![[Zero Company] Guide to picking the Best Operators for the Job](https://img.g2a.com/700x394/1x1x0/zero-company-guide-best-operators/649382c50e6445f9ada7427f)
The best canonical Operators in Star Wars Zero Company are not interchangeable. Jae Mordant is one of the strongest finishers, Kabb Uppercut can bend the Action Point economy in your favor, Tel-Rea Vokoss excels at battlefield control, Luco Bronc is built for sustained ranged damage, and Hawks improves practically any squad simply by being there. Trick and Cly are more situational, but both become excellent picks when the mission matches what their unique talents do best.
This guide focuses specifically on the seven authored, story-based Operators: Hawks, Trick, Kabb, Jae, Tel-Rea, Cly, and Luco. Custom recruits and Astromechs can fill many of the same combat roles, but they do not replace the unique talents attached to these characters.
That distinction matters because Zero Company is heavily driven by Action Points, Advantage, assists, positioning, and out-of-turn actions. A character who saves one AP or creates one free finishing attack can be more valuable than somebody with a larger damage number on their character sheet.
Our categories therefore prioritize how much each Operator changes the efficiency of a four-person squad rather than trying to force everyone into a single numerical tier list.
Table of Contents
Best Zero Company Operators by role
| Operator | Best category | Unique talent | Best mission style |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hawks | Best support | Fearless Leader | General-purpose and story missions |
| Trick | Best early Operator | For My Brothers | Attrition, risky objectives, early-game deployments |
| Kabb Uppercut | Best AP economy | Uppercut | Close-quarters and enemy-dense maps |
| Jae Mordant | Best finisher | Final Shot | Multi-target fights and efficient damage squads |
| Tel-Rea Vokoss | Best battlefield control | Strong With the Force | Cover-heavy maps, dangerous elites, grouped enemies |
| Cly Kullervo | Best mobility and disruption | Combat Jump | Large maps, flanking, timed objectives, clustered enemies |
| Luco Bronc | Best sustained ranged damage | Combat Gas | Bosses, elites, defensive maps, long sightlines |
The biggest lesson is that the best Operator depends on what the mission is asking you to solve. Zero Company frequently gives you more good characters than deployment slots, so squad construction is less about finding four permanent favorites and more about identifying which unique talents will save the most actions on that particular map.
Hawks: best support Operator
Unique talent: Fearless Leader
Hawks’ talent increases the assist damage and defense of the other Operators while the Zero Company commander is deployed.
That makes Hawks unusual because their most important contribution does not require spending an Action Point at all. Everyone else simply becomes a little better at surviving and supporting one another.
Hawks is also the most flexible authored character because their combat specialization can be shaped around whatever the rest of your regular squad lacks. A Medic build turns the commander into a dedicated sustain piece, Scout helps generate Advantage, while Sharpshooter can cover a ranged-damage gap before Luco becomes available.
Recommended specializations: Medic, Scout, or Sharpshooter, depending on what the rest of the squad lacks.
Best squad style: Balanced teams built around assists and Bonds.
Best missions: Long story deployments, mixed objectives, and missions where you do not know exactly what the map will demand.
Main weakness: Fearless Leader improves the squad rather than creating a dramatic standalone combat trick, so Hawks’ personal effectiveness still depends heavily on the specialization you choose.
Why pick Hawks? Reliability. There are Operators with flashier talents, but very few team compositions become worse because Hawks is present.
Learn more about specializations, your operator’s main source of cool abilities.
We’ve covered all of them, even the unique ones. Take a look!
Trick: best early Operator
Unique talent: For My Brothers
Trick starts the campaign alongside Hawks and Kabb, which immediately gives him an advantage when resources, equipment, Bonds, and your roster are still limited.
His unique talent acts as insurance: the first time Trick is downed, he can automatically return to the fight at full health. Upgrades can also protect him from the injury normally associated with being downed.
That is not a talent you want to trigger deliberately every battle, but early in the campaign it gives you room to make mistakes. Trick can hold a dangerous position or absorb pressure that you would be much more reluctant to put on Jae or Luco.
His starting Soldier specialization (you can respec him) also gives the early squad access to Rocket Strike, a useful area attack when large groups of enemies would otherwise require several individual actions.
Recommended specializations: Soldier + Heavy or Assault
Best squad style: Tough early-game teams that expect to trade damage rather than execute perfect alpha strikes.
Best missions: Unknown maps, attrition-heavy encounters, defensive positions, and early deployments before the roster opens up.
Main weakness: Once your squad becomes strong enough to avoid getting downed regularly, For My Brothers contributes less than talents that activate during successful turns.
That makes Trick a particularly good early Operator rather than an automatic late-game choice. He protects you from failure better than he accelerates an already dominant squad.
Kabb Uppercut: best Operator for AP economy
Unique talent: Uppercut
Kabb’s signature move lets him rush an enemy, hit them in melee, and knock them backward. The important part comes when the target dies: Kabb gets the Action Points spent on Uppercut back.
