Star Wars Zero Company only ever lets you deploy four operators, so every slot has to earn its place. The strongest teams in the campaign are not four separate carries stacked together. They are one resource generator, one target-setter, one payoff character, and one operator who keeps the plan from falling apart when a fight goes badly.
Quick answer: Keep Kabb (Assault), Jae Mordant (Scout), and Hawks (Sharpshooter) in the squad permanently. Fill the fourth slot with Trick (Soldier) until Tel-Rea Vokoss joins, then swap her in as Padawan. Once second specializations unlock, run Kabb (Assault/Soldier), Tel-Rea (Padawan/Wayseeker), Jae (Scout/Gunslinger), and Hawks (Sharpshooter/Scoundrel).
The four jobs every squad has to cover
Each operator starts a turn with three Action Points, but Advantage is a single pool shared by the whole team. That split is the reason team building matters more than raw damage numbers. Four operators who all want to spend Advantage on their ultimate will look excellent on the character screen and stall the moment combat starts.
A functional four-operator squad covers these jobs.
| Job | What it has to supply | Specializations that do it |
|---|---|---|
| Damage Dealer | Reliable kills on exposed or weakened enemies | Assault, Gunslinger |
| Control/Setup | Vulnerability, defense penetration, forced repositioning | Scoundrel, Padawan, Wayseeker |
| Frontliner | Close-range pressure and a body that can absorb a bad turn | Soldier, Heavy, Assault |
| Sustain/Vision | Advantage generation, scanning, healing, revives | Scout, Medic, Astromech |
Why Assault, Scout, and Sharpshooter stay in every team
Three specializations hold the composition together across the whole campaign. Scout is the engine, because Combat Recon costs 1 AP and generates Advantage scaled to how many enemies are caught in the scan, while also revealing hidden units. Against a full enemy group at the start of an encounter, one small piece of a turn pays for someone else’s ultimate.
Assault supplies the aggressive damage. It gains critical hit chance against enemies caught out of cover, uses Bull Rush to close distance and displace targets, and finishes with the guaranteed hits of Sweeping Salvo. Sharpshooter covers the opposite end of the map with Zero In, guaranteed damage from Precision Shot, and overwatch that punishes enemy movement before it happens.
Specializations, perks, and focus point spending all live on the Personnel screen under the Focus Tree tab, and points can be refunded and reassigned, so a bad early pick is not permanent.
Early game squad: Kabb, Trick, Jae, and Hawks
Before Tel-Rea is recruited, the best available line-up is Kabb as Assault, Trick as Soldier, Jae as Scout, and Hawks as Sharpshooter. Each of those four talents pulls in a different direction, which is exactly what you want this early.
Kabb is built around Uppercut, a 3 AP melee rush that knocks the target backward and refunds every AP it used if the target dies. Aim to land one kill with it every single turn. Assault supports that directly, since Bull Rush closes the gap, Uppercut takes the kill, and Sweeping Salvo plus blaster attacks clean up whatever is left standing.
Trick can play recklessly because For My Brothers revives him at full health the turn after he goes down, once per mission. Soldier suits that risk tolerance. Push him into melee range for Brutal Strike, place grenades where they hit two or more targets, and convert spare Advantage into Rocket Strike for heavy area damage against clustered enemies.
Jae wants a mid-map position with line of sight on as much of the enemy group as possible. Open with Combat Recon to bank Advantage, then spend her remaining AP on Blaster Pistol shots to spread Spotted and other status effects. Her Final Shot talent then finishes off enemies left at low health after another operator attacks them, which saves the rest of the team from wasting whole actions on cleanup.
Hawks contributes flat squad buffs through Fearless Leader, which raises assist damage and defense for every other operator. As a Sharpshooter, park him at range, activate Zero In, and dump most of his AP into Overwatch. His Pico-5 skill grants +1 AP to another operator, so hold it for a turn where it converts into an extra kill or gets someone into cover. Hawks’ species, appearance, and starting specialization are chosen at character creation and can be changed later at the Den.
Mid game squad: swap Trick out for Tel-Rea Vokoss
Tel-Rea’s Padawan specialization is exclusive to her and cannot be changed, and it is a straight upgrade over Soldier in the fourth slot. She brings high-damage lightsaber attacks, and Strong With the Force starts each of her turns with harmony stacks that improve those attacks and her deflection.
The real value is Force Push. It costs 6 Advantage, knocks nearby enemies away from her, and does far more than damage. Shoving a target out of cover turns a low-percentage shot into a clean one, and it works especially well with Hawks sitting on Overwatch. Nothing else about the rotation changes. Jae still opens with Combat Recon, Kabb still hunts Uppercut kills, and Hawks still denies enemy movement.
Note: every story operator except Hawks is subject to permadeath, and losing Tel-Rea removes the Padawan class from that run entirely. Hawks going down restarts the mission instead.
