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Specialization

Zero Company Heavy class guide

Tank with flat damage reduction whose ordinary shots taunt on hit, and whose Bulwark taunts an area while making it immune to status effects.

Confirmed
Confidence
Confirmed
Verified
19 August 2026
Version
Pre-release evidence — retail verification pending

Quick answer

Armored frontline unit that redirects enemy fire onto itself and survives it through flat Defense and health.

Range
close, medium
Ultimate
Bulwark
Build themes
Taunting through ordinary attacks · Stacking Defense until chaff cannot hurt you · Retaliation counterattacks · Bulwark area lockdown
Suggested weapons
RepeaterPistolRifle
Tags
mitigation, taunt, anti-cover, advantage-spender

Ultimate

Heavy Ultimate: Bulwark

Every Specialization has exactly one Ultimate. It is the ability the class is built around, and the one it spends the squad's shared resources on.

Taunts every enemy inside a large target area, compelling them to attack the Heavy, and raises the Heavy's Defense by 2 for the rest of the turn. Each rank widens the area and increases that Defense bonus, reaching 6 at maximum. The final rank also grants Impervious, which makes the Heavy immune to all status effects, and Immovable, which prevents it being pushed. Usable once per turn.

Build value: Redirection rather than mitigation, and the difference matters: a Medic healing one predictable target is far more efficient than one chasing scattered chip damage. The max-rank state is what makes it a late-game keystone — Impervious and Immovable together answer the two things that otherwise beat a tank, status effects and forced movement. Paired with the Grit Talent's stacking invulnerability it becomes the strongest defensive pattern available: taunt the group, absorb the return fire, then kill freely.

Abilities

Confirmed abilities

Only abilities named by an official source appear here. The complete kit has not been published.

  • Bulwark

    Preview-reported

    Taunts every enemy inside a large target area, compelling them to attack the Heavy, and raises the Heavy's Defense by 2 for the rest of the turn. Each rank widens the area and increases that Defense bonus, reaching 6 at maximum. The final rank also grants Impervious, which makes the Heavy immune to all status effects, and Immovable, which prevents it being pushed. Usable once per turn.

    Build value: Redirection rather than mitigation, and the difference matters: a Medic healing one predictable target is far more efficient than one chasing scattered chip damage. The max-rank state is what makes it a late-game keystone — Impervious and Immovable together answer the two things that otherwise beat a tank, status effects and forced movement. Paired with the Grit Talent's stacking invulnerability it becomes the strongest defensive pattern available: taunt the group, absorb the return fire, then kill freely.

  • Unstoppable

    Confirmed

    Grants 2 stacks of Retaliation. Each incoming attack burns a stack to counterattack the attacker. Ranks raise the counterattack damage to a maximum of +4, and the final rank allows it to be cast on an ally rather than the Heavy.

    Build value: The offensive half of the tank kit, and it only pays out when the enemy actually attacks the Heavy — which is what the Intimidating Posture taunt and Bulwark exist to arrange. Used without them it is dead weight. The final rank's ally targeting is the interesting one: put it on whoever is about to be focused rather than on the Operator already built to survive it.

  • Conditioning

    Confirmed

    Increases this Operator’s Max Health by +4. Its Focus Tree ranks raise the figure; only the first is published.

    Build value: Flat health on the Operator whose job is to be attacked. It is worth reading alongside Heavy Armor Training rather than on its own: Defense reduces how often hits land and health decides how many can land before an Injury, and the Heavy buys both. On permadeath the second is the one that matters, because an Injury is a campaign event rather than a combat one.

  • Heavy Armor Training

    Confirmed

    Increases this Operator’s Defense by +2. Its Focus Tree ranks raise the figure; only the first is published.

    Build value: Two points of Defense, always on, on the Operator who deliberately stands where the fire is. It stacks with Bulwark’s +2 for the turn a taunt is active, so a Heavy who has just pulled a group is at his hardest exactly when he needs to be. Worth comparing to Cly Kullervo’s +3 from Mandalorian armour: hers is larger and costs a class she cannot change, and this one is bought with Focus Points on a class anyone can take.

  • Intimidating Posture

    Confirmed

    This Operator’s primary Blaster Attacks now taunt the target on a hit. It cannot be upgraded, so it has no Focus Tree row.

    Build value: A taunt on every ordinary shot, and a different thing from Bulwark rather than a smaller version of it. Bulwark is an area taunt bought with Advantage and spent once; this pulls one target every time the Heavy fires, for nothing, on the class that wants to be shot at. It is also a quiet argument for giving a Heavy a Repeater: more attacks is more taunts. Fixed at this value — no Focus Points make it better.

Squad partners

Who to pair the class with

Each pairing states whether the interaction is officially confirmed or our reading of confirmed mechanics.

  • Medic

    The Heavy turns squad-wide damage into damage on one predictable Operator, which is exactly the problem a single-target healer solves. Combat Stim's +12 temporary health stacks on top of Conditioning.

  • Sharpshooter

    Taunt drags enemies out of position and into the open while the Sharpshooter stands still holding Lethal stacks it cannot afford to lose.

  • Soldier

    Bulwark gathers a group into one place; Rocket Strike is the ability that punishes them for being there.

  • Assault

    Enemies forced to attack the Heavy are not shooting the Operator charging past them.

