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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
10 September 2026
Version
Retail 1.1, 9 September 2026 — official patch notes

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 — a second guide now reports the same ladder, up to a 24-metre cast range over an 8-metre area at +6 Defense. The final rank also grants Impervious, which makes the Heavy immune to all status effects, and Immovable, which prevents it being pushed. **Immovable did not apply its bonuses at all until Patch 1.1**, so the sixth rank is worth more now than it was at launch. 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. The half of that pairing to re-read after Patch 1.1 is Immovable. EA list it among the fixes — the status now provides its intended bonuses — so a Heavy who reached the sixth rank in the launch build was buying the most expensive node in the ladder and receiving Impervious alone. A tank built on this since 9 September is a different Operator from one built on it in August, and the ability card is word for word identical in both.

Abilities

Confirmed abilities

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

  • Bulwark

    Retail-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 — a second guide now reports the same ladder, up to a 24-metre cast range over an 8-metre area at +6 Defense. The final rank also grants Impervious, which makes the Heavy immune to all status effects, and Immovable, which prevents it being pushed. **Immovable did not apply its bonuses at all until Patch 1.1**, so the sixth rank is worth more now than it was at launch. 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. The half of that pairing to re-read after Patch 1.1 is Immovable. EA list it among the fixes — the status now provides its intended bonuses — so a Heavy who reached the sixth rank in the launch build was buying the most expensive node in the ladder and receiving Impervious alone. A tank built on this since 9 September is a different Operator from one built on it in August, and the ability card is word for word identical in both.

  • Unstoppable

    Confirmed

    Costs 1 Action Point and 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, where a guide also reports a ceiling of 4 Retaliation stacks.

    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. One Action Point is the figure that turns this into a turn rather than a habit. A Heavy has three, Bulwark is once per turn, and Intimidating Posture is free — so the tank's opening turn is a taunt, this, and whatever a single point still buys. The reported four-stack ceiling at maximum rank is the other half of that sum: two stacks a cast against a cap of four means a second cast is worth a point on a turn the first two stacks have already been spent, and worth nothing on a turn they have not.

  • 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. A launch-week guide reports the Taunt also firing from blaster-based area attacks and from Assist Attacks, which is a much wider trigger than the wording on the ability card. 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. **If the wider trigger holds, this is the best passive in the game on the right Operator.** One guide reports the Taunt firing from blaster-based area attacks and from Assist Attacks as well as from single shots. Read against Sweeping Salvo — a blaster-based cone reaching eighteen metres, for 4 Advantage and no Action Point — that is a whole group taunted onto the Operator built to absorb them, three times a combat. Read against the Scoundrel's Easy Mark, which makes an ally assist every attack on a marked target, it means a Heavy taunts without taking a turn at all. Both readings rest on one publisher's sentence, and that is the caveat rather than the finding: no second source has described the trigger this way, and the ability card does not.

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 launch-week guide reports that Taunt also firing from blaster-based area attacks and from Assist Attacks. If that holds, a Heavy carrying the Assault's Sweeping Salvo as a secondary Taunts every enemy the cone catches, for 4 Advantage and no Action Point — the widest redirection in the game. One publisher, and no other source describes the trigger that way.
  • 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 costs 1 Action Point and 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 — where a guide also reports a ceiling of four stacks.
  • 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. Immovable only started providing its bonuses in Patch 1.1, so this rank is worth more from 9 September than it was at launch.
  • 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.

Open questions

Points the shipped game has not yet answered for us, or that need a controlled comparison to state as fact — recorded rather than guessed at.

  • Bulwark's Advantage cost. Its ladder is now corroborated by two guides, to 24 metres over an 8-metre area at +6 Defense, and neither prints a price.
  • Whether Intimidating Posture's Taunt really fires from area attacks and Assist Attacks. One guide says so, EA's ability card says "primary Blaster Attacks", and the difference decides whether a Heavy is a single-target puller or a group one.
  • Whether any enemy type resists taunt, particularly at higher difficulties.
  • How Retaliation stacks refresh. A guide reports a four-stack ceiling at maximum rank, which implies a second cast can top up an unspent pair, and nothing states the rule.
  • What Immovable actually provides. Patch 1.1 says it now gives its intended bonuses and names none of them.
  • 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

  • Ultimate Star Wars Zero Company Heavy Build and Class Guide

    Hack the Minotaur · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 31 August 2026

