Specialization
Zero Company Soldier class guide
All-round damage with a stunning melee strike, a long grenade arm, and Rocket Strike — the most destructive area attack in the game.
- Confidence
- Confirmed
- Verified
- 14 August 2026
Quick answer
General offense at close-to-medium range using melee, grenades, heavy fire and a rocket launcher.
- Range
- close, medium
- Ultimate
- Rocket Strike
- Build themes
- Rocket Strike into grenade follow-up · Dazing and stunning priority targets · Extended grenade range · Melee that costs one Action Point
- Suggested weapons
- RifleRepeater
- Tags
- explosives, anti-cover, advantage-spender, multi-target, debuff
Ultimate
Soldier Ultimate: Rocket Strike
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.
Costs 10 Advantage and no Action Points at all. It fires a rocket that detonates on impact, damaging all targets caught in the blast and destroying cover — and because it spends nothing from the turn, it can be fired after the Operator has already moved and attacked. Retail ability cards give its base damage as 12, 16, 20, 24 and 28 across the first five ranks, reaching 34 at the sixth, where survivors are also left Vulnerable so the next attack against each of them critically hits.
Build value: The squad's answer to Outlaws fighting in numbers and to droid formations arriving a dozen at a time — and the strongest single reason to bank Advantage. Ten Advantage is the entire pool at its known maximum, so the turn this fires, nobody else in the squad spends anything: it is not a purchase to budget around, it is the budget. What it does not cost is the turn. No Action Point is spent, so the Soldier moves into position, takes an ordinary shot, and fires the rocket anyway — which makes the real question when the pool fills rather than whether the turn can afford it. The final rank is what ties it to the rest of the squad: leaving survivors Vulnerable turns one area attack into a set-up for everyone else's, and the Soldier's own extended grenade range is the natural way to collect. The tension is the pool starting each fight empty while enemies are most tightly packed on turn one.
Abilities
Confirmed abilities
Only abilities named by an official source appear here. The complete kit has not been published.
Rocket Strike
ConfirmedCosts 10 Advantage and no Action Points at all. It fires a rocket that detonates on impact, damaging all targets caught in the blast and destroying cover — and because it spends nothing from the turn, it can be fired after the Operator has already moved and attacked. Retail ability cards give its base damage as 12, 16, 20, 24 and 28 across the first five ranks, reaching 34 at the sixth, where survivors are also left Vulnerable so the next attack against each of them critically hits.
Build value: The squad's answer to Outlaws fighting in numbers and to droid formations arriving a dozen at a time — and the strongest single reason to bank Advantage. Ten Advantage is the entire pool at its known maximum, so the turn this fires, nobody else in the squad spends anything: it is not a purchase to budget around, it is the budget. What it does not cost is the turn. No Action Point is spent, so the Soldier moves into position, takes an ordinary shot, and fires the rocket anyway — which makes the real question when the pool fills rather than whether the turn can afford it. The final rank is what ties it to the rest of the squad: leaving survivors Vulnerable turns one area attack into a set-up for everyone else's, and the Soldier's own extended grenade range is the natural way to collect. The tension is the pool starting each fight empty while enemies are most tightly packed on turn one.
Brutal Strike
ConfirmedA melee action costing 1 Action Point, usable once per turn. Deals melee damage and applies Dazed, which prevents the target attacking on its turn. Retail ability cards give its base damage as 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 across the first five ranks, reaching 18 at the sixth, where it applies Stunned instead of Dazed. Unlike Bull Rush it adds no movement of its own and does not push.
Build value: Damage and damage prevention bought with one action, which is unusual enough to be underrated. It also benefits from the general melee rule: movement and the attack together cost a single Action Point unless extra distance is needed, so a Soldier already close can strike and still act. Switching off a priority target for a turn is often worth more than the damage — and at final rank, stunning one and shooting it is a full combo on its own.
Strength
ConfirmedIncreases Melee Damage by +2 and increases the throw range of all Grenades by +2.0m. Its Focus Tree ranks raise the figures; only the first is published.
Build value: Two bonuses that look unrelated and are not: both are about the Soldier being effective without spending a shot. The melee half feeds Brutal Strike, which is a melee action and therefore cannot miss; the grenade half is range on the Utilities the Soldier is already the best carrier for, and two metres decides whether a cluster can be hit from behind cover or has to be approached. Read it as a reason to give this Operator the explosives rather than as a small stat line.
Armsmaster
ConfirmedIncreases Blaster Damage and Grenade Damage by +2. Its Focus Tree ranks raise the figures; only the first is published.
Build value: Flat damage on both of the things a Soldier does, which makes it the most straightforwardly good passive in this file and the least interesting to build around. Two points on a Blaster Rifle’s 10 is a fifth more per shot before criticals; two on a grenade is two on everything the grenade hits. It is the reason a Soldier stays worth its slot in a squad that has out-grown its Ultimate.
