Starting to avoid some teams with ...

... a Leader in them. The full-party added hp (at 80% proc rate) makes KO's harder to pull off, especially when coupled with defensive units like blue bot, canis, or even wasteland rider. Often want to avoid the chance that I don't down a Siren or Cannon Battlemaster and it comes back in the next turn.

Great feeling! A decent adjustment to mix things up by Dakota. Maybe it's time Leaders were added to the tier list?  

It balanced the game well without giving freebies to a bunch of new people who didn't earn it. Still not viable to run the leader with how many op mercs out there.

Which is funny because I was about to create a thread talking about how much I dislike the Leader's Vitality skill. I have found it pretty useless thus far and would have preferred the leader to still have one skill, but allow the player to select which skill it is.

That would've shaken things up because you would never know what kind of team you would be going up against, adding to the excitement of PVP. Right now it's pretty dull, leaving me to the idea that I might want to compete only in Raid events from here on out.

Ditto to ryback. I think that was what I suggested in the leader skill thread, right before they released the hp buff, and what I still would have liked to see done.

I don't dislike the hp buff however. It adds a new dimension to leaders that is outside the box, and encourages some depth of design. The squad leaders skills, though not op by any case, when combined with their amped up proc rate could be used very strategically. Like an agility tank team with dutch, running something like Canis-Mordeo/golem-dutch-*****-blue bot

Yeah, I agree that leaders on their own aren't great. It's mainly when paired with a defensive/debuff squad that the HP boost can become so significant. Top 100 players have plenty other options but for the general player who can't afford one of those prime defensive mercs, it's a pretty good addition.

A custom 2nd skill would have been awesome. At first, I was thinking it would have skewed the gameplay in the direction it was already in but there are so many skills that could be used creatively.

Dominance -> mini Swift Nox
Black Heart -> offensive version of Odin
Deflection Field -> a unique skill right now... imagine running 2 of these!

Although for myself, I'd probably go the boring route and double up on blue bot skill

mrpug, you have to realize that the "add skill" option, like in BB, would require a lvl 99 epic+ merc to gain the skill from. That would require some creativity to get skills because all epic+ mercs would instantly jump in price ten fold.

The only way I can imagine this happening, and being somewhat fair, is for them to give everyone the same 8 or so skills and you get to pick one from the list (only after you hit lvl 170), but once you select the second skill it's locked for good (or until you change leaders, then you have to repurchase the second skill for x # of credits)

honestly, prices jumping a little bit wouldn't be a bad thing. I remember when it was standard that after the event would sell for no less than 10 res or so.

Adding the skill button would all of a sudden make some epics mercs that at the moment are worth nothing and giving them some value.

Like mecha horde is a good example.

I would love to see them keep the HP buffed as a locked in skill, and allow us to sack a lvl 99 epic to give it the skill, and let us change the skill whenever we wanted (at the cost of the permanent loss of the prior skill) That way leaders would stick as pretty much lower stat variant of whatever epic you put into them. Sacking and incinerate or black bot would be one of the few exceptions where some leaders might actually gain stats, but while OP in raid, I haven't seen many black bots out there in pvp this round, and I roflstomp teams with incinerates because there have been so many good defensive mercs out lately.

Stay......away.......from........BB........please

Agree with ace. It would be cool to have blackbot proc though. Imagine all the mercs worth 100+ Res being flushed away. Im pretty sure there would be 0 hellcats left.

You have to remember you can't sack fams with 2 skills.

Which in FF means no lethal could be turned into a skill.

Just pointing that out.

You could sack a Tigrey and turn your leader into a mini hellcat, but only 50% of the time because the second buff is already locked in, and only one buff per merc per battle could proc. So you would have a 70% chance of proc'ing health OR wis.

Imo that is why locking the buff proc and letting us choose an attack skill works. Because it prevents us from simply adding an OP buff skill and imbalancing the game horribly.

It's more that I like to see variance between the games.

If you want to play FF then play FF.

If you want to play BB then play BB

Please dont say you want to play FF only if its just like BB.........

Ya I said from beginning I hope they don't add it.

I don't play BB nor do I want to. But that said, I don't think that adding customization to the ONLY merc in the game we are FORCED to play in 100% of our battles is a bad thing.

To say it frankly. It sucks that you are stuck with such a crappy leader, who is nothing but a drag on that party in every competitive event where he/she is forced to rear her ugly head.

If BB didn't exist as a game, someone would think up some way to make the leaders not suck, and I think that add skill is a pretty darn good one.

I agree with you in every sense of your desire to have FF depart from BB almost in every way shape and form. But to NOT do something that makes absolute sense just because it's sort of kinda like something that BB did is asinine.

I suppose I may be being a bit closed minded to the idea.

It just doesn't sit right with me I guess