That is one of the cleanest examples of why AP efficiency can matter more than raw damage in Zero Company.
Normally, spending an action to finish a nearly dead enemy is still spending an action. Kabb can turn the same cleanup job into positioning, damage, and a kill without sacrificing the rest of his turn if Uppercut secures the elimination.
This encourages a very specific rhythm: let another Operator soften the target, send Kabb in for the finishing blow, recover the AP, then continue acting.
Recommended specializations: Heavy + Soldier.
Best squad style: Aggressive close-range squads built around chaining kills and assists.
Best missions: Interior maps, rooms with several weaker enemies, and battles where targets can be softened before Kabb moves in.
Main weakness: Uppercut is at its best when Kabb can safely reach a killable target. Open maps and heavily protected enemies can make that setup harder.
Kabb pairs especially well with Operators who create predictable finishing opportunities. Jae and Kabb approach the same AP problem from opposite directions: Jae kills weakened targets without spending her own action, while Kabb can spend an action and get it back.
Jae Mordant: best finisher
Unique talent: Final Shot
Jae’s defining ability is one of the easiest talents in the game to appreciate immediately.
When another Operator attacks and leaves an enemy at low health, Final Shot allows Jae to finish that target automatically.
What looks like a small amount of bonus damage is actually another form of Action Point economy. Without Jae, somebody needs to spend another shot on that almost-dead enemy. With Jae covering the battlefield, the rest of the squad can continue onto the next target.
Final Shot becomes particularly useful when your team spreads damage around. Area attacks, assists, and multi-target abilities can create several wounded enemies, while Jae converts one of those awkward leftovers into a clean elimination.
Recommended specializations: Assault + Gunslinger.
Best squad style: High-efficiency ranged squads that attack several enemies per turn.
Best missions: Enemy-dense maps, prolonged firefights, and missions with several medium-health targets rather than one enormous boss.
Main weakness: Final Shot needs another Operator to create the low-health target first, so Jae’s unique talent is less important when your squad is already deleting enemies in single attacks.
Jae also arrives early enough to influence much of the campaign, joining after Cycle 3: In Debt to the Hutts. That combination of availability and passive efficiency makes her one of the easiest authored Operators to fit into almost any regular team.
Our Zero Company review also highlights how much the game’s strongest squad combinations revolve around squeezing extra actions, assists, and Advantage out of a turn rather than simply comparing weapon damage.
Tel-Rea Vokoss: best battlefield control
Unique talent: Strong With the Force
Tel-Rea is mechanically different from the rest of the authored roster because she follows the unique Padawan and Wayseeker progression rather than the standard specialization pool.
Her talent gives her stacks of Harmony at the beginning of each turn, improving both her lightsaber attacks and her ability to deflect incoming fire.
The real reason to bring Tel-Rea, however, is control.
Force Push and Force Pull let her rearrange a battlefield. An enemy hiding in good cover can suddenly find itself exposed. A dangerous unit can be dragged away from a favorable position. Several opponents can be moved closer together before another Operator fires an area attack.
Zero Company’s maps frequently turn positioning into damage, and Tel-Rea is one of the characters best equipped to exploit that.
Best squad style: Combo-driven teams using knockback, grouped enemies, area attacks, and aggressive repositioning.
Best missions: Cover-heavy battlefields, maps with useful hazards or elevation, and encounters against dangerous enemies that need to be displaced.
Main weakness: She joins later than the starting cast and occupies a highly specialized role that cannot be recreated simply by retraining a standard recruit.
Tel-Rea is therefore less about producing the biggest isolated number and more about making everyone else’s attacks easier to land where they matter.
Cly Kullervo: best mobility and disruption
Unique talent: Combat Jump
Cly’s jetpack immediately changes how you can think about distance.
Combat Jump lets her spend Advantage to leap to a distant position, while her unique Warrior specialization adds electricity-based abilities such as Electroweb Dart and Electroweb Surge.
That combination makes her especially good at solving tactical problems caused by geography. If another Operator needs two moves to reach a useful flank, Cly may be able to simply arrive there. If enemies are clustered, her electrical toolkit gives her ways to turn that concentration against them.
She also works particularly well alongside displacement characters. Force Push, Force Pull, and knockback can group enemies where Cly’s Electroweb effects become more valuable.
Recommended specialization: Scout or Gunslinger
Best squad style: Mobile control teams that generate plenty of Advantage.
Best missions: Large maps, timed objectives, flanking routes, rescue-style movement, and fights where enemies cluster together.
Main weakness: Cly consumes a resource the whole squad can use. If your Advantage generation is weak, her mobility and electrical tricks have to compete with other major abilities.
A Scout in the squad helps enormously because Cly becomes much more comfortable when Advantage is something you regularly generate rather than something you are afraid to spend.
Luco Bronc: best sustained ranged damage
Unique talent: Combat Gas
Luco is the authored roster’s natural answer to the question: who do I bring when something absolutely needs to be shot from very far away?
Combat Gas gives him stacks of Sharpened Senses, improving his ranged damage and chance to hit. His default Sharpshooter