    Supports: Per-ability progression tables, tier by tier. Bulwark six tiers, 16m taunt with 4m area and +2 Defense at tier 1 through 24m/8m/+6 at tier 6, which also "Grants Impervious and Immovable". Unstoppable six tiers, +2 stacks of Retaliation throughout with retaliation damage rising +1 to +4 and tier 6 adding "Can be cast on an ally". Conditioning five tiers, Max Health +4/+8/+12/+16/+20. Heavy Armor Training marked Cannot Upgrade, "Increases Defense by +2". Intimidating Posture marked Cannot Upgrade, "This Operator's primary Blaster Attacks now taunt the target on a hit" — the first published statement of that ability's effect.

  • Star Wars Zero Company Heavy Class Guide: Abilities and Builds

    VULKK · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 10 September 2026

    Supports: Published 9 September 2026, the same day as Patch 1.1, and **it does not state which build it was written against** — which is why nothing taken from it is filed as 1.1 behaviour. Bulwark reported at "up to 24m cast range" with an "8m area" and its Defense bonus "scaling from +2 to +6": all three reproduce `retail-htm-heavy` exactly, and are the first corroboration that ladder has had. Unstoppable "costs 1 AP", "starts with 2 Retaliation stacks", and at maximum rank "can be applied to allies" and permits "up to 4 Retaliation stacks" — the AP cost and the four-stack ceiling appear on no other source read in this pass. Impact Underlay "reduces incoming melee damage by 50%", the first published effect for any Underlay outside the Reinforced line. On Intimidating Posture: its Taunt "also triggers from blaster-based AoE attacks and from Assist Attacks", and the guide draws the conclusion itself — a Heavy with Sweeping Salvo "can Taunt every enemy the cone hits". **Checked for and absent**: any Advantage cost for Bulwark, which remains unpublished everywhere.

  • STAR WARS Zero Company — Patch 1.1 Notes

    Electronic Arts · Tier 1 — Official · accessed 14 September 2026

    Supports: Published 9 September 2026, the first post-launch patch; re-read in full on 14 September 2026, when it was still the newest entry on EA's News & Updates page. **Every item below is listed by EA under bug fixes**, which is what makes each one a statement about 1.0 as well as about 1.1. Secondary Specializations: their passive Cross Trainings "now correctly enter the selection pool at Relationship +8", and Secondary Specializations "now count for Specialization-specific Operation requirements and results". Chance-to-Hit: attacks displayed at 100% "can no longer erroneously miss". Scattergun: Tiers II, III and IV "no longer incorrectly use Tier I values". Droid Dismantler: Harmony "is granted only on Droid deaths, not on every enemy death". Tel-Rea: the Ranged Damage Cross Training bonus "is now applied once rather than twice" to her Force attacks, and Critical Damage bonuses "now correctly apply" to them. DC-17m Anti-Armor: it "can now critically hit" and "receives damage bonuses that apply to grenades". Ion Blasters "no longer double Critical Damage". Sweeping Salvo: "enemies outside the targeting cone are no longer hit". A Life of Labor II "can no longer infinitely accumulate bonuses when purchased repeatedly". Immovable: the status "now provides its intended bonuses". Bacta Tank, missed on the first read and added 14 September: "Fixed an issue where the Bacta Tank could be used more than one in a cycle" — EA's wording, typo included; the intended rule is one use per cycle. Overwatch, three lines, quoted verbatim on 14 September because the first pass had paraphrased the first of them too loosely: "Fixed an issue where Overwatch shots triggered against attackers caused the enemies to fire through solid objects at Operators they couldn't see" — an enemy-side line-of-sight failure, not the player's reaction shots passing through walls; "Fixed some instances of Overwatch triggering on a unit outside of the targeting cone"; and "Fixed various Overwatch issues that caused enemies and Operators to be unintentionally attacked". A fourth mentions it in passing: "Fixed a turn ordering issue that caused the Coil Captain to heal a target already slain by Overwatch". **Checked for and absent**: any figure for anything — no Scattergun tier statistics, no Harmony amount, no DC-17m damage, no figure for what Immovable now provides, no Bacta Tank cost. Also absent: any fix for Overwatch *failing* to trigger. Every Overwatch line corrects a shot that should not have happened, and none claims a shot that should have happened now does.