The Leader com features buffs to Deploy, Grit, and Defense, which improve Roland’s personal survivability and turret availability. In addition, the com grants increased team experience and mat2/3 version give reduced shield recharge delay and recoil reduction respectively to the entire team.
The Pros:
-Deploy buff allows for frequent Scorpio Turret use (Roland’s only com that buffs that skill).
-Co-op friendly: Team buffs ftw.
-Gear flexible: None of the benefits of the Leader com depend on having specific gear.
The Cons:
-1st line effect is eventually useless (once you and your team are all 69 and have maxed all weapon proficiencies).
-No gun DPS com buffs.
-Turret focused build loses DPS skills, Gun focused build doesn’t take good advantage of the short turret cooldown.
This guide contains two builds, the first, the Turret-Leader, is focused on maximizing the power of our frequently available Scorpio Turret. The second, the Gun-Leader, uses the turret mainly as a distraction device to draw aggro from Roland and his team and thus uses it’s remaining skill points to buff Roland’s guns.
The Turret-Leader:
The Skill Tree:
http://talent.87bazillion.com/soldier.php?050550550550535550055
The Why:
Infantry Tree: 20 points
-Sentry: Since we will be able to have the Scorpio Turret out almost constantly, might as well get as much damage out of it as we can.
-Metal Storm: On-kill Fire Rate and Recoil Reduction. This works with all our guns, and will help us in dealing with what our turret can’t as well as keeping Refire in effect.
-Refire: This skill works by increasing the cooldown rate of our Scorpio Turret by 50%/pt. for 2 seconds. Hitting an enemy during the effect will refresh the duration (meaning it will last for 2 seconds from the most recent hit).
Guided Missile: This skill is rather quite useful, the rocket can target any enemy within a fair range of the turret, including enemies that are out of the arc of the turret’s gun, it fires the rocket upwards, which means is usually lands on it’s target from above, which often means it will succeed in hitting enemies behind cover, especially low cover. The rocket does explosive damage, even if you have an artifact of a different element set for the turret, hence the turret can deal two different types of damage at the same time this way. At 5/5 the Scorpio Turret will fire a missile every 4 seconds for a total of 5 over the full 20 seconds that the turret is active.
Support Tree: 23 points
-Defense: It’s buffed by the com and increases the speed that our shield recharges. This does not affect shield regeneration from other sources such as Quick Charge.
-Quick Charge: One of the best defensive skills Roland has, Quick Charge gives powerful shield regeneration on-kill based on maximum shield capacity.
-Barrage: Since we will be able to have our Scorpio Turret out almost constantly, might as well squeeze as much damage as possible out of it.
-Deploy: It’s buffed by the com, and is the principle reason that we will be able to have the Scorpio Turret out nearly constantly. Since this skill increases Cooldown Rate, our Scorpio Turret will be cooling down even while it is in use. This is because, while in use, action skills have -100% Cooldown Rate, which negates their base cooldown rate (of 100%). Thus the additional Cooldown Rate from Deploy is still reducing our cooldown even when the Scorpio Turret is in use.
-Supply Drop (3/5): This is an excellent skill to run 3/5. It’s enough points that you should easily be able to resupply yourself and even allies with ammo of all types, and since our Scorpio Turret will be out frequently, we’re getting even more mileage out of these 3 points here.
Medic Tree: 25 points
-Fitness: A useful health buff that also improves the effectiveness of Aid Station and Stat on ourselves.
-Aid Station: With the Scorpio Turret out all the time, and the damage reduction we have from Grit (which is further buffed by our com), the health regeneration from Aid Station is particularly effective in this build, especially if you place your turret well so that you can take cover near it and continue firing at enemies to take advantage of Refire.
-Overload: This will, like Metal Storm, help our guns to be able to handle what the turret cannot.
-Grit: Damage Reduction versus bullets that’s buffed by our com? Heck Yes!