Squad partners
Who to pair the class with
Each pairing states whether the interaction is officially confirmed or our reading of confirmed mechanics.
- Scout
Rocket Strike is the largest Advantage purchase available and the Scout is the only class that fills the pool deliberately. Combat Recon scans the group that Rocket Strike is about to hit, which pays for the shot.
- Heavy
Bulwark taunts an entire area into one place. Rocket Strike is what makes gathering them there a mistake.
- Sharpshooter
Explosives strip cover and Rocket Strike's max rank leaves survivors Vulnerable, which the Sharpshooter converts into its largest hit.
- Scoundrel
Both classes hand out Vulnerable, one to a group and one to a chosen target, so a squad running both rarely lacks a guaranteed critical.
Talents
Talents that suit the Soldier
A Talent is chosen separately from a Specialization, so these are combinations you assemble yourself. The Squad Builder models the class half only.
Brutal Strike is melee and its final rank stuns, so the extra melee damage rides on an attack that is already the Soldier's control tool.
Rocket Strike is the biggest single attack in the game by area; a guaranteed critical on it converts a group clear into an overkill.
Both answer grouped enemies with area damage, and Sabotage covers the turns when Rocket Strike's cost is out of reach.
Brutal Strike and a grenade in the same turn is normally out of reach on Action Points alone.
Rocket Strike leaves a group of survivors on low health, which is exactly the state Final Shot triggers on.
Strengths
- Arms Master gives +2 blaster and grenade damage, so the Soldier is a strong damage dealer from the first mission with no investment.
- Strength adds grenade range and melee damage together, from +2 metres and +2 damage at the first rank to +6 and +6 at the sixth. Six metres of extra throw reaches considerably further than it sounds.
- Brutal Strike is a melee attack costing 1 Action Point that Dazes its target, and a Dazed enemy cannot attack on its turn. It is damage and damage prevention bought with the same action.
- At final rank Brutal Strike stuns instead of dazing. Its damage climbs slowly to get there — 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, then 18 — so the Stun is what the sixth rank is really buying.
- Rocket Strike's damage ladder is the steepest recorded: 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, then 34 at the rank that adds Vulnerable.
- Melee counts the movement and the attack as a single Action Point unless extra distance is needed, so a Soldier one Action Point of distance away can close, strike, and still act.
- Rocket Strike devastates a targeted area, damaging everything in the blast. It is the answer both to Outlaws fighting in numbers and to Separatist droid formations arriving a dozen at a time.
- At final rank Rocket Strike leaves survivors Vulnerable, so the next attack on each of them crits — and the Soldier's own extended grenade range is the natural way to collect.
- It is the hardest class to categorise, which is its strength: area damage, solid single-target damage at two ranges, and a way to switch off a priority target for a turn.
Weaknesses
- Brutal Strike adds no movement of its own, unlike Bull Rush, so it needs speed investment or a starting position close enough to use it.
- Brutal Strike does not push, so it cannot use ledges or collisions the way the Assault's charge does.
- Rocket Strike spends Advantage and therefore competes directly with Morale Boost, Easy Mark, Precision Shot and every other Ultimate for one pool that caps at 10.
- Advantage starts each fight empty, so the biggest area attack is unavailable at exactly the moment enemies are most tightly packed.
- Destructible cover cuts both ways — removing an enemy's cover can expose your own squad's next position.
- Close-to-medium range means it cannot solve long-range problems on its own.
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.
- Rocket Strike's blast radius. Its cost was entered on 2026-08-29 at 10 Advantage and no Action Points, but the radius — which decides whether the class answers a formation or a pair — has no published figure.
- Whether Rocket Strike's 10 Advantage is right. It rests on one retail guide of modest standing plus two pre-release previews describing the same attack on Trick. The two best-standing Soldier ability tables print the ability and give no cost at all, which is a gap rather than a contradiction, and it is the first figure here to re-check in play.
- How many grenades an Operator carries per mission.
- Which cover types are destructible.
- Whether a clone's rocket launcher is the same ability — its charges appear to vary. Trick's case is settled: the strike previewers watched him charge is this ability, and the records were merged on 2026-08-29.
- Focus Point costs for each rank.
Questions
Common questions
The way these come up in search, answered directly.
- Who is Trick in Zero Company?
- Clone trooper CT-3301, a veteran soldier and Hawks' longtime companion — and the only Operator who can revive himself.
