Promotes from: Infiltrator
Combat Priority: 6
Description: Global: When attacking an outpost, 33%(rounded up) of their shield is turned to drillers on your side. Local: When attacking an outpost, 33% (rounded up) of their shield is turned to drillers on your side.
Icon: brain or big chair
Flavor text: Shields may appear to protect you from all sides, but they only trap you inside.

Basically, the %s work like the Engineer. If the Siege Master is present, the global and local abilities combine, so a total of 66% of their shield is turned to friendly drillers.
How it functions: player A attacks player B's outpost. Player A has one sub with Siege Master and 20 drillers. B has 20 shield and 20 drillers.
After specialist stage, player A now has 34 (= 20 + 66% of 20 = 20 + 14) drillers and player B has 20 drillers and 6 (20 - 14) shield.
Player A wins with 8 drillers left.

Having 2 Siege Masters on the same sub would result in 132% conversion.
Using the same scenario as above but with 2 Siege Masters, after Specialist phase player A would have 46 drillers, and player B has 20 drillers and no shield.
Player A wins with 26 drillers!

The creation of this specialist was based on 2 ideas: 1) make the Infiltrator more appealing, and 2) create a counter against those 70 shield Queen+King+Security Chief turtles.
Functions similar to a Thief but with shields.
Siege Master can be countered by disabling your shield before impact, so that the attacker doesn't get the extra drillers.

It's a very interesting idea, actually. I think it would make the infiltrator better, and easier to defeat huge shields like you said. Only thing is, what happens when you get three in one attack? That adds up to 200% stolen, making it a bit op if done right...

Basically, it will reflect the Engineer's ability (I believe that 3 engineers can gain drillers after a battle).
If the devs believe that the Engineer should be fixed, then accordingly, the Siege Master will also be capped at 100%.
And even if they aren't capped at 100%, the person being attacked can still disable their shields and avoid having to fight extra drillers.

I think there should be either: no local or no global. Having both make him a little bit over powered as every single attack that you do will garuntee your way past 33% of their shields no matter what.

On a second note though. The infiltrator drains 20 shields. In order for this specialist to be worth more than the infiltrator, it would have to be used on an outpost with shields greater than 60. Otherwise the upgrade actually makes the infiltrator worse. If given the option, I would definitely not take this upgrade. (Unless of course it is global and local abilities but that is a bit OP)

r10t-- wrote:I think there should be either: no local or no global. Having both make him a little bit over powered as every single attack that you do will garuntee your way past 33% of their shields no matter what.

On a second note though. The infiltrator drains 20 shields. In order for this specialist to be worth more than the infiltrator, it would have to be used on an outpost with shields greater than 60. Otherwise the upgrade actually makes the infiltrator worse. If given the option, I would definitely not take this upgrade. (Unless of course it is global and local abilities but that is a bit OP)

I don't think it's OP, as his job is to get rid of shields effectively. Otherwise a weaker alternative could be that the Siege Master's abilities only work on actual shield, not potential shield cap.

Keep it in perspective to other powerful specialists like the Tycoon or MoE.
If the Tycoon were to be introduced today, people would say "5.3 hrs instead of 8? That's OP, you could have double the attacks AND get more drillers locally? Insane! Why are there no drawbacks?"
Likewise if the Minister of Energy were to be added today, likely responses would be "He's basically 6 generators in one and only knocks off 1 driller per cycle? That drawback is nothing!"

The effect would have to be 'of their max shields' rather than their current shields....otherwise it would be a useless specialist. Also you could just disable your shields before impact.

connor3491 wrote:The effect would have to be 'of their max shields' rather than their current shields....otherwise it would be a useless specialist. Also you could just disable your shields before impact.

Yes, that would make sense.
But that is the trick. Your enemy would rather disable their shield, making them reduce their possible defense. If you had a Siege Master and Navigator, you could just float them next to the outpost you are going to take while another sub attacks it, putting your enemy at perpetual unknown whether to disable their shields or not.

Mighty problem with local: turning off your shield will stop Siege Master from helping them. Since Siege Master only helps them, turning off your shields will nullify his effects. Therefore, it should be 50%/66% of total possible shield