Star Wars Zero Company Specialization Tier List
Medic is my pick for the best specialization in Star Wars Zero Company, followed closely by Scoundrel. This ranking is probably going to look strange if you're judging every class by how much damage it can produce on a perfect turn, but that's not how I'm evaluating them. I'm ranking the eight standard Specializations by how many problems they solve with three AP, how much pressure they put on the squad's shared Advantage pool, how well they protect an entire campaign from bad outcomes, and how useful they remain when the battlefield refuses to cooperate.
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Specialization Tier List
How I'm Ranking Specializations
1. Medic
2. Scoundrel
3. Heavy
4. Scout
5. Gunslinger
6. Soldier
7. Assault
8. Sharpshooter
Star Wars Zero Company Specialization Tier List
S Tier: Medic, Scoundrel
A Tier: Heavy, Scout, Gunslinger
B Tier: Soldier, Assault
C Tier: Sharpshooter
My complete ranking is Medic first, Scoundrel second, Heavy third, Scout fourth, Gunslinger fifth, Soldier sixth, Assault seventh, and Sharpshooter eighth.
I'm only ranking the eight standard Specializations here. Character-locked options such as Tel-Rea's Jedi Specializations, Cly's Warrior path, and the Astromech-specific classes aren't interchangeable choices for your normal Operators, so putting them in the same tier list answers a slightly different question.
How I'm Ranking the Best Specializations
The biggest thing I care about is action compression: how many different problems can a Specialization solve without burning an Operator's entire three-AP turn.
The second is Advantage efficiency. Advantage belongs to the entire squad, not the individual Operator generating or spending it. An amazing Special Action can therefore still be expensive if using it means another Operator doesn't get theirs.
I'm also giving more weight to failure prevention than I would in most RPG tier lists. Zero Company has injuries, recovery time, limited Operators, and optional permadeath. Winning a mission with everyone intact is meaningfully different from winning it while two important Operators are Downed or injured.
Finally, I'm ranking for imperfect battles. A class that is incredible when it has the right sightline, positioning, enemy formation, and setup can still rank below something that provides value almost every single turn.
That's why this list ends up looking considerably different from a pure damage ranking.
1. Medic – S Tier
Medic is my best overall Specialization because people undersell it by treating healing as the entire class.
Combat Stim is the ability that changes the ranking for me. It increases an ally's Health, Melee Damage, and Ranged Damage for two turns, so Medic can spend part of its own turn making one of your strongest Operators both harder to kill and better at killing enemies.
That is offensive value and defensive value compressed into the same action.
Morale Boost pushes the class even further toward squad-wide value by giving nearby allies Morale that restores Health over subsequent turns. First Responder also means the Medic permanently carries a Medpac without consuming a utility slot, and an ally rescued through Rally comes back fully healed and able to act again.
That last part matters enormously. Normally, a Downed Operator isn't just losing Health; you're also dealing with the AP and positioning cost of putting the squad back together. Medic can dramatically reduce that disruption.
And Zero Company isn't made up of isolated battles. Injured Operators can spend Cycles recovering in the Medbay, which I cover in my guide to passing time and advancing Cycles. Preventing that situation in the first place has campaign value that won't appear on a damage meter.
That's also why Medic remains my favorite Specialization for Hawks. He's required often enough that giving your most consistently available Operator a role that works in practically every squad makes a lot of sense, which I break down further in my best class for Hawks guide.
Medic's weakness is simple: if every mission is already going perfectly, some of its recovery tools never matter. Combat Stim keeps it out of the usual healer trap for me because the class still contributes when nobody needs saving.
For its weapon, I prefer the flexibility of a Blaster Rifle so support actions don't completely remove the Medic's offensive contribution. My best Medic weapon guide covers that setup in more detail.
2. Scoundrel – S Tier
Scoundrel is probably the best secondary Specialization in the game, and it's only barely behind Medic overall for me.
Identify Weakness is the reason.
Making an enemy Vulnerable guarantees that the next damaging attack critically hits. Instead of asking the Scoundrel to personally produce enormous damage, you're allowed to choose whichever Operator and weapon on the entire squad can extract the most value from that critical.
A Longarm normally has substantially more Critical Damage than a Pistol or Rifle, for example. The Scoundrel creates the opportunity and somebody else cashes it.
Scoundrel's Instinct is just as easy to underrate because it doesn't require pressing anything. Its Defense Penetration helps Scoundrel attacks bypass enemy Defense, making normal attacks more effective into armored or otherwise protected targets.
Easy Mark adds another layer by letting the Scoundrel Assist when an ally attacks the marked target, with Never Play Fair improving that Assist damage.
What makes Scoundrel S Tier isn't one gigantic button. It's that practically every part of the Specialization helps your squad concentrate more effective damage into the enemy that actually matters.
