Squad Leader Archive

Although I don't really feel the need for the addition of combat skills to our profession, it's apparent from the threads on heavy support weaponry that some of you do. However, if we are aiming for a combat boost, we need to look for something a little more unique than heavy weapons and area-effect status effects. Skills that help us support our group without being particularly powerful would be best. (In addition to our passive and active skill mods like mobility and defense)

Suppose we were given conditional novices in all seven of the base-elite combat professions. We'd have all the skills and abilities of novice carbineers, pistoleers, riflemen, etc., but this wouldn't allow you to buy higher-level skills unless you had earned and paid for the prerequisites (ie. you'd have novice pistoleer, but you couldn't purchase pistol techs I until you'd earned & bought pistols I-IV and novice pistoleer). This may seem like a lot of abilties to gain as a squad leader, but it's actually quite balanced, and it would help us be better leaders.

As far as balance is concerned, this wouldn't make a squad leader significantly stronger than it is. First of all, you don't gain much in the way of defenses in the brawler/marksman trees or the novice skillboxes, so this wouldn't make squad leaders any tougher. Secondly, although we'd have access to the vast majority of weapons and many specials, we'd have nothing near the combat abilities of the other professions (we may have a T21 and headshot II, but we'd fire at a fifth the rate of a real rifleman with a much lower accuracy), and only the most basic specials. All we'd gain in terms of combat ability would be diversabiltity. (None of these would be as strong as what we can master with the rest of our skill points, anyways.)

Gaining these skills would help squad leaders fulfil their role in supporting their squad. With the experience we'd gain from having access to all the weapons, we'd better learn the capabilities of each of the other professions. We could tell our squad which weapons are or aren't effective against an enemy, and which abilities we'd like them to be using to better our squad's performance as a whole (like having a rifleman flurry with a fast and accurate, but weak, rifle, so that the carbineer can focus on KDs). This would allow us to be much more effective leaders. In addition, we'd be able to fill roles in our group that are missing, albeit it nowhere near as well as having members of those professions in our group. In a group full of ranged fighters, you could grab a suit of heavy armour and do a decent job of tanking for your group with your novice TKA, fencer, swordsman, or pikeman skills. Leading a group of rifleman, the pistoleer/squad leader could borrow an old rifle and do meaningful damage to the enemy instead of just standing and watching. We'd be an effective member of any type of group, and this would make us a better leader.

As far as leading the group, I can't think of much that would help a leader direct their squad's efforts better than for the squad leader to have some level of experience with all of their abilities. Using all sorts of weapons would help the player learn about their advantages and disadvantages, and this, in turn, would help the player be a good squad leader. It's a balanced ability that would add to the squad leader without taking anything away from the other professions. (except marksman and brawler, I suppose, but you couldn't get the useful master skills without buying everything else, anyways)

I apologize if this has been suggested before, but I tried to search through the old messages first, and there are far too many for me to be certain.