to doctors, well you don't have to push the button. But I know, if I didn't have a doctor in my guild I would rarely see one in a group. Because I see so few doctors in combat This skill would become more usefull

Level 4: +2 Group Combat Equilibrim, +5 Group Meele Def, +5 Group Block

/correct postureFor all group members not currently moving and have not moved for the last 5 sec, suggest them to change to the correct posture for the range. Say a rilfman 50m out and no mob in meele range of him. Change his posture to prone. I understand that this command will need a great amout of work, but I would suggest try it then change it.

Master: +2 Group Combat Equilibrim, +5 Group Meele Def, +5 Group Block

Passive: Allow BF to be cured by and Ent say at 1/10 the rate base on the camp type as well, so the best would be 1/10th of being in a cantina, then worst would be 1/20th

again all skill bonus should be granted to the SL reguadless of group status, and if there is another SL the best of the 2 is used, does not stack

I dissagree with FastWillz about having the ability to heal mind damage. Hover your cursor over the mind bar on your status bar sometime and see what it says the mind is. It's not concussion damage or head trauma, it's a drain of your mental capacity. I don't expect anybody who hasn't gone through basic combat training, or any kind of sports to understand. Drill Sergeants and coachs are squad leaders, so is the captian of a sports team. These are the guys and gals who influence you to push yourself past your self imposed limits, to pick yourself up when you feel tired and sore, and think you can't go on. They restore your mind to a can do attitude and help you get your head back into the game, i.e. they heal mind damage, they /boostmorale which is what this skill should do.

New active skill proposal for the Leadership range.

Leadership 1: /inranksInspection: The squad leader calls and inranks inspection and goes over his teams equipment. He makes sure weapons are clean and functional, equipment and armor is being properly worn and does not hamper movement, and gives an improptu pep talk. Secondary stats are buffed by the squad leaders leadership rating, stacks with doctor, food, and spice buffs. An inranks inspection buff lasts for 30 minutes. /inranksInspection cannot be called if any member of the team is in combat or mounted.

What would buffing the secondary stats do? It would make people regen pools faster and reduce HAM on special moves by a small ammount. This ability would also make that +10 leadership that humans get do something.

>It's not concussion damage or head trauma, it's a drain of your mental capacity.

So a rifleman with a headshot on me gives me the creeps but basically is just something I worry about, not actually hitting my head?

Basically, if you live through it yes! Until you become incapacitated and he uses his ranged deathblow on you. Let's face it, this is a game and not like real life, how many people do you know who can live through a headshot? It's game mechanics, but the game mechanics are supposed to represent Health, Action, and Mind. I agree with you that mind damage appears to be head trauma from the way the specials cause it in the game, but the description of Mind in the gamehas to do with mental fatigue, not trama to the head, so in that context it should be the realm of the squad leader to heal mind damage.

I agree that entertainers should still be the ones to heal mind wounds and battle fatigue and give the big mind buffs. I just think that a squad leaders basic abilities, that of leading are being under represented, and an ability to heal mind damage would represent the ability of a leader to motivate and command his/her squad.

dictionary.com's deffinition of a leader "a person who rules or guides or inspires others." We don't rule others, but we do guide and inspire them. We should have abilites comensurate with that duty.

Formup: fine as is. One of the best SL skill implementations- appropriate skill level erquirement, concrete noticeable benefits.

Defense bonuses: too slight to be noticeable in almost all situations. At lvl 4 in this tree I have never been told that someone noticed an improvement in their defensive abilities.

Boostmorale: A major annoyance to most players when used, makes doctor's job harder. Not worthy of a tier 4 box, a real waste.

Leadership is one of the more useful trees in SL, but it is still rediculously empty. The melee defense bonuses are nice, although I have no idea what that has to do with leadership. The form up ability is nice, I use it on the rare occasion someone actually gets stunned or dizzied.

My greatest problem with this tree is boost morale. This ability is so limited in its use its sickening. The only time dividing up the entire party's wounds evenly is a benefit, is when you are camped with no medics in the group. This ability actually makes it MORE difficult for a medic/combat medic/healer to get the grouped healed and ready to go. Itd be easier for them if you moved all the wounds to one person, so they can just deal with one person. That said, boost morale should actually boost morale, and work like a stimpack for the mind pool, or remove BF.

I also think that this tree should provide a role designation ability/unlock abilities for all other professions. Some examples are as follows:

Point Man (For Ranger/Scout) allows a member who meets the requirements to scout ahead. If group members zoom their radar out, the point man's radar data appears.

Sniper (For Riflemen): Allows riflemen to increase their range by half again.

Combat Engineer (For architect): Allows architects to construct fortications.

Mess Hall Specialist (For Chefs): Allows chefs to create and distribute food while in combat without having to open a trade window. Players can eat food with a simple /eat command afterward.

Field Medic (For medic/combat medic): Allows medics a healing bonus

Field Surgeon (For doctors) Allows doctors a HAM reduction on revive.

Im sure several other designations could be imagined, 1 for each or most professions anyway. I think that if the tree provided the abilities it already does, plus a few of these role designations spread throughout, it could aid in a group specializing a bit more, and desiring a greater variety of professions within a group instead of just getting as many commandos, bounty hunters, and creature handlers as possible. I also believe that those three "power professions" should not get any kind of role designations to make them more powerful in combat, as they are already greatly over-powered.