Squad Leader Archive

The changes Volatris and I proposed can be found in the thread titled "Rebuilding the Skill Tree," found here:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=squad_leader&message.id=1072

Honestly, I would much rather have the new proposed skills than this set. It has some nice things that we asked for like paint target, group waypoints, and HAM reducing skills, but other than that, it's not much better than our current state. Remember, these changes are just PROPOSED and are in no way set in stone. There's a lot of things I'm looking forward to like the group run speed increase and the mind regen buff. What we need to do it take their proposals and say things like "we like the mind regen buff, but could you please change it to not need a camp to work" or "we don't think this skill would be useful, could you change it to do this or that instead". This will get more attention than 10 different people making up their own new set of skill trees and posting them all over these boards.

And honestly, ESD, we tried reasonable changes to our skillset before, and obviously no one paid attention. I think a lot of us would have been happy if they had just made the buffs WORK and cast regularly. The skills proposed are unreasonably poor. Everyone here should go over to the Rifleman forum and see the endless screaming that took place when they nerfed the T21. It got un-nerfed (mostly) about a day later. We don't have tha volume of posters that the Rifleman forum does. If we don't make it abundantly clear that what we have been offered are Puppeteeer Skills instead of Squad Leader Skills, we will end up with them.

I'm re-posting my work-up for an acceptable Squad Leader tree. I advise everyone else who did one to do the same thing. Some of these skills have "X" in the value, to account for balancing. Obviously the ones I numbered can be rebalanced as well. Incidentally, if you are already upset about the proposed skills, you may not want to read this. It might cause you to cry.

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Novice Squad Leader
/sysgroup: Displays an on-screen message in RED and be accompanied by a unique sound
/flag : Causes a visual aid to appear for all group members on whichever target the Squad Leader has selected
Mission Details: Causes the Squad Leader to see mission waypoints for all group members on the map


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Surgical Strikes I
/urgency: Causes a temporary increase in attack speed for all group members
Surgical Strikes II
Group Accuracy + 10
Surgical Strikes III
Group Attack Speed + 10
Surgical Strikes IV
/trickshot: At great cost to the Squad Leader, group members get a X percent reduction to the HAM costs of their special moves


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Defensive Tactics I
/rally: Increases Melee and Ranged Defenses for all group members
Defensive Tactics II
Group Melee Defense +10
Defensive Tactics III
/regroup: Cures all states for group members
Defensive Tactics IV
Group Ranged Defense +10


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Resiliance I
Group Stun Defense +10
Group Intimidate Defense +10
Resiliance II
/embolden: All attacks have a chance to cause MOBs retreat, similar to Warning Shot
Resiliance III
/closequarters: Removes point-blank penalty for all group members
Resiliance IV
Group Dizzy Defense +10
Group Blind Defense +10

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Leadership I
Group Terrain Negotiation +25
Leadership II
/fieldpatch: Removes DOTs from all group members (must be cast in Camp)
Leadership III
Group Crawl Speed +25
Leadership IV
/raisespirits: Reduces X % of Battle Fatigue (must be cast in Camp, can only be used once per hour)

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Master Squad Leader
Group Melee Defense +10
Group Ranged Defense +10
Group Stun Defense +10
Group Intimidate Defense +10
Group Dizzy Defense +10
Group Blind Defense +10
Group HAM Reduction: Reduces the HAM costs of special moves by X %
/sacrifice: Revives incapacitated group members, but incapacitates the Squad Leader (can only be used once per hour)

Hi,

I think a lot of these changes are in the right direction. As a squad leader I want to do a couple of things:
A) Create synergy between my squad mates through communication and organization. SL's getting a colored system message, making other's waypoints visible and the like are very good ideas.

B) Make individuals in the squad do what they do better. Healers should heal faster, for more and at a longer range. Shooters should be more accurate and damaging. Meleers should be tougher and harder to hit.

People should come out of a group with a squad leader saying "Wow, I do well by myself or in a group, but I never did *that* well before. This is something I have to do again".