With regards to global specs, im against the nerfs and im going with buffing the scrub specialists. Also, i believe the engineer is fine the way it is. The underwhelming/niche specs i believe are war hero, diplomat, elder, infiltrator, and thief.
War Hero : keeping the kill 20 drillers in every combat, add a combo-like mechanism where for each successive combat, the kill count increases by 5 to a maximum of 30(?). Option 1: Kill count stays at 30 until War hero switches from offensive to defensive and vice versa. Option 2: Kill count does not stay at 30 but the combo is cyclic. So, first 20 then 25 then 30 then back to 20. (sounds interesting right right?)
Diplomat : keep the release captured specs ability, add a speed ability. Every sub that is headed to an outpost that has a diplomat is sped up to x1.5(?) speed factor. Every sub except an attacking sub, so gifts could be sped up and rallying your drillers could be sped up. (neat buff i know )
Elder : keep the no specs participate in combat ability, add a negative speed ability. Every attacking sub is slowed down to a sum of 15%(?) of the original total travel time. The count could be something like the attacking sub travels at x0.5 factor from the moment it takes off, and it stays at x0.5 speed until it's travel "debt" is paid off. And if the attacking sub has helmsman and etc the speed will resume back to x2.0 speed. (i know this sounds kinda sketchy but there isnt any spec that slows down subs, maybe the devs purposely disregarded sub slowing abilities, idk)
Infiltrator : Ive made a separate thread on this before (see viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2689). The gist of it is keep the infiltrator the same, add in an ability where by if the infiltrator is captured he still somehow gets rid of shields, maybe some sort of tinkerer debuff, and if the infiltrator is released he gets to travel x3.0(?) faster perhaps.
Thief : Lets compare the Thief to King. I understand that the core belief of the thief is that it scales based on the opposing strength. In contrast, the king based on the local (idk whats the word) strength. So, i believe that the thief should have a combat ability that is equal or stronger than the king. Hypothetically, the king has a multiplier of 1.33 on the drillers (1 every 3), whereas the thief is 0.03 less at 1.3 multiplier (kinda). The king has stronger combat potential, the combat ability works defensively and its even global (disregarding the -20 shields). So im saying the thief lacks in versatility as well. But i am against just adding some boring ol speed buff as if we didnt already have enough of speed specs . Maybe make it 1.4 strong so thats 20% stolen or 1 out of every 5 with a base minimum of 5 stolen. (i think the base minimum is crucial tho) SO, idk .
Numbers with (?) means i am not certain that that number is balanced. :>
Buffing these specs however, does not address what TopKilla has brought up that is, the lack of incentive for eliminating players on top of the heightened difficulty to eliminate someone that has turtled up or a grieving kingmaker. My opinion is that turtles are not a fundamental flaw because i believe a player should only be eliminated if said player has made an error in judgement and mistake, so a player that has played a perfect defense should survive via turtling. The grieving kingmaker is another story tho, i think this issue can only be addressed with the whole "spec overstacking" problem which everyone on the forums already discussed. So id rather not discuss that here .
PS i think martyr is really underwhelming too and i think she just blows up too easily to be utilized tactically. so im hoping she only blows up if she loses the combat or meets another spec to emphasize mutual destruction. (too much to ask for i know but cmon a martyr hire? its game losing.)
PS PS now that i think about it the DA is ultra niche too, JUST MAKE HIM ONLY VISIBLE WHEN TRAVELING IN A SUB, INVISIBLE WHEN ON AN OUTPOST ONLY AN INTELLIGENCE OFFICER CAN SPOT AN INVISIBLE DA HAHA