Talents

Talents that suit the Heavy

A Talent is chosen separately from a Specialization, so these are combinations you assemble yourself. The Squad Builder models the class half only.

  • A Life of Labor

    Defense stacks flatly, so +2 on top of Heavy Armor Training and Bulwark is what pushes a Heavy past the point where common enemies can hurt it at all.

  • Fortitude

    Defense is flat subtraction and stacks, so +6 on top of Heavy Armor Training and a max-rank Bulwark is where common enemies stop doing damage entirely.

  • Grit

    The single strongest combination found before launch. Bulwark taunts the group into attacking one Operator, and Grit makes that Operator immune to the consequences.

  • Sabotage

    Bulwark gathers enemies into one area; an explosive object inside that area becomes a second area attack for 2 Advantage.

  • Taunt

    Stacked on the Heavy itself it adds single-target control to an area taunt, and the damage reduction compounds with flat Defense.

  • For My Brothers

    Taunting concentrates the whole enemy turn onto one Operator; self-revival is what stops that being a one-way trip.

  • Strong with the Force

    Both want the enemy shooting at them, and only one of them profits from it — a Heavy taunting pulls fire off the bay where a missed deflection actually costs something.

Strengths

  • Heavy Armor Training gives +2 Defense, and Defense subtracts flatly from every incoming hit. Against weak enemies that can mean taking nothing at all.
  • Intimidating Posture makes the Heavy's primary blaster attack taunt whatever it hits. Redirection is a side effect of shooting, not a separate action spent on it.
  • A previewer played the combination and describes it working: a tank taunted a group, activated a Retaliation ability, and every enemy shot at it drew an immediate return shot. Four enemies were redirected in that encounter — an observation about one fight, not a published target cap.
  • Because the taunt rides on the attack, weapon choice reshapes the ability: a pistol taunts several targets across the field in one turn, while a long arm pulls a distant enemy off an advantageous position and walks it past the rest of your squad.
  • Conditioning raises max health by 4 per rank, up to +20.
  • Unstoppable grants two stacks of Retaliation. Each incoming attack burns a stack to counterattack, for up to +4 damage at max rank, and the final rank lets it be cast on an ally who is about to be focused.
  • Bulwark taunts every enemy in a large area and adds +2 Defense for the turn, rising to +6 across its ranks.
  • At max rank Bulwark also grants Impervious — immunity to all status effects — and Immovable, which prevents the Heavy being pushed. Against later enemies that is worth more than the Defense.
  • A Heavy built high enough to take zero damage from common enemies lets you build the rest of the squad greedily, skipping healing and defense elsewhere entirely.

Weaknesses

  • Taunting concentrates incoming fire by design, so a Heavy that has not bought Defense and health simply dies first.
  • Bulwark is once per turn. Extra Advantage cannot buy a second cast the way it can with Open Fire or Sweeping Salvo.
  • Retaliation only pays out when the Heavy is attacked, so it is dead weight on any turn the taunts fail to land.
  • Defense is flat subtraction, so it scales inversely with the size of the hit. Six Defense blunts a swarm and barely dents an elite's single large attack.
  • The Taunt talent gives any Operator a single-target taunt, so the Heavy's real monopoly is on passive and area taunting rather than on taunting as such.
  • Absorbing damage is safe only up to zero HP. Being downed is what causes an Injury, and three Injuries mean permanent death.

Still unverified

The retail game is out. These are the points we have not yet reproduced or measured reliably enough to state as fact — recorded rather than guessed at.

  • Bulwark's Advantage cost and its radius in metres.
  • Unstoppable's Action Point cost.
  • Whether any enemy type resists taunt, particularly at higher difficulties.
  • Whether Retaliation stacks can be refreshed before both are spent.
  • Focus Point costs for each rank.

Other Specializations

Sources

  • Star Wars Zero Company is a very safe XCOM descendant, but its most interesting parts are found in its Midnight Suns DNA

    PC Gamer · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 19 August 2026

    Supports: Combat section — a tank-like Operator taunting a group and activating a Retaliation ability, with four enemies in that encounter forced to target it and each of their shots drawing an immediate return shot; astromechs as support units providing extra Action Points, squad-wide buffs and self-healing; pistols being weak in raw damage but firable more often, supporting a crit-focused Gunslinger. Published 2026-08-11

  • Lead Zero Company To Victory on August 27

    Electronic Arts · Tier 1 — Official · accessed 6 August 2026

    Supports: Operator introductions; 3 Action Points per turn; Advantage caps at 10; the eight Specializations; Bonds in the Personnel Facility; Hawks' species options

  • Star Wars Zero Company: How Some of the Greatest Minds in Tactics Games are Pushing the Genre, Again

    Xbox Wire · Tier 2 — Developer interview · accessed 6 August 2026

    Supports: Greg Foertsch and James Brawley on the eight Specializations, Combat Stim + Gunslinger synergy, Advantage, and Specialization changes on authored characters

  • Is Z-COM our new X-COM? Star Wars Zero Company gameplay deep dive

    ChristopherOdd · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 11 August 2026

    Supports: 2:13–13:51 — Sweeping Salvo at 4 Advantage with three uses per mission; Hawks granting an ally 1 AP for 3 Advantage; Combat Recon granting 1 Advantage per unit scanned; the Grit Talent's stacking invulnerability; Heavy attacks taunting; the droideka ray shield; the Scout's Spotted status; Defense as flat damage reduction