It also scales incredibly well as a second Specialization because Identify Weakness doesn't care whether the first half of the Operator is Gunslinger, Soldier, Scout, or something else. You're adding guaranteed crit setup and Defense Penetration to a kit that already works.
The weakness is that Scoundrel's best plays often transfer power to another Operator. If you're judging classes purely by personal damage, it won't look nearly as impressive.
For a dedicated Scoundrel, I prefer the Blaster Pistol because its 1 AP attacks preserve the flexibility that makes the class so useful. My best Scoundrel weapon guide explains why.
3. Heavy – A Tier
Heavy is my biggest departure from most early tier lists because I think directly controlling enemy targeting is much more valuable than it initially looks.
Bulwark doesn't simply make the Heavy harder to kill. It taunts enemies in an area, forces their attacks toward the Heavy, increases Defense, and reduces the incoming damage during that turn.
That is effectively control over part of the enemy turn.
If your Gunslinger is exposed after an aggressive turn, your Medic needs to survive long enough to stabilize someone, or an important Operator is one hit away from being Downed, Heavy can change which character the enemy is allowed to attack.
That's fundamentally different from passive survivability.
Unstoppable adds two stacks of Retaliation, so intentionally receiving attacks can also generate damage outside the Heavy's normal three AP. Conditioning increases maximum Health, Heavy Armor Training improves Defense, and Intimidating Posture lets primary Blaster hits taunt individual enemies without spending the larger Bulwark resource.
That last ability is why I particularly like Blaster Rifle Heavy. The Rifle's first attack costs 1 AP, so the Heavy can damage and taunt an important target without committing its entire turn.
The reason Heavy stops at A Tier is that preventative control becomes less valuable when you're already dominating an encounter. A perfect offensive squad may simply kill the enemy that Heavy would otherwise taunt.
But I don't rank assuming every turn is perfect. Heavy reduces variance, protects fragile Operators, creates safe aggressive positions, and can prevent one bad enemy turn from becoming a campaign problem. That's worth considerably more to me than placing it near the bottom because its personal damage isn't spectacular.
4. Scout – A Tier
Scout is excellent, but I don't think Combat Recon automatically makes it the best class in Zero Company.
Combat Recon surveys an area and generates Advantage for every enemy detected. With a good group of enemies, that can turn one action into a huge amount of the squad's most important shared resource.
That is undeniably powerful.
The question is what you're actually buying with the Advantage.
A squad built around expensive abilities such as Rocket Strike, Easy Mark, or other Special Actions gets incredible value from Scout. A composition that does most of its work through AP-efficient standard actions and passive abilities gets less.
Combat Recon also naturally loses some ceiling as enemies disappear. Finding five enemies early in an encounter is substantially different from scanning the final one or two.
Then there's Ambush. It's a strong scalable attack, but it spends the same Advantage that Scout is so good at generating. Sometimes that's exactly what you want; other times the Scout's best contribution is generating the resource and letting a different Operator spend it.
The Spotter is an excellent passive because blaster-damaged enemies become Spotted, removing normal range and smoke penalties for the squad. That gives Scout strong utility even on turns where Combat Recon isn't producing a huge Advantage swing.
So Scout is still fantastic. I just see it as an engine rather than an automatic #1.
If your squad has multiple high-value Advantage spenders, move Scout straight into S Tier. If it doesn't, the gap between Scout and the classes below it gets much smaller.
My preferred weapon is Longarm because Scout can use Combat Recon for 1 AP and still spend its remaining AP on a powerful ranged attack. The full setup is in my best Scout weapon guide.
5. Gunslinger – A Tier
Gunslinger is my highest-ranked pure offensive Specialization because its abilities all agree on what the Operator should be doing: attacking repeatedly.
Onslaught increases the damage of each primary blaster attack made during the same turn. That means the class doesn't just benefit from multiple attacks; the attacks become progressively more valuable as you keep firing.
Quick Draw adds a fast sidearm attack, and scoring a kill with it can restore 1 AP. Used correctly, that lets Gunslinger convert a nearly dead enemy into additional action economy instead of spending a normal primary attack finishing them.
Open Fire then gives you two additional attacks that can be distributed across multiple enemies.
Unlike a class built around one enormous attack, Gunslinger can change targets as the turn develops. Kill something earlier than expected, move the next shot. Miss, and you still have more attacks to recover the turn.
The weakness is the same thing that makes it powerful: lots of smaller attacks can run into enemy Defense more often than one enormous hit, and the Specialization really wants a weapon that lets it attack repeatedly.
That's why I strongly prefer Pistol. Three normal 1 AP attacks already interact beautifully with Onslaught before you even start layering Gunslinger's abilities on top. My best Gunslinger weapon guide breaks down the damage progression.