Late game squad: the best second specializations
Later in the campaign, operators can slot a second specialization on top of the first. The team does not change, only the pairings do.
Kabb (Assault/Soldier) picks up the Soldier Strength passive for more melee damage, which makes Uppercut kills easier to secure. He also gains Brutal Strike as a better way to end his turn than a blaster shot, plus grenades and Rocket Strike when the situation calls for area damage.
Tel-Rea (Padawan/Wayseeker) gains the most. Wayseeker adds Lightsaber Throw, a 10 Advantage ultimate capable of killing three or more enemies at once, along with Force Pull for a second displacement tool and An Elegant Weapon to buff her lightsaber attacks. With Jae generating Advantage every turn, that 10-point cost is repeatable rather than a once-per-mission luxury.
Jae (Scout/Gunslinger) keeps her role and hits harder doing it. Onslaught raises the damage of repeated primary blaster attacks in the same turn, Quick Draw adds a fast attack that refunds AP on a kill, and Open Fire spreads status effects further. Keep her on a Pistol so each attack still costs 1 AP.
Hawks (Sharpshooter/Scoundrel) gets a guaranteed critical hit through Identify Weakness, which makes a target Vulnerable so the next damaging attack crits. Feeding that into an upgraded Precision Shot is the single biggest damage spike in the team. Never Play Fair and Scoundrel’s Instinct also make him the best choice for calling in an Assist, since a well-positioned Sharpshooter usually has line of sight on most of the field.
| Stage | Squad | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Early | Kabb (Assault), Trick (Soldier), Jae (Scout), Hawks (Sharpshooter) | Baseline coverage of all four jobs |
| Mid | Kabb (Assault), Tel-Rea (Padawan), Jae (Scout), Hawks (Sharpshooter) | Trick is replaced by Force displacement and lightsaber damage |
| Late | Kabb (Assault/Soldier), Tel-Rea (Padawan/Wayseeker), Jae (Scout/Gunslinger), Hawks (Sharpshooter/Scoundrel) | Second specializations add Lightsaber Throw and guaranteed crits |
Replacing Jae when she is unavailable
There is a stretch of missions where Jae cannot be deployed, which costs you Final Shot and your Advantage engine at the same time. The fix is a shuffle rather than a rebuild. Bring in Luco Bronc as Sharpshooter/Scoundrel, a pairing that suits his Combat Gas talent and its Sharpened Senses stacks for extra ranged damage and accuracy, and hand him the back-line job Hawks used to hold.
Hawks then moves into Jae’s old mid-range position as Scout/Gunslinger. Switch him to a Blaster Pistol with status-inflicting mods so the debuff coverage does not disappear. Mid-range actually suits Pico-5 better, since more operators are within reach, but Hawks is still the stronger Sharpshooter while Jae is available.
When to deviate: Medic, Heavy, and Astromech droids
Medic is the only dedicated healing specialization in the game, and it is worth a slot when a run is going badly or permadeath risk is high. Combat Stim raises an ally’s Health, melee damage, and ranged damage for two turns, First Responder supplies a Medpac without using the normal utility slot, Lifesaving Measures improves Medpac healing, and allies picked up with Rally return at full health and able to act. Hawks is the natural fit, since support does not tie him to one narrow firing position.
Heavy is the defensive anchor. Bulwark forces enemies to target the Heavy, Unstoppable retaliates automatically, and Conditioning adds survivability. It pairs sensibly with Trick, whose self-revive already gives him a safety net. Astromech droids are the other outlier. They cannot use standard weapons at all, but Coordinated Support hands extra AP to the squad and Enhanced Scanners strips enemy defense, which changes the action economy rather than the damage total.
Mission objectives can also force your hand. Some contracts go beyond eliminating hostiles and require an operator to complete a task such as Seize the Asset, where a safecracker action opens a secured container, and others attach survival requirements to named operators like Hawks, Trick, and Kabb. Read the objective before locking your four.
Spending Advantage without starving your best ability
The most common way this composition underperforms is spending the shared pool on the wrong ultimate. Rocket Strike is the usual culprit. Firing it every time you can afford it leaves nothing for Force Push, Lightsaber Throw, or a Precision Shot that was going to kill an elite outright.
Use a simple priority. If several enemies are clustered behind destructible cover, area damage is the correct spend. If they are already exposed and Tel-Rea can line up a Lightsaber Throw, save the Advantage for her. Cheap actions exist precisely so operators can contribute without draining the pool, including Identify Weakness, Scoundrel’s Instinct, Brutal Strike, and a 1 AP first shot from a Blaster Rifle.
You will know the composition is working when Jae’s opening scan alone pays for the turn’s biggest ability, Kabb ends most turns with refunded AP from an Uppercut kill, and Hawks’ overwatch is punishing enemies before they reach cover. If Advantage is empty by the second round of every fight, the problem is the spending order, not the roster.
