Zero Company has eight specializations any recruit can take, four exotic ones locked to specific operators, and a second specialization slot that opens up later in the campaign. Every specialization has one Ultimate, one Standard ability and two or three Passives. If you want a single answer for Hawks on a first campaign: Scoundrel, paired with a Sharpshooter somewhere in the squad. The reasons, and everything else, are below.

Ability names and descriptions here are from EA's official specialization guide, published the day after launch. The notes on what is strong are the community's after one week of play, labelled as such. Patch 1.2 was the first patch to change balance, and the lines it affected are corrected below.

Update, September 11: patch 1.1 made no deliberate balance changes. It did fix Secondary Specializations not adding their passive Cross Trainings at Relationship +8, and it corrected Tel-Rea's Force attack damage and a bug that doubled Ion Blaster critical hits. The full list.

Update, October 15: patch 1.2 is the first one with deliberate balance changes, and they land on the Scout, the Astromech and Cly. It also fixes a run of ability bugs, a few of which were quietly making things stronger than intended. The class entries below now reflect it, and the full set is in "What patch 1.2 changed" further down.

How specializations work

Every operator has one. You choose and can change it freely for Hawks and any custom operator you recruit; authored operators like Trick, Kabb and Jae have fixed talents and, in some cases, a specialization you cannot change. A second specialization slot unlocks later in the campaign, so most of your roster ends up running two of the eight at once, which is where the real builds live.

Abilities come in three kinds. The Ultimate is the big one, used at the right moment. The Standard ability is an active you use most turns. Passives are always on. Most abilities cost Action Points; the ones that cost Advantage instead draw on a pool the whole squad shares and earns by dealing damage, which is what our starter guide means when it tells you to use Call for Backup every turn.

The eight

Assault

Frontline and mobile, built to close on enemies in cover and pull them out of it. Ultimate Sweeping Salvo damages and Disorients everything in a large cone, and Disoriented enemies miss more. Standard Bull Rush charges a target for melee damage and shoves them back; anything pushed into an object or off a ledge takes impact damage, and the developers listed shoving enemies into the void as one of their favourite things in the game. Passives: Fleet of Foot extends your first move, Strike the Flanks raises crit chance against enemies out of cover.

EA's own recommendation for new players is Assault or Soldier with a Blaster Rifle. That is sound. Jae arrives as an Assault.

Gunslinger

Fast blaster attacks against multiple targets. Ultimate Open Fire shoots twice in one turn at any combination of enemies. Standard Quick Draw fires a fast sidearm shot and, if it kills, refunds one Action Point. Passives: Keen Eye adds ranged crit chance, Onslaught raises the damage of every primary blaster attack you make in the same turn.

After one week this is the class the subreddit is loudest about. "There's no going back from Quick Draw on Gunslinger" is a thread with 1,300 upvotes, and the developers' own Q&A named "an extended turn with a Gunslinger who gains action points on a kill" as a favourite strategy. Chain Quick Draw kills on weakened enemies and a Gunslinger's turn keeps going.

Heavy

Armour and taunts. Ultimate Bulwark forces every enemy in an area to attack you while raising your defence and cutting incoming damage for the turn. Standard Unstoppable gives two stacks of Retaliation, so you counter the next two attacks against you; before patch 1.2 its bonus to Retaliation damage worked but was missing from the damage readout, which made it look broken. Three passives: Conditioning adds maximum health, Heavy Armor Training adds defence and damage reduction, and Intimidating Posture makes your primary blaster hits taunt the target into shooting you next.

A thread on whether the authored operators were deliberately given the wrong classes argues Trick, who arrives as a Sharpshooter, "works insanely well as a heavy" once his passive is upgraded, because his health pool roughly doubles and the taunts become safe. We have not verified the numbers; it is a reasonable read of the abilities.

Medic

Healing and injury prevention, which in a game where three injuries kill an operator is not a support role so much as a permadeath insurance policy. Ultimate Morale Boost gives you and nearby allies Morale, which restores health at the start of each turn until the stacks run out. Standard Combat Stim grants an ally Stimulant for two turns: more health, more melee damage, more ranged damage. Passives: Lifesaving Measures improves Medpac healing, First Responder gives you a permanent Medpac without using a utility slot and makes anyone you Rally come back fully healed and able to act.