Pair Gunslinger with Scoundrel later and the build gets even nastier, because Defense Penetration addresses one of the natural weaknesses of repeated medium-sized hits.
6. Soldier – B Tier
Soldier is better than sixth place makes it sound. Its problem is almost the opposite of Gunslinger: Soldier does a little bit of everything.
Brutal Strike rushes an enemy, deals melee damage, and Dazes them. Daze prevents that target from attacking, which is genuine enemy-turn control rather than simply another damage effect.
There is an important limitation, though. Once an enemy has been Dazed, it gains Stun Resistance and can't simply be repeatedly Dazed for the rest of the battle.
Armsmaster improves primary Blaster and grenade damage, while Strength improves melee damage and grenade throw distance. Rocket Strike gives Soldier a large AoE option capable of damaging grouped enemies, and its environmental destruction can create better attacks for everyone else.
That's a great toolbox.
It's also why Soldier doesn't dominate any one category. Parts of its kit want melee. Parts want grenades. Armsmaster wants primary Blaster attacks. Rocket Strike wants a large chunk of the shared Advantage pool.
On a carefully built Operator, those pieces can absolutely work together. As a generic Specialization choice, I find Scoundrel, Medic, Heavy, Scout, and Gunslinger easier to build around.
Soldier may actually be stronger as a secondary Specialization than this ranking suggests because Strength, Armsmaster, Brutal Strike, and Rocket Strike can fill holes in an existing build rather than defining the whole character.
7. Assault – B Tier
Assault has a much higher ceiling than seventh place, but it asks more from the battlefield than most of the classes above it.
Bull Rush gives Assault excellent mobility, deals melee damage, and pushes its target. If that push sends the enemy into an object or causes a fall, you get additional impact damage.
Fleet of Foot improves the Operator's first movement, while Strike the Flanks rewards attacks against Exposed enemies with additional Critical Chance.
Sweeping Salvo is also legitimately strong. It damages and Disorients enemies in a large cone, reducing their chance to hit, and its relatively inexpensive Advantage cost makes it easier to fit into a fight than some of the game's massive Ultimates.
The problem is positional burden.
Assault wants the right angle, the right distance, useful geometry for pushes, Exposed targets, and a safe enough destination that moving aggressively doesn't create a bigger problem on the following enemy turn.
When the map gives you all of that, Assault can look like one of the strongest Specializations in Zero Company.
When it doesn't, you're left with a class whose best advantages become much harder to realize than something like Combat Stim, Identify Weakness, or a Rifle taunt.
That's why Assault is B Tier rather than because I think its abilities are weak. It's a high-ceiling, lower-floor Specialization.
8. Sharpshooter – C Tier
Sharpshooter has some of the highest individual shot potential in the game, and I'm still putting it last.
The reason is flexibility.
Zero In grants Lethal stacks that improve Chance to Hit and Critical Chance, but those stacks disappear if the Sharpshooter moves or gets knocked out of position. You're therefore rewarded for establishing a firing lane and staying there.
That sounds great until the objective moves, an enemy breaks line of sight, reinforcements arrive somewhere inconvenient, or the encounter simply asks you to reposition.
Sharpshooter also naturally pairs with the Longarm, which costs 2 AP per attack. You're exchanging action flexibility for one larger, more accurate attack.
Pick Them Off improves Overwatch accuracy and damage, and Overwatch can be extremely strong when enemies cooperate with your firing lane. But it's still reactive. Enemies can move somewhere else, remain outside the zone, or otherwise fail to give you the shot you prepared.
Precision Shot is at least reliable because it always hits, but it consumes Advantage to solve an accuracy problem that the rest of Sharpshooter's kit is already heavily invested in solving.
None of this makes Sharpshooter bad. It makes Sharpshooter specialized.
And in a tier list where I'm heavily rewarding classes that adapt when the plan falls apart, the class whose best state is "please don't make me move" naturally ends up lower.
There is one pairing that dramatically changes my opinion: Scoundrel. Identify Weakness can guarantee the Sharpshooter's next damaging attack crits, and Longarm has huge Critical Damage. In that composition, Sharpshooter stops spending as much effort creating its own perfect shot and gets to focus on cashing the opportunity someone else created.
Best Specialization for Each Role
If you don't agree with the overall ranking, choosing by role may be more useful anyway.
Best Overall Specialization: Medic
Best Secondary Specialization: Scoundrel
Best Tank: Heavy
Best Advantage Generator: Scout
Best Pure Damage: Gunslinger
Best General-Purpose Toolkit: Soldier
Best Mobility: Assault
Best Long-Range Damage: Sharpshooter
That also shows why C Tier doesn't mean unusable. Sharpshooter is still my pick if the only question is which standard Specialization most naturally owns a long-range firing position. The
