Squad Leader Archive

Hello!

Volatris here, you can call me Vol. I played a Squad Leader in Beta, and will be continuing to do so here in Live. I also tried to be vocal about the profession, both in educating players about it, as well as developers. I will also try to continue doing that here in Live.

For the time being, I am going to post three posts:

1. Everything I know about Squad Leaders - Philosophy, Character Creation, Play Guide and More!




• One definitive source for everything you need to know about playing a Squad Leader, from one player's perspective. Hopefully many more ideas and opinions will be added here!


2. Explanation of Squad Leader Special Abilities




• A simple thread discussing the status of the Squad Leader specials. Since their descriptions tend to be a bit vague.


3. Devs: Squad Leader Status, Issues, Suggestions




• This is a thread that addresses the developmental status of the profession from a game balance and design point of view.

Please check out these threads, whether you are an experienced player, or a total newbie. I will post a link to them below. We can gain a lot from discussion, and we failed to do this a bit in Beta.

I would ask that we try and keep newthreads on this board to a minimum, and instead try to consolidate our posts, information, questions and ideas into existing threads as often as possible. This avoids people feeling a need to bump and having lots of threads with just one or two replies, and also provides the developers with a fewer set of more-complete threads from which to gather information.

Thanks to you all for stopping by, and I look forward to helping a build a community here for this most-important profession!

- Vol
Once and Future Squad Leader
Naritus Server

(P.S. Yes, I will be playing on the Naritus Server when it goes live, hopefully within the week or so)

Good to see you around Vol. Gonna be a pleasure campaigning for the SL with you!

Everything I know about Squad Leaders - Philosophy, Character Creation, Play Guide and More!

Can be found here: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=squad_leader&message.id=5

Explantion of Squad Leader Special Abilities can be found here: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=squad_leader&message.id=8

Devs: Squad Leader Status, Issues, Suggestionscan be found here: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=squad_leader&message.id=9

Whew! Enough of this boardery! Its mighty slow! Well, time to fool around on these other servers until Naritus comes up some day!

Thanks Vol for all that hard work.

It seems like our profession may be overlooked, but it is clear to me that the players interested in becoming Squad Leaders are educated and informed. Hopefully it won't take long before the Devs get those servers up and the bugs out of our profession.

Looking forward to seeing you all in game.

-Tiakh
Aspiring Squad Leader

Excellent Squad Leader guide Vol.

I just managed to get Squad Leader and Ranger before Beta ended. My goal is to get both Master Squad Leader and Master Ranger (by my calculations this is just doable). Looking at the two professions they seem to me to very complimentry as the ranger tree includes may support functions. It seems to me that a SL that can set up a field base camp would useful player indeed. I have always loved rangers and play one on EQ (I have a 65 ranger on Cazic Thule who was my very first EQ toon and was started 4 years ago). I am also one of my guild's raid leads on EQ and I have always enjoyed that aspect of the game. So to me this seems like an excellent combination. Does anyone have any advice on achieving this goal?

Rastrel Stormrider
aspiring Ranger, Squad Leader

Yeah thats a great combo. Personally, I couldn't stand getting all that camp XP

The only advice I'd give is find a few good friends who would be willing to help you get camp XP. Get some crafters who are out surveying and throw a camp under 'em. That sort of thing.

I think a Squad Leader/Combat Medic would also be very potent, but personally I can't stand doing all that crafting that Master Medic requires

- Vol

Planning on getting a good bit of SL to go along with Master Creature Handler and some Pistol. Play with a friend who is going to be a MBE/MCH.

Was the only profession I could see that would benefit both of us and our pets, instead of just benefiting myself.

Well good to have you. Good luck with all your Scout XP needs that duo has

- Vol

Personally, i am very excited about taking some of the SL trees, but mixing and matching them. I was playing on the character builder, and the character combo that i have come up with at this point looks to be a great well rounded ranged combat character. So far it will be:

---Master scout (full tree)

---Master marksman (full tree)

---Bounty hunter---

Full pistol tree

Full carbine tree

Full lightning cannon tree

---Squad leader

Full tactics tree

Full strategy tree

---Basic Novice Pistoleer

---Basice Novice Carbineer

---Basic Novice Rifleman

However, i am concerned about the /volley now that you have mentioned how buggy it is. And i do have a question about that. Volley basically designates the target that the SL is attacking, it does not designate a particular aspect of the HAM bar?? If it only designates the target, then it is basically a glorified assist ability, and i would not find that very useful, basically worthless if you have a decent team of folks you trust/work with often. If you are the group leader and 6 mobs are attacking the group, all party members should use /assist on you instead of you using up an ability and/or a round of attacks (correct me if this is wrong, as i never made it to SL in Beta3). HOWEVER, if this ability let's you designate all attacks to a particular aspect of the HAM bar, then it would truly be an awesome ability and would make the SL invaluable in large groups. Imagine taking 15 folks up against Kimo's and being able to get all attacks made to go toward health instead of 65% to health, 25% to action and 10% to mind . Please, i would love to know more specifically how it works.

Knowledge is power

Yes, at this time /volleyfire is a glorified /assist. But its buggier than that...

Yes, in a group that knows what its doing, at this time, Squad Leader is minimally effective. See my thread in this forum addressed to the Dev's on SL balancing issues for more.

- Vol

Hello, I am an aspiring Squad Leader on the Radiant server.

Just wanted to say hi, and tell you about my planned skill trees.

Squad Leader - Master

Pistoleer -Master

Scout -Prerequs for Squad Leader.

Marksman- Prerequs for Squad Leader and Pistol 4 (for Pistoleer)

Entertainer- Music 4 and Entertainment Healing 3 (I need something to do in my camps, lol).

I look forward to reading more about the Squad Leader profession. I always have a group, I play with 3 real life friends with a good mix of ranged and melee skills. We trust each other, so using the SL skills shouldn't be a problem (they won't see it as me bossing them around, lol).

Its very good to have you guys! Welcome!