Star Wars Zero Company Best Class Tier List
There are eight normal specializations Hawks can choose from in Star Wars Zero Company, and I don't think ranking them purely by damage gives you a very useful answer. Hawks isn't just another operator you can swap in and out whenever you feel like it. As the protagonist, Hawks has to participate in a lot of the game's important missions, which makes versatility and overall roster value much more important.
That's why my Star Wars Zero Company class tier list puts Medic at the top, followed closely by Gunslinger and Scout. All three give Hawks a role that the rest of your normal roster doesn't naturally cover, while still being useful across a wide range of team compositions.
The lower tiers aren't filled with bad classes, either. Zero Company is built around specializations working together, so something like Heavy or Assault can still work perfectly well on Hawks. I just think they're harder to justify when you have complete freedom over Hawks' specialization and can use that freedom to fill a bigger hole in the roster.
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Best Class Tier List
S Tier Classes
A Tier Classes
B Tier Classes
Best Class by Playstyle
Second Specializations
How to Change Class
Star Wars Zero Company Best Class Tier List
My ranking for Hawks is:
S Tier — Medic, Gunslinger, Scout
A Tier — Scoundrel, Sharpshooter
B Tier — Heavy, Assault, Soldier
I wouldn't read B Tier as meaning those classes are weak. This is specifically a Hawks tier list rather than a ranking of every specialization in a vacuum. The question I'm asking is basically: if I have one character whose starting specialization I can freely choose and who is going to appear in a lot of important missions anyway, where does that freedom provide the most value?
Medic, Gunslinger, and Scout win that argument pretty comfortably. None of the characters who later join Zero Company naturally occupy those three specializations, meaning Hawks can add something to the roster you otherwise wouldn't have in the same way. The further down the list you go, the easier it becomes to reproduce a similar job using your other operators.
That's an important distinction because the best specialization on an individual character isn't always the best specialization for the entire company. Hawks doesn't need to individually do everything. Hawks needs to make whatever squad you're bringing harder to replace.
S Tier — Medic, Gunslinger, and Scout
The three S Tier classes are here for slightly different reasons, but they all share one major advantage: they make better use of Hawks' open specialization slot than the rest of the options.
Medic is the safest overall pick, Gunslinger gives Hawks the strongest dedicated offensive identity of the three, and Scout turns Hawks into more of a team-wide resource engine. Which one you prefer depends on how you want Hawks to contribute, but I would be comfortable building around any of them.
Medic — Best Overall Class
Medic is the best class for Hawks overall. The specialization improves your healing beyond simply relying on a normal Med-Pac while also providing buffs and rally effects for nearby allies.
What pushes Medic to number one for me isn't just the amount of healing it can provide. It's how difficult it is for the role to become useless.
A damage-focused character can occasionally end up with an awkward turn because the enemy you wanted to attack is out of position, protected, or simply no longer the priority. A support character has a different kind of flexibility. If your squad is healthy, Hawks can help enable it. If somebody takes a beating, Hawks can immediately shift toward keeping the mission under control.
I think that makes Medic particularly well suited to a protagonist who keeps getting brought into major missions. You're not choosing a class because it's perfect for one exact four-character setup. You're choosing something that can survive constant changes around it.
There's also a roster-building benefit that goes beyond the healing itself. If Hawks can handle a meaningful chunk of your squad's support duties, everyone else gets more freedom. You aren't as pressured to solve healing elsewhere, which means those slots can be used for the offensive, defensive, or utility roles you actually want for that particular mission.
That's why I'd call Medic the best floor rather than necessarily the flashiest ceiling. Even when a mission gets ugly, Medic Hawks still has a reason to be there.
Gunslinger — Best Damage-Focused Class
Gunslinger is my second-place class and the specialization I'd choose if I wanted Hawks to be much more directly involved in killing enemies.
Its main identity is making several lower-damage attacks, with the option to spread those shots across multiple targets or concentrate them onto one enemy. That already gives it more flexibility than a class built around simply taking one big shot.
The part I like even more is how naturally that design interacts with per-shot bonuses and weapon modifications. If you're making several attacks, anything that improves individual shots potentially matters repeatedly rather than only once.
That gives Gunslinger a different kind of scaling than Medic. Medic becomes valuable because it keeps almost any squad functioning. Gunslinger becomes valuable because you can keep investing into the things that make those repeated attacks better.
It also changes how I think about building the rest of the squad. With Medic, Hawks is helping everyone else do their jobs. With Gunslinger, I can justify bringing characters who make it easier for Hawks to keep attacking effectively.
Neither approach is inherently better, but Medic asks less from the team around it. That's the main reason I still give it the number-one spot.
Scout — Best Team-Enabling Class
Scout rounds out S Tier and might actually be the most interesting specialization of the three once the rest of your roster starts developing.
Scout generates Advantage for the team, which can then be spent on powerful abilities, while also providing additional offensive support through target marking.
That creates a pretty straightforward multiplier effect. Gunslinger mainly improves what Hawks can personally accomplish. Scout helps determine how often everyone else gets access to their stronger tools.
I think that distinction becomes increasingly important as your team gets better. If your operators have abilities you're actively trying to use as often as possible, Advantage stops feeling like a secondary resource and starts directly affecting how frequently your strongest turns can happen.
Scout therefore has a slightly different type of ceiling than Gunslinger. Gunslinger scales by making Hawks more dangerous. Scout can scale with the quality of everyone standing next to Hawks.
That's also why I wouldn't automatically put Scout below Gunslinger for every team. If your squad already has plenty of damage but constantly wants more Advantage, Scout can easily be the better pick.
A Tier — Scoundrel and Sharpshooter
Scoundrel and Sharpshooter are both strong enough that I wouldn't hesitate to use either, but they lose points specifically because we're talking about Hawks.