The Medic and Gunslinger pairing is the one EA's guide and the community agree on: Combat Stim before a Gunslinger's turn is the highest single-turn damage in the game.

Scoundrel

The wildcard, and our pick for Hawks. Ultimate Easy Mark marks an enemy so you Assist the next ally who attacks it, joining their attack with your own. Standard Identify Weakness makes an enemy Vulnerable: the next damaging attack on them is a guaranteed critical hit. Passives: Never Play Fair adds damage when you assist, Scoundrel's Instinct gives your attacks Defense Penetration.

The Scoundrel pays into everything else. Identify Weakness turns a Sharpshooter's Precision Shot into a guaranteed crit that cannot miss; Easy Mark turns Call for Backup into a squad volley; the assist damage passive rewards the free-action habit the whole game is built around. One honest adjustment since patch 1.2: Easy Mark's assist shot used to deal its damage even when it missed, and now it does not, so the volley is a little less reliable than it was in the first weeks. Kabb arrives as one, and PC Gamer's preview made the same case for the class. Nothing we have seen in a week has changed our mind.

Scout

Reconnaissance and Advantage generation. Ultimate Ambush is a surprise attack whose damage scales with how much Advantage you spend on it. Standard Combat Recon surveys an area and earns Advantage for each enemy detected. Passives: Tactical Timing gives a chance of Advantage on a kill (30, 40, 50, 65 and 80 percent across its tiers since patch 1.2), The Spotter marks any enemy you damage with your blaster as Spotted, so the squad ignores range and smoke penalties when shooting them.

The Scout is the class you add when the squad's problem is running out of Advantage, which on Hard and above it will be. Patch 1.2 trimmed it: Tactical Timing used to top out at a guaranteed 100 percent, and Scouts now gain Advantage only from ranged and melee attacks. The combination players had found, a maxed Scout clearing groups with grenades and other area attacks for certain Advantage on every kill, is gone. A Scout still earns its slot; build it around blaster and melee kill shots rather than a grenade belt.

Sharpshooter

Long range and precision. Ultimate Precision Shot always hits. Standard Zero In sets up a firing position and grants Lethal stacks, raising hit chance and crit chance until you move or get knocked out of position. Passives: Pick Them Off improves Overwatch accuracy and damage, Sharpshooter Training raises hit chance on every blaster attack.

The honest community verdict, from a 337-comment thread asking which main class is weakest, is that the Sharpshooter's ultimate is the least exciting of the eight: a guaranteed hit is nice, but a Gunslinger with a levelled ultimate shoots far more often. The same thread's consensus is that it is an excellent second specialization for the accuracy alone. Pair it with a Longarm Blaster, the 12-damage, 2-AP weapon built for it, and a Scoundrel to set up its crits.

Soldier

The all-rounder: grenades, melee, heavy blaster fire and a rocket launcher. Ultimate Rocket Strike fires a rocket that damages everyone in the blast. Standard Brutal Strike rushes an enemy for a melee hit that Dazes them, so they cannot attack until it wears off; a Dazed unit then gains Stun Resistance and cannot be dazed again that battle. Passives: Strength adds melee damage and grenade range, Armsmaster adds damage to your primary blaster and grenades.

The developers listed "clearing enemy cover with a rocket launcher or explosive" as a favourite move. The Soldier is the class that does it.

The four you cannot pick

Four exotic specializations exist, and you do not choose them. They are tied to who is in your squad.

