Evidenced before launch
Combat Stim + Gunslinger
A flat damage buff applied to the Operator who attacks most often in a turn.
- Confidence
- Confirmed
- Verified
- 23 August 2026
What it needs
- In the squad
- Medic — Combat Stim · Gunslinger
- The builder checks
- A Medic and a Gunslinger in the same squad.
Mechanism
Why it works
Combat Stim grants the Stimulant buff, which raises the target's damage and health. The damage half is flat and applies to each attack rather than once per turn.
That makes its value a function of how many separate attacks the recipient makes. The Gunslinger makes the most: its sidearm shot is a distinct action from its primary blaster attack, and Quick Draw refunds its own Action Point on a kill, so a good turn is several attacks rather than one.
The lead designer names this pairing directly as the reason the buff is worth building around, rather than leaving it as an inference from the two abilities.
Cost
What it gives up
The Medic spends an Action Point buffing instead of healing, and Combat Stim's temporary health is wasted on an Operator who was not going to be hit.
In practice
Squads built on this
Curated builds whose four Operators trigger this finding in the Squad Builder. Derived from the same engine, so the two lists cannot disagree.
- Medic + Gunslinger Combat StimConfirmedPut the Medic's damage buff on the Operator that attacks most often — the clearest confirmed synergy in the game, and the one EA and the developers describe most directly.
- Hawks Pico-5 SupportTheorycraftBuild the mandatory Operator into an action-economy engine that hands an extra Action Point to whoever needs it most — and banks Bond progress every time it fires.
- Anti-Droid Ion SquadTheorycraftDevelopers specifically recommend Ion weapons against Separatist droids — build the squad around that counter.
- Heavy + Medic FrontlineTheorycraftFunnel damage into the Operator built to take it, then heal that Operator — the lowest-risk answer to permadeath.
- Starting squad hypothesisTheorycraftAn untested first-campaign squad, built only from confirmed mechanics — the reasoning is ours, and it has not yet been played in the retail build.
- Full Clone Trooper SquadTheorycraftA themed all-clone company, confirmed as possible once clone recruitment unlocks — with one story-mission caveat.
- Gunslinger BurnTheorycraftA Gunslinger built around a Weapon Mod that ignites the target on every attack, so the class that shoots most often applies a stacking status fastest.
- Dual Specialization squadTheorycraftFour authored Operators paired with the second Specialization that compounds their fixed Talent rather than repeating it — the arrangement a launch-week creator arrived at, argued here against the mechanics.
- The published-loadout squadCommunityThree Operators as a launch-week guide actually played them, mods and Utilities included — the first build here to carry a loadout, because it is the first whose loadout somebody observed rather than reasoned.
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.
- Combat Stim's exact damage bonus and duration per rank. The values on the ability page are attributed to the developer interview and are under review.
- Whether the Stimulant buff can be refreshed before it expires, or whether re-applying it wastes the overlap.
- Whether the flat damage bonus applies to the sidearm shot as well as the primary blaster — the two are separate attacks, and Onslaught already distinguishes them.
Read next
Sources
- 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