Scoundrel is a versatile offensive support class that weakens enemies and increases the damage they take. It can also help set up guaranteed critical hits, which gives the class obvious value when you want the rest of the team focusing down a priority target.
I actually like Scoundrel's design for a flexible character because its contribution isn't completely selfish. Hawks can still be helping the rest of the squad produce more damage rather than simply competing with them for kills.
The reason it stays below Scout is roster scarcity. Hawks is one of your best opportunities to add something your other characters don't naturally cover. Scout accomplishes that while still filling the offensive-support niche extremely well.
Sharpshooter is the more direct alternative. It focuses on long-range accuracy, Overwatch, and dependable shots from the backline. If you prefer keeping Hawks away from the frontline and want a character whose job is simply to land shots reliably, it's an easy specialization to understand and build around.
My issue is similar to Scoundrel: the specialization is good, but Hawks doesn't uniquely need to be the one doing it. Luco Bronc already enters the specialization picture as a Sharpshooter, and Scout is even listed as a strong secondary option for him later. Using Hawks for one of the completely uncovered roles gives me more roster flexibility overall.
B Tier — Heavy, Assault, and Soldier
Heavy, Assault, and Soldier land in B Tier, but this tier is more about redundancy than power.
Heavy is your tank. It can taunt enemies, counter attacks, increase health, and improve defensive stats. On paper, that's obviously useful for someone who is regularly forced into major missions.
The problem is that other characters can make extremely natural Heavy builds. Kabb is already a melee character who spends a lot of time in the middle of combat, making Heavy an obvious secondary direction for him, and Heavy is also one of the suggested options for Trick.
That makes a Heavy Hawks harder for me to justify. You're spending Hawks' completely open starting specialization on a job another character can already be shaped toward very naturally.
Assault has a similar issue. The class emphasizes frontline mobility, short-range damage, and forcing enemies out of cover. That's useful, but Assault also appears repeatedly as a logical specialization for other operators, including Jae Mordant, Trick, and Cly Kullervo.
If several other characters can plausibly cover that kind of aggressive frontline role, I don't gain as much by making Hawks do it too.
Soldier is another mid-to-close-range offensive class, combining gunfire, explosives, and a melee strike capable of dazing enemies. It's a solid general combat package, but Trick already occupies the Soldier side of the roster.
That's ultimately the pattern with B Tier. I don't look at Heavy, Assault, or Soldier and think they're weak. I look at them and wonder why I'm using Hawks' rare flexibility to solve a problem the roster already gives me other ways to solve.
Best Star Wars Zero Company Class by Playstyle
If you don't care about squeezing every bit of roster efficiency out of Hawks, the decision becomes much simpler.
Choose Medic if you want the safest all-around class and like having a way to stabilize fights when things start going wrong.
Choose Gunslinger if you want Hawks to be a primary offensive character and like the idea of stacking value onto repeated attacks.
Choose Scout if you want Hawks enabling stronger turns for the entire squad through Advantage generation.
Choose Scoundrel if you prefer weakening priority enemies and helping the whole team deal more damage to them.
Choose Sharpshooter if you want Hawks sitting further back, relying on range, accuracy, and Overwatch.
Choose Heavy if you want Hawks absorbing attention and functioning as the squad's frontline tank.
Choose Assault if you prefer mobility and aggressive close-range fighting.
Choose Soldier if you want a straightforward mix of gunfire, explosives, and close-range utility.
That also explains why there isn't really one objectively broken specialization. These classes are solving different tactical problems. My tier list is primarily judging which of those problems is most valuable for Hawks to personally solve.
Second Specializations Change the Tier List
There's another reason I put so much emphasis on roster coverage early: eventually, the game gives you more flexibility anyway.
After you encounter Luco Bronc and complete the associated mission, which happens at roughly Cycle 13 to 15, characters can gain a second specialization. Droids and Jedi are exceptions, but most of the roster suddenly becomes much easier to customize.
That changes the value of Hawks' first specialization in an interesting way.
Before that system opens up, a class that fills an otherwise missing role has extra value because you simply have fewer ways to reproduce it. Once secondary specializations arrive, your roster becomes much better at patching its own weaknesses.
In other words, I think specialization scarcity matters more when you're initially picking Hawks than it does later in the campaign.
That's another reason I prefer starting with Medic, Gunslinger, or Scout. You get the benefit of covering one of those missing roles immediately, then use the second-specialization system later to broaden Hawks rather than using it to fix an unnecessarily redundant starting choice.
I also wouldn't automatically double down on the exact same job with Hawks' second specialization. If my first choice were Medic, I'd be looking toward something more offensive such as Gunslinger. If I started Gunslinger, adding support later gives Hawks a completely different way to spend turns when shooting isn't the most useful option.
The point isn't that those exact combinations are mandatory. It's that Hawks appears often enough that giving the character two different answers to two different problems makes more sense to me than building the most extreme possible version of a single role.
How to Change Hawks' Class
You aren't permanently locked into whichever specialization you choose for Hawks.
Between missions, return to the Den and head past the Holotable to the Personnel counter at the back of the main room. Select Hawks, open the Focus Tree tab, and you'll find the Change Specialization option in the lower-right corner.
You can also change specializations for hired operators, although story characters and Droids don't have the same freedom. Characters such as Kabb and Trick have fixed specializations and talents.
That makes experimenting with Hawks much less painful. If you're torn between Medic and Gunslinger, I wouldn't overthink the initial choice to the point of stalling out. Start with the one that better fits your current squad and change it if your roster develops in a completely different direction.
For me, though, the hierarchy stays pretty clear: Medic is the best Hawks class overall, Gunslinger is the best option if you want Hawks carrying more of the damage, and Scout is the best pick if you want Hawks making the rest of Zero Company stronger.