Builds using the Soldier
- Scoundrel + Sharpshooter Critical ConfirmedOpen in Squad Builder →
- Hawks Pico-5 Support TheorycraftOpen in Squad Builder →
- Anti-Droid Ion Squad TheorycraftOpen in Squad Builder →
- Beskar Mode squad TheorycraftOpen in Squad Builder →
- Full Clone Trooper Squad TheorycraftOpen in Squad Builder →
- Taunt and Absorb Wall TheorycraftOpen in Squad Builder →
- Gunslinger Burn TheorycraftOpen in Squad Builder →
- Astromech Support TheorycraftOpen in Squad Builder →
- Dual Specialization squad TheorycraftOpen in Squad Builder →
- The published-loadout squad CommunityOpen in Squad Builder →
Other Specializations
- Zero Company class tier list — the Soldier is A tiertheorycraft, not yet tested
- Zero Company Assault class guide
- Zero Company Gunslinger class guide
- Zero Company Heavy class guide
- Zero Company Medic class guide
- Zero Company Scoundrel class guide
- Zero Company Scout class guide
- Zero Company Sharpshooter class guide
Sources
- 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
- I played 54 hours of Star Wars Zero Company
Dantics · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 11 August 2026
Supports: 5:26–11:55 — an injury is taken only on being reduced to zero health; normal, hard and expert named, plus an Ironman-style toggle; crisis operations; weapon mods slotted freely before missions; a second Specialization after cycle 18; every Bond level granting Focus Points and one of three joint training bonuses; the Sharpshooter's unmissable shot and the Soldier's rocket barrage
- I played Star Wars Zero Company — my honest thoughts
EckhartsLadder · Tier 3 — Hands-on preview · accessed 11 August 2026
Supports: 3:18–12:36 — no hunker-down action, so a spare AP goes to Overwatch; astromechs carrying three utilities and extra uses of each; Trick able to negate some injuries along an upgrade path; twelve galaxy zones; super battle droids telegraphing a rocket one turn ahead; many of the 150+ planets being text-only
- Ultimate Star Wars Zero Company Classes Guide
Hack the Minotaur · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 1 September 2026
Supports: Per-class ability tables. Soldier — Rocket Strike "Tier 1: 12 Base DMG / Tier 2: 16 Base DMG / Tier 3: 20 Base DMG / Tier 4: 24 Base DMG / Tier 5: 28 Base DMG / Tier 6: 34 Base DMG; applies Vulnerable"; Brutal Strike "1 AP" with "Tier 1: 12 Base DMG" rising 13, 14, 15, 16 to "Tier 6: 18 Base DMG" and a Daze effect; Strength increasing melee damage and grenade throw range across six tiers to "+6 Melee Damage; +6m throw range"; Armsmaster "Increases Blaster Damage and Grenade Damage by +2. Cannot Upgrade". Assault — Sweeping Salvo "Costs 4 Advantage". Gunslinger — Open Fire "Costs 9 Advantage", upgradeable to fire 3 times at Tier 6. Scout — Combat Recon granting "+1 Advantage for each assessed enemy" over ranges of "16m to 24m" with areas expanding to "7m". Bylined Hack The Minotaur, updated 2026-08-27. Re-read 2026-09-01, when the page header gave "Latest Update: August 31, 2026". Four claims taken on that pass, none of them present on 2026-08-28. On the unlock point: "Operators can unlock a Secondary Specialization once you hit Cycle 18 in game." On pairing: "you can't double up" on the same class, with "The exception to this is the Astromech class and Tel-Rea". On the secondary's ceiling, which is the claim to read carefully because no other publisher makes it: Secondary Specializations "allow you to use all the abilities for that class but they're Focus Tree upgrades cannot go past Tier 5, so a Secondary Spec will always be slightly weaker than if you had used it as your Primary Specialization." And on the class count: "Star Wars Zero Company has 12 classes split into 8 standard Specializations available to any operator and 4 exotic classes", the eight named as "Assault, Gunslinger, Heavy, Medic, Scoundrel, Scout, Sharpshooter, and Soldier" and the four exotic as Jedi Padawan, Mandalorian Warrior, Astromech and Clone Commando. **Nothing has been taken here from that last name.** It is the first naming of this database's unrecorded fourth exotic class, it is a bare name with no described ability, and it is one publisher's — so it is a research lead recorded in `content/exotic-classes.ts` rather than a record.
- Star Wars Zero Company: Specializations Tier List
GameRant · Tier 3 — Retail review · accessed 28 August 2026
Supports: Assault entry — "Sweeping Salvo, which acts as a close-range AoE Disorient (-20% Chance-To-Hit) that also deals solid damage, is up there with the best offensive abilities in the game, and it costs just 4 Advantage." Soldier entry — "Rocket Strike (Ultimate): Fire a powerful rocket that explodes on impact, damaging all targets in the blast", "Brutal Strike (Standard): Rush and strike a target, dealing Melee Damage and Dazing", "Armsmaster (Passive): Increases Blaster Damage and Grenade Damage by +2", with no Advantage cost given for Rocket Strike. Gunslinger entry — "Open Fire (Ultimate): Fire 2 Times at any combination of enemies", with no cost given. Bylined William Parks, published 2026-08-27