Squad Leader Archive

Introduction

This document is forthose of you who are interested in bettering your skills, teamwork, group efficiency and lethality please read on! Here you will begin to pick up all the skills needed!

This will be split into a number of larger sections (leading to a little repetition).

There are 3 main sections

For the group Leader - information on how to lead the group, plan events and get the most out of the group!

For the group member - contains all you need to know about the composition of a good group, and how you can work together to best effect.

General tips for success - information on how to perform better and general hints and tips picked up!

Tips for group members

Above all, teamwork and communicaitons are the deciding factors in all battles. Learn these and you will be victorious more often than not.

These are the hardest skills to learn, but the easiest skills to use.

A few general tips -

Group composition
Too often have I been involved in PvP or a base takedown with a group of people I have never met, and they hope to just charge off and win the day. This just wont happen.

The absolute best arrangement, is to form a balanced group of professions and people who understand each other roles AND actually perform their roles to support the group. This is covered in the next section.

DO NOT CHARGE OFF STRAIGHT AWAY!! - At the very _least_ find out what professions you have in the group and how much experience the players have.

Take some time! - I know people dont have a lot of this, but a little preparation goes a long way. Ensure that people know the basics, dont just assume they do, an dont assume that once you have said them the first time theywill be understood. Be patient and willing to help, rather than get mad and shout. You will all grow from it and funciton better as a unit, and have much more fun!

You will need a varied group of professions to be flexible enough to take on most challenges, be they PvP, PvE or base takedowns. If there are specific profession requirements, ensure that you have them covered, with backups if possible, a badly timed death can really set you back, and selecting group members to complement each other will mitigate this a long way.

I will tackle the subject of groups with people you know, and thrown together ones seperately.

One of the most important things in battle, once you have your communications, group work and leadership sorted, is your terrain and spatial awareness - particularly for healing!

There are 2 main classes, melee very shot ranged and range, long ranged. This means that there will be the natural tendancy for your squad to form 2 small groups, or at least is should! Keeping the 2 parts coherent is often a difficult challenge, but with experience can be done with deadly efficiency.

Ranged proffession can fire up to 65m meters away (with no modifications) depending on the weapons employed. You should always strive to form a tight unit, so that the healer does not have to waste valuable time moving about. You want to be operating at about 75% of your max range, AT ALL TIMES! The further you are form your opponent, the more leverage you can get interms of where to guide them, and have better use of cover etc. Too often I See people carry rifles shooting at the swordsman 10m away and taking a pounding, what is the point of having a gun when you are close enough to beat somone oever the head with it! Those in teh ranged subgroup should stick close together and have somone that is also ranged with some doc skills. Be sure not to split too far from your melee team, often a distance of 30m is more than enough. Practise moving togheter and maintaining the correct distances - boring I know, but you will see how difficult it is, now add in some agro and try it... and people expect to be able to do this with a throw toghether group....

For the melee group, they always need ot be at the front, simply due to their avaialble attack range, and damage mitigation levels. This does NOT mean they can just charge ahead and engage whatever they like, they will need the range group for support. Bear in mind it takes time for people to see that you are moving, if you need to cover a large distance, let them know in advance that you are making a run for this or that, so that they are ready for it, communications are the key! Try to keep yourself between the agro and the ranged group, in most cases, it will be dead before it gets to them, but if not, be sure to head back to them to assist and kill the agro, if they are playing by the group rules, they will never attack the agro on them, so it will never die. Go back and kill it then move forward again to put them at their ideal combat range.

Heal ranges are very low, often around the 15m mark. Although you have split the group into 2 smaller groups, always strive to keep the 2 smaller groups into 2 tight groups with everyone less than 8m or so aparts from each other, centrered on the healer. this means they will nothave to more to heal you and will not wast time running to and fro.

Chat channels -

Moderated Command channel - As soon as you start a new group make and additional chat channel. Make it private and moderated. This is where your instructions go. Get all of the group members to undock teh channel from the normal tab and put it on the screen where they can see it. make sure that they check it as often as they can. Here you put your instructions, and only here - directions to targets, specific instructions for individuals or groups, orders to advance, orders to retreat etc etc. It is free from the general spam of group chats, and is a REQUIREMENT, not just something nice to have. INstantly, you have lost the 'where are we going' problem, if people are still asking, and keep on asking, then ask yourself question whether they are suitable for group material...

