EVE: Leadership Skills

Most players in EVE Online sooner or later learn about leadership bonuses and why they are important. These very training-time-intensive skills are not to be underestimated: a Fleet Commander with good leadership skills can easily turn the tides in any engagement. In EVE 5% is a lot, and can mean the difference between life and death. For example, in a maxed out configuration a skilled Armored Warfare Specialist can dish out a mind-boggling 25,88% reduction to armor repairers duration and capacitor usage, not to mention a similar bonus to armor resists – just as if you had one more EANM II in low slots.

Fleet Commander & co.

FCs on voice comms are not necessarily the ones who are Fleet Commanders in the gang. To remedy this, each squad, wing and fleet has a Booster role besides Commander slot.

To reduce lag, CCP has introduced Commander and Booster roles in fleets, and only players with the Booster role will give bonuses. By default, Commander and Booster is the same player, but it can be changed later. Squad Boosters give the bonus up to 10 people in their squad, including themselves and the Commander. The next level is the Wing Commander, who can command as many squads as his/hers Wing commander skill level. Wing Booster will give bonuses to the whole Wing. The highest slot is the Fleet Commander slot – as before, each level allows the command of one more Wing. The Fleet Booster gives bonus to everyone in the fleet.

Bonuses don’t stack; instead, only the highest bonus from each command level is applied. However, all commanders (fleet, wing, squad) need to have Leadership skills for the bonuses to propagate.

Which Leadership skills give a bonus?

There is several Leadership skills, and each of them has its own effect in the fleet. Additionally, if a pilot has the right Mindlink implant plugged in, the bonus generated by the skill is replaced by a static implant bonus.

Skill (“branch”) Bonus per level Static Mindlink Bonus
Armored Warfare +2% to armor HP +15% to armor HP
Siege Warfare +2% to shield HP +15% to shield HP
Skirmish Warfare +2% to ship agility +15% to ship agility
Mining Foreman +2% to mining amount +15% to mining amount
Information Warfare +2% to targeting range +15% to targeting range

Warfare Links

“Warfare links are dedicated fleet command systems designed for use on battlecruisers and advanced command class ships.”

These modules are the ones to give the amazing bonuses mentioned earlier, but only in conjunction with skills and mindlink implants. Each has a specific effect, for example one of them has “Increases the speed of the gang’s personal and targeted armor repair systems“. The basic bonus of these modules is very low: only 2%, but it can be increased with skills.

Each level of the Armored Warfare Specialist skill above level one gives 100% per level. Additionally, each level of Warfare Link Specialist gives an additional 10% per level.

The above is true for each Leadership “branch” of course; each of them has three Warfare Links to choose from.

For Armored Warfare we have:

Warfare Link Bonus type
Armored Warfare Link – Damage Control Reduces the capacitor need of the gang’s personal and targeted armor repair systems.
Armored Warfare Link – Rapid Repair Increases the speed of the gang’s personal and targeted armor repair systems.
Armored Warfare Link – Passive Defense Grants a bonus to the gang’s armor resistances.

Dedicated ships

The description of Warfare Links states, that only Battlecruisers and Command Ships can use such modules. This is partially true. To complete the portfolio we need to add Tech III ships (Warfare Processor subsystem allows the use of warfare links) Industrial Command Ships, Capital Industrial Ships, Carriers, Supercarriers and Titans. Each level of the Command Ships skill gives an additional 3% bonus to a specific Leadership branch.

Fleet Command Ships are specifically designed to make use of Warfare Links: they can fit up to three Links at the same time.

Each race has Command Ships with different specialization:

Amarr Damnation Armored Warfare
Gallente Eos Information Warfare
Caldari Vulture Siege Warfare
Minmatar Claymore Skirmish Warfare

Sample Damnation setup

Damnation[Damnation, Plated]
Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
1600mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I

Warp Disruptor II
Stasis Webifier II
Sensor Booster II
Sensor Booster II

Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Torrent Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Torrent Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Torrent Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Torrent Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Torrent Assault Missile
Armored Warfare Link – Damage Control
Armored Warfare Link – Rapid Repair

Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I

Hobgoblin II x5

Stats (in fleet, with maxed out Armored Warfare bonuses)
Armor HP: 37,656
Resists: EM 84% Therm 79,1% Kin 88% Exp 93,6%
EHP: 295,155
DPS: 179 with Faction Missiles (+99 from drones)

After swapping EANM II with Imperial/Khanid Navy and T2 rigs
Armor HP: 41,002
Resists: EM 85,5% Therm 81,1% Kin 89,1% Exp 94,2%
EHP: 350,136
DPS: 179 with Faction Missiles (+99 from drones)

This setup will perform admirably in an armor spider tank fleet either in PVP or Incursion fleet, dishing out -25,88% bonus to the duration and capacitor usage of all local and remote reps. PVP version might use some speed mod, as this flying tank is rather slow.

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