Squad Leaders no longer need to be the group leader to benefit the group.
Multiple Squad Leaders can combine their skills for greater group enhancement.
New group buffs that give Squad Leaders more control and flexibility for how they enhance the group.
All passive abilities changed to more easily used and understood active abilities.
New group waypoint ability

Steady Aim (Strategy I) - Enhances group accuracy.
Call to Arms (Strategy III) - Enhances group armor ratings.
Volley Fire (Strategy IV) - Gives group members the chance to bypass enemy armor.
Tactics (Tactics I) - Enhances group defenses.
Blaze of Glory (Tactics III) - Gives or enhances the chance to score a critical hit.
Double Time (Tactics IV) - Reduces cooldown times for group members.
Boost Morale (Leadership IV) - Enhances group Action/Mind regeneration.
Form Up (Mobility II) - Enhances group movement speed.
Retreat! (Mobility III) - Significantly enhances group movement speed for a short duration. Prevents all other combat actions.
Charge! (Mobility IV) - Significantly enhances group movement speed for a short duration. Places the Squad Leader at heightened risk by reducing their defenses.

Toughen (Tactics II) - Increases the armor rating of a single group member.
High Yield (Strategy II) - Increases the damage output of a single group member.
Verbal Assault (Leadership II) - Increases the amount of aggro generated by a single group member.
Combat Feint (Leadership III) - Decreases the amount of aggro generated by a single group member.

Group System Message (Novice SL) - Sends an on screen system message to all group members. (Same as previously.)
Called Shot (Novice SL) - Significantly increases the accuracy and damage of the next attack to the designated target. Only works for one attack and then must be reapplied. The accuracy and damage bonus increases as the Squad Leader learns more skills.
Rally Point () - Creates a waypoint for all group members. (Functions similar to the /waypoint command.)
Paint Target (Leadership I) - Increases the accuracy and damage for all attacks to the painted target in the next 20 seconds (Same as old Volley Fire.)
Second Chance (Master Squad Leader) - Equalizes all damage and wounds across all group members in the area. This ability has a very long recharge time.

Heavy weapon AOE damage % is now displayed on weapons that have splash damage.
Fixed an issue where commando Area-Of-Effect weapons wouldn't give AOE damage.
Heavy weapon AOE damage percentage is now explicitly determined by the maximum range of the weapon. Longer range weapons have smaller AOE damage %.
Decreased the AOE range of commando grenades, should aggro less mobs now.
Fixed an issue with grenades where the AOE radius of a grenade would be centered on where the attacker was instead of where the target was.
Increased damage on all commando grenades.
Slightly increased the chance of grenade effects sticking to their targets.
Slightly increased the chance of some heavy weapon state effects sticking to their targets.
Slightly increased the effect duration for some heavy weapons.
Increased crafted grenade stack size from 5 to 10.

Demolition Shot: This ability gives a damage bonus against droids and buildings.
Focus Fire: This ability decreases the area of effect on AOE weapons & gives a damage bonus. The damage bonus is only for non-AOE weapons.
Dead Bang Shot: This ability decreases the range of an AOE weapon & gives a damage bonus - damage bonus only for non-AOE weapons.
Overkill Shot: This ability has a long warmpup/cooldown but gives a great damage bonus. This damage bonus is for non-AOE weapons.

What is changing? We will be changing the way movement buffs and snares stack in combat. "Stacking" buffs means that multiple effects of the same type are used (or applied) in combat to cause a greater effect.

Who is affected by this change? This change will affect anyone who uses movement buffs and/or snares.

Why is this changing? This will address current gameplay issues and will prepare the way for future Squad Leader enhancements.

Can I get some more specific details? The current situation: Currently movement-buffs and snares stack in combat. A basic example of what this means is that if you get a movement-buff to double your speed and then get "snared" in combat to half your speed, your movement will be reduced back to your normal movement speed. Basically, a movement buff cancels a snare and a snare cancels a movement buff. Many types of movement buffs and snares can be used together to cause additional effects. For example, two or more movement buffs will "stack" to cause you to go very fast and multiple snares will stack and can prevent a player from moving. Additionally, snares will stack to quickly prevent all movement. A single snare would cut your movement in half another snare to reduce your movement in half would give you a movement of zero.

We are changing this so that: Only one temporary movement buff or effect can be active on a character at one time and movement enhancers will be overwritten by snares (in other words, one will cancel the other).
All buffs that modify movement will continue to stack as normal; however the movement effects will be handled so that only one is in effect at any given time.

For example, a movement buff could make your character move at x2 speed. If your character gets snared, rather than moving at x1 speed you will now be moving at x1/2 speed (as though you didn't have a movement buff on at all.) When the snare wears off you will return to x2 speed.

Also, snares won't stack. This means that if you are already moving at 1/2 speed when you get hit with a 1/4-speed snare, your movement would only be reduced to 1/4 of your base movement rate, rather than being reduced to 1/4 of your current (1/2-speed) total movement rate. (Total movement rate is calculated by adding up your base movement rate and all of your movement modifiers).

Similarly movement enhancements cannot be stacked. Only the most powerful enhancement will be active, when that one wears off the next most powerful will become active and so forth until there are no further movement buffs are on the character.

Finally there are still a few permanent movement enhancements and snares, things like weapon & armor hindrances or Fleet Footed for pets. These permanent modifiers adjust the Base Movement speed and will always stack with each other.