For multiple groups, this becomes evenmore important. All of the members from all of the groups will join this channel. The group leaders and Co-ordinator will have moderator access. The Co-odinator tells the group leaders where and what they should be doing, and they report back here. Designate the groups with somehting that tells them apart easily, so it is clear who the instructions are for. BE sure to have planned in advance and know what is avialable.

Unmoderated team channel - In addition to the moderated channel, create an unmoderated version to use as a general communication medium and to allow people in the teams to communicate between each other. Make sure everyone is invited, and that they are paying attention to the command channel.

Groupchat - use this to organise the squad (designate roles etc), chat, have a laugh, listen to questions from the group, not for giving out target directions or squadron orders, they will get lost in the spam.

Teamspeak

I have never used this, but it seems to be a GREAT tool for a team to use, even if on listen. It reduces the cumbersome task of typing and is fast way to get information out if required.

Writing methods

The two most useless sentences and the two most used...
'Spotted an oVert' - um where, who how many... - better '3 overt 500N bike' what does that tell us? that there ar 3 overts 500m to teh North of our position on bikes. You dont need to write a message a long as manual to get the information across, PROVIDED the group understands what it means.

'Dead need a rez' - thats nice for you - better 'DEAD -4382 8444 or use /findf' - at least the doc can find you now - make sure to know who your docs are and /consent them BEFORE you go.

Set a communications standard -we all want to help be we cant if we dont know where to go!!

finding people

With the group waypoint arrows somewhat wacky (why were you so far from them anyway?) or working with multiple groups, one way, is to add EVERYONE in the group to your friends list and /findf them, so in a panic so people can find you quickly. If you are worried about people finding you after, make a macro to /addf xxx and also one to /removef xxx at the end of the battle.

The alternative, is for the person in trouble to provide more information, like a planet, location or even better waypoint! The more you can give, the better it gets - numbers, of opposition, professions, threat level etc etc.

Important pieces of information -
a) The problem/request - Overt, dead, heal, meet, regroup, rally, target, etc etc - need to know what you are doing
b) Location location location! - where is it, or where do you need to go, use landmarks or waypoints.
c) Numbers - how many are you facing
d) When to go - now may not be the time to go
e) Who is going - not eveyrone needs to go all the time
f) priorities - may have specific targets picked out beforehand

There is a lot of redundancy in teh english language, meaning you an miss out most of the words and still be understood. Learn to put the useful ones in and ignore the others, they are only helpful for describing or are just completely useless.

examples -
1. You have spotted a group of 5 rebels on bikes, 2 jedi and you are alone, not sure if htey have spotted you yet, they are 450m to the north of you, near to the theed bazaar terminals
msg - 5 overt, theed bazaar, 2j bike 450N.

5 overt - there are 5 overts
Theed bazaar - location
2j - 2 jedi are with them
bike - they are on bikes
450N - 450 north of the REPORTERS POSITION
doesnt take long to type and gives a l load of informaiton to better prepare those that are coming to help. Compare that to 'got some overts here'. takes almost the same time to type - gives about 1% information...

2. You need to tell the group to move to a new location, and to rendevous at a specific point

msg - Rendev -388 4028, wfg, target -388 4250, RAR
Rendev - the point to meet the group at, wait for them all to get there, then move out.
wfg - wait for group before moving out
target - the target location, when all the group have arived you go there.
RAR - Rally at rendevous point - if things go bad go back to the rendevous point to rally and have another go!

good tip - bind /shout Medic! to a key that is in easy reach, if you are taking too much damage hit it. In large groups, people can not always see your HAM and that you are taking damage to let them know (also get some decent stims!).


Group roles

First of all, the most obvious one. The group needs a leader, this is the hardest job. They must:-
1. Communicate with all the other leaders from other groups
2. Ensure _all_ of their group know what is going on
3. Plan the stragety
4. physically lead the group and give them direction

While this sounds obvious - using the tools avialable in game this is a _huge_ task. Simply put, you wont be able to fight at the same time, you shouldnt be able to efficiently lead your group and be able to type fast enough to be out there tanking, so dont do it! The best roles for a leader are squad leader, or a doctor/combat medic to heal.

2. The tanker/targeter

Group role

To pick the group target.

First a little background, Pre-CU, mobs and enemies had a fix HAM and didnt regen. Now they do, so while before you could half kill something die then come back to finish it off, now you cant. What does this mean for group play?

If there is a alrge group of critters and your gruop of 8 people each picks a different target, then they are all fighting against the regen rates of the individual target and wasting their damage output. Each on will die slower, meaning hte group will take more damage overall!!!

INSTEAD - use an excellent feature - the assist! IF you target a group member, and press you attack with them targeted, then you will hit THEIR target. You wont be able to see the targets HAM, but why do you need to? If you get the 'invalid target' message, your unseen target is dead.

What does this mean?

Desigante 1 person as the group targeter - EVERYONE ELSE (apart from doctors) will be targeting this person, and putting their attacks through them. 'But I cant see their HAM bar or what buffs they have on them' I hear you cry - if you are working as a group you dont need to!. When hunting, each creature will be similar from 1 to the next in terms of HAM. Take a single practise one, and learn to apply your damage and debuffs and learn how many shots it takes to kill it. Then, start using the targeter! You know how many shots to put on it, and what debuffs it will have, so no worries, you never need to see the HAM again!

Note on agro - if you get agro while your group is killing something IGNORE IT, dont start shooting it, else you may as well all go back to running around wildly, as soon as people start breaking from the plan it falls apart and all the benefits you gain from working as a team disappear. Ignore agro, you are getting hurt yes, but you have your doctors, combat medics, jedi and stims to keep you alive, always concentrate on the same target. It is better to get incapped fighting the gorup target from taking damage from agro rather than engaging your own target.

Melee or ranged for the targeter? - depends on the composition of the group. This person should most definately NOT be the main group healer or leader of the unit. They are too busy to do this role. You need somone that is quick on the ball and knows all of the targeting methods and can pull up good targets 1 after another. If you have a melee class, always use that as the targeter, else the melee profs amongst the group will never be able to attack the enemy being out of combat range. This role falls to a person that can really concentrate on the job and wont waste groups firepower by dawdling about looking for a target.

Ensure everyone knows who the targeter is. They always go first into a battle ALWAYS, if you contantly get somone in the group that will run forward first, then remove them and find a new person to hunt with, they will only get the group killed more often than not.

NOTE - when docs heal they will get agro, which really sucks, an agroed doc is quickly dead, so you need you use your skills to help them! The tuant ability (in any of its many forms) will take the agro from the healer and put it onto you. Every good tank will learn to do this, they are not the damage dealers or healers, their job is to get hit and to not get hurt, not to try and squeeze out every point of damge they can. and to keep all the agro focussed on them, and not on the group.

3. Healers

These will be keeping the group alive.

Most important thing for healers, you are there to heal, not to fight. No individual is greater than the whole, your damage output can not touch anywhere nearthe combined damage output of 6 or 7 people, your job is to keep them alive. Dont even think about attacking unless eveyrone is on full health, there is no point. Combat medics with area heals are great for group work and can really make the difference between life and death. Another subtle point... if a CM is always fixed on the targeter, they will still heal the group provided they are in range, but also, they will be able to kill the group target when there is less danger!

Heal over times are great (force infusion and bacta infusion) and can take some of the pressure when everyone is getting hurt.

In almost all situations, the squad will be split into 2 - a small melee group and a range group, usually split about 30m apart. For this situation the following configutation is best. Melee are the best tanks, they will be taking the most damage, but also mitigating a lot, so these are the ones that need the low value heals but spread over time. Put the infusions on these before anything else, and they will be able to do their job. The ranger group, if they take agro will generally have lower defenses, and will need the larger heals. For the melee group a combat medic with area heals and infusion is ideal, for the ranged group a doc is ideal with powerful 1.5k heals to offest any damage being done. Again, if the group is taking to omuch damage, then just heal, dont kill, the damage output is better with 6 people all firing, then with you and everyone else dead, or 2-3.

Most important - if you can not keep up, use the group chatand say so - activate a secodary medic to help you keep up, people may not be noticing that you are strugling - keep an eye on your mind and buff bars, ask for help if you get too low to relieve the prssure, remember YOU are keeping the group alive.

Ensure that there are some backup healers when times get tough - the main targeter should not be doing this, since that stops the whole group from doing damage.

4. damage dealers
You need a good core of damage dealers, than know and understand their skills. Variety is good, debuffs are great, especially those that lower defenses. Why you ask? Each weapon has a damage range, with a min and max damage possible, some have wide damage ranges, eg 500-1000, some tight 450-550. Everyone has a stat for their accuracy with any given weapon, and also defense against either melee or ranged weapons. 2 secnarios - how much damage will you do?

You the attacker, trying to hit someone. Take their defense and subtract your accuracy value. Typical defnse values for a lvl 80 are about 300, typical accuracy values are about 200. The higher the differnce (in this case about 100) the higher up your damage scale you go!! so, if you can reduce your targets defense, you will always be doing more damage AND having a greater chance to hit in the first place. This means, all those crappy skills you have that reduce the targets defense by a little bit that are normally useless, are great when in a group! Why?? because a lot of the group members will have sacrified some of their damage output abilities in order to be able to perform other combat roles. They may have a high enough combat level to use a weapon with a large damage range. Normally, since they have zero to little accuracy this will be much lower than the targets defenses, so they will do crappy damage, even before anything else is taken into account. Now, consider the same but with a group that applies all states and debuffs to the target, so if drops their defenses by 150 or so, oh, the gap is not so great now... they will be doing much more damgage without changing a thing!! In fact, the whole group will do more damage! = things dead much faster. So what does this mean for the weapon choice of your low damage output gorup members? Get a weapon with the largest damage you can, dont look at dps, get something that can hit for 1.2k and you are laughing, even if the min is only 300. Solo, you will be terrible, but get a different weapon for that, this is for the group! Also, if you ahve no great combat skills, take ranged, it is much more flexible and greatly helps group cohesion, therefore making it easier to heal.

So what about the other way? You are the defender, and someone is trying to hit you... you look at THIER accuracy, and YOUR defense and look at the difference between them. The higher it is, the more damage you take from their damage range, ouch!. So, to take less damage there are 2 approaches, lower their accuracy with debuffs, or increase your defenses with buffs! Again there are abilties that can do this to individuals or groups. you need to compose a group that can put a good variety of states on your target and keep them on.

The great and underused ability of taunt. You need ot keep your docs alive - if they heal they will get agro, dead doc = dead group. Almost all melee (if not all) have the taunt skill, this will draw the agro from the doc and onto them, it is better for the do to heal a tank that can take the damage than to heal themself! A good group will protect the doc keeping any agro they get from them all the time, even if it means wasting a shot on target.

So in summary, get all the group buffs you can, and apply the most debuffs you can to the target, in order to increase the group damage and reduce the damage you take from the target.

A good mix of ranged and melee is great here. Learn to master your professions, and i dont just mean get the badge, look at what each skill does that you can possible use, look into combinations and effects on others.

They are ugly, but for base busting, ranged arms are a must if turrets are involved, especially with the current turret bugs. These allow you to take them out safely, but make sure not to get into melee range!

5. Jedi
Love them or hate them, they are the alpha class with many nice abilities that make it reall easy for groups if their skills are used properly. First important thing about jedi, they are NOT damage dealers or all powerful, not matter what they may think they are. These are your backup healers (heal 4000), tankers/targeters (master defender) and PvP scouts (powers 0400). 2-3 jedi in the team make a superb addition, expecially if the have differing templates.

5. Optional - The base slicer
Commando 0100
Bounty hunter 2000
Smuggler 0100
novice bio enginner
novice squad leader

They are as weak as a baby - keep the agro off them. They are a great choice for gorup leader (if they are a good one..) for they have low damage output, cant take much damage coming in and so have lots of time to guide the group. When slicing a base, your sole prioity is to keep this person alive and agro free, so they can do their job.

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There are so many possible combinations that the possibilities are endless, each gorup is unique, there is no ultimate winning combination. The things that will win you the battles, are team work, understanding, communication and strong leadership (note that doesnt mean barking order at people, it means providing enough instruction so that ALL can understand).

Awom and Sarguillo, Bothan Cousins

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Learn to sing!
Infinity - Papyn Biboon