-Stat: On-kil health regeneration for Roland and his nearby allies. This can regenerate the Scorpio Turret’s health as well, which can ensure that it remains in fighting shape for the full 20 seconds. If Roland and his team stay near the turret, the overlapping health regeneration from this and Aid Station can easily be enough to keep up with considerable levels of enemy damage output, keeping Roland or any of his teammates from taking a knee.
The Gun-Leader:
The Skill Tree:
http://talent.87bazillion.com/soldier.php?505555050505535050055
The Why:
Infantry Tree: 25 points
-Impact: More bullet damage? Yes please.
-Scattershot: For when we break out our Shotguns.
-Metal Storm: On-kill fire rate and recoil reduction buff. Yes.
-Refire: Although our turret isn’t anything special since our skills are focused on guns, just having it out will divide our enemy’s attention between it and Roland and his team, so the shorter it’s cooldown, the better.
-Assault: For when we break out our Combat Rifles (and Machine Guns too).
Support Tree: 23 points
-Defense: It’s buffed by the com and increases the speed that our shield recharges. This does not affect shield regeneration from other sources such as Quick Charge.
-Quick Charge: One of the best defensive skills Roland has, Quick Charge gives powerful shield regeneration on-kill based on maximum shield capacity.
-Grenadier: On-kill grenade ammo regeneration and increase grenade damage (which also affects rockets). This will give us plenty of Grenades to toss at some fools, and increase their damage as well as our damage with Carnage shotguns and Rocket Launchers.
-Deploy: It’s buffed by the com and substantially reduces our turret cooldown, and the shorter our turret cooldown the more often we can use it as a distraction.
-Supply Drop (3/5): This is an excellent skill to run 3/5. It’s enough points that you should easily be able to resupply yourself and even allies with ammo of all types, and since our Scorpio Turret will be out frequently, we’re getting even more mileage out of these 3 points here.
Medic Tree: 20 points
-Fitness: A useful health buff that also improves the effectiveness of Stat on ourselves.
-Overload: Bigger mag for the win.
-Grit: It’s buffed by the com, and synergizes nicely with the regeneration from Stat and Quick Charge.
-Stat: On-kill health regeneration for Roland and nearby allies.
Gear:
Weapons:
Both builds work with just about any weapon you desire, but the Gun-Leader build has Scattershot and Assault, and thus has a bit of a preference for Shotguns and Combat Rifles.
Shield:
As usual, Roland has a natural preference for high capacity shields, though the mat2 version of the Leader com has shield recharge delay reduction, and so this preference for capacity is slightly diminished (but still significant). As a result, Pangolin shields with the highest capacity are typically preferred, though a high capacity Torgue Muscleman is also a good choice, particularly for the Turret-Leader build given the stacking health regeneration effects of Aid Station and Stat. If your enemies deal primarily damage of a single elemental type, then a max capacity version of the applicable Extreme Resistance shield is also a sound choice.
Grenade Mod:
As we will have plenty of Grenades thanks to Supply Drop and, in the case of the Gun-Leader build, Grenadier as well, feel free to spawn away with dem nades. Mod choice is largely a matter of user preference.
Mat2 or Mat3?:
The mat2 version boast a -28% Team Shield Recharge Delay effect which decreases the time after last taking damage that is required for you and your allies shields to begin recharging. The mat3 version has +28% Team Recoil Reduction. Overall, given the significant accuracy buff most weapon types get from weapon proficiency, the mat3 is of limited value, and thus the mat2 version is usually better, if you know that you and/or allies are using a weapon that actually has nontrivial recoil, then the mat3 version may very well be worth it.
Gameplay tips and other information:
The 1st line effect on this com can be very useful for accelerating leveling weapon proficiencies, as the extra experience is applied toward the experience requirements of weapon proficiency levels. Other than Shock Trooper (which buffs Refire), Roland has no other coms which buff his Scorpio Turret’s cooldown either directly or via skill buffs, given how specialized the Shock Trooper com is, the Leader com is an excellent alternative for builds focused on spamming the Scorpio Turret as much as possible.