  • Jedi Padawan is Tel-Rea Vokoss, and only her. Bit Reactor's lead designer said so directly in the Q&A: "Tel-Rea is the only Jedi Padawan class Operator in Star Wars Zero Company, be careful that nothing unfortunate happens to her!" With permadeath on, losing her loses the class. Patch 1.2 fixed three things in her kit: her Deflection chance was being calculated wrongly, her second lightsaber switched off after the first Deflection in Noble Stance, and downed Operators could not use Noble Stance's Deflection and Retaliation.
  • Mandalorian is Cly Kullervo, who is the only operator who can wear Mandalorian armour and the only one with the jetpack Combat Jump. "Ok Cly is extremely fun but broken right?" was a 1,700-upvote thread, and the answers were mostly yes. Patch 1.2 agreed: Combat Jump is now once per turn and Electroweb Dart three times per turn, and the notes say both limits are there to stop Cly winning fights without the rest of the squad. She keeps the jetpack; she now uses it once a turn.
  • Astromech is the exception: any droid you build takes it, it unlocks early, and the developers explicitly said they want to see full astromech teams. Medpacs do not work on droids, which matters for your Medic. Patch 1.2 limited Self-Repair to twice per combat and Built-In Comlink to three uses per turn at maximum rank. The notes' reason: Astromechs could pass the Action Points they granted themselves on to other units through Built-In Comlink, a loop that got out of hand with several Astromechs in one squad. An all-droid team still works; the endless-AP version of it does not.
  • Clone Commando is Trick's, granted late in the campaign when his Commando armour unlocks, according to the community wiki; EA's guide does not list the exotics at all.

Exotic classes cannot be respecced. The eight standard ones can be, freely, so experiment with those and treat the exotics as who they belong to.

What patch 1.2 changed

Patch 1.2 went live on October 15. The balance changes, from the notes:

  • Astromech Self-Repair: twice per combat. The notes say the heal "is now equal to the AP spent" at 30, 45 and 60 percent across its ranks, and do not explain the formula further.
  • Astromech Built-In Comlink: three uses per turn at maximum rank, to break the Action Point loop with Coordinated Support described above.
  • Scout Tactical Timing: 20/40/60/80/100 percent by tier became 30/40/50/65/80, and Scouts gain Advantage only from ranged and melee attacks. The notes name guaranteed Advantage from Area Attack kills as the reason.
  • Cly: Electroweb Dart three times per turn, Combat Jump once per turn.

Ability fixes that change how a build plays:

  • Easy Mark: the Teamwork Assist Shot no longer deals damage when it misses.
  • Tactical Offense (the cross training that grants Advantage for killing a target at full health) now works for Operators who are not Sharpshooters.
  • Double Down no longer loses its Defense bonus when you save and reload.
  • No Mercy no longer applies Vicious before the first turn, where it expired straight away.
  • Courage Under Fire now prevents Overwatch damage after loading a save.
  • Unstoppable shows its Retaliation damage bonus in the damage readout. The bonus was already working.
  • Tel-Rea: Deflection chance is calculated correctly, the second saber stays lit in Noble Stance, and downed Operators can use Noble Stance's Deflection and Retaliation.
  • Quick Draw no longer breaks the hit chance and damage previews of the abilities you use after it.

The patch also adds optional Campaign Modifiers for new campaigns, including one that stops Area Attacks generating Advantage and one that does the same for Assist Attacks. Both would cut into the builds on this page; our difficulty guide covers them.

Weapons, briefly

Four weapon classes, and any specialization can carry any of them. The pairing matters more than the spec.

WeaponDamageCritRangeAP per shot
Blaster Rifle10+6Medium1 for the first shot, 2 after
Repeater8+4MediumScales: more AP, more Rapid Fire damage
Blaster Pistol6+4Short1
Longarm Blaster12+12Long2

EA's pairings, which match what players have settled on: Rifle for anyone learning; Repeater on a Gunslinger, Soldier or Heavy who plans to spend the whole turn shooting; Longarm on the Sharpshooter; Pistol on an Assault or Gunslinger who needs the spare Action Point to move. Scouts, Scoundrels and Medics can carry whatever suits how close to the fight you want them.

A first squad that works

Hawks as a Scoundrel with a rifle. A Gunslinger with a repeater or pistol for damage. A Sharpshooter with a Longarm to convert Identify Weakness into kills. The fourth slot is the argument: a Medic if you are playing with permadeath on and want to keep everyone, a Heavy if you keep losing the frontline, Tel-Rea or Cly if you have them and want the fun. When the second specialization slot opens, the first thing most players do is give their damage dealers Sharpshooter for the accuracy, and that is the right instinct. Since patch 1.2, Operators who are not Sharpshooters also get the Tactical Offense cross training's Advantage on a full-health kill, which they were missing before.

One thing not to worry about: species. The developers confirmed there are no species weapon proficiencies, so build the squad you want to look at.