Squad Leader Archive

I have been a squad leader for about 3 months now. I don't play alot because I work 60 hours a week. Still I lurk on these forums and I enjoy the class despite its limitations. Just call me one of those who is sticking it out until the class gets fixed.

I enjoy many of the posts on here, and there are many good ideas about what can be done to fix this class. I do have to say though that I do not agree with the squad leader camps. A leader is not an engineer. An engineer is. That may seem like a simple concept but its not being applied here with all these talks of making camps or adding to ranger camps.

A leader is someone who motivates their soldiers. Trains them, disciplines them, gets more out of them than then even they believe they are capable of doing. He instills confidence, and respect, raises moral and keeps the soldiers ready and in top fighting form. He also is aware of his soldiers strengths and weaknessess and knows how to apply the strengths while protecting the weaknesses.

A squad leader in general,is not a medic, engineer, heavy weapons specialist, sniper, brick layer, tunneler, dancer, or tracker. You may find individual leaders who excell in those areas, but if you take Leaders as a whole you will find that not all of them are qualified or skilled in those areas. However they do all share the characteristics of leadership, described in the previous paragraph.

In the game this can be shown many ways. you could make your troops faster and more accurate. If they impliment speed caps in the game on weapons perhaps squad leaders could lower those caps. They could add passive accurace mods, speed mods, as well as defensive ones. They could reduce the ham costs of using special abilities so people are able to do them more often and more frequently.

My point here is there are many ways a squad leader could enhance their squad without going off down some path that leaders, in general, are not.

just my opinion you can take it or flame it as you see fit

Demenus McManus

I completly agree

Squad Leader should be more of a " leader " and not a mix of all other classes

I second that. Fix what is in place before you start adding more skills that may or may not work. Everyone wants new skills because the ones in place basically do not work as described. Once that skills work correctly, most people wont have anything to gripe about. Except their other professions! /wink to Rifleman everywhere

Well said. How can the traits of a leader be reflected in game mechanics?

Give squad leaders the ability to buff all secondary stats. Not a super buff, but a small one. Buffing the secondary stats will slightly reduce the HAM costs of special moves, give a small increase on regen times and allow squad mates to wear more of their heavy armor. It would stack with doctor buffs, food, and spices. It could be a passive ability, one that you get automatically just by grouping with a SL, or one that you have to activate that drains your entire HAM, but lasts for a while.

And the other ability that I feel a squad leader should have is the ability to heal Mind damage on others. This would represent the SLs ability to motivate his squad and keep them fighting when they are on the verge of metal colapse.

I agree as well but I also agree with the other side of it. Squad Leaders are supposed to motivate and drive thier squad, but they are also out in the field with the rest of them. We are not generals, we do not sit back behind the line of fire smoking cigars and shouting words of encouragment. We are out in the fray making quick decisions trying to keep track of the group while attacking.

Benifits such as reducing encuberances for armor or ham costs for weapons would be good "leader encouragment" skills. But skills that can help the SL in battle would be ans asset as well. In my opinion I think that more crowd control skills, or advanced versions of the ranged support tree skills, would benefit the SL not for themselves specificaly but for the team. Area versions of /warningshot, /threatenshot and /suppressionfire might be good. Though many carbineer skills would benefit a SL as well.

Irott Wrote:

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Area versions of /warningshot, /threatenshot and /suppressionfire might be good. Though many carbineer skills would benefit a SL as well.

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This is exactly why I'm going Master SL and Master Carbineer. Best of both worlds, good in a fight, but can lead the group I'm fighting with. I also took 1-2-4-0 Medic, so I can heal on the fly too.

Yeah I really need to give up pistoleer... (gonna miss that pistol whip though).

The skill that needs to be implemented though is some sort of paint target skill. /sysgroup attack %TT doesnt work to well in PvE.

Me: "Attack a gubber"

Group: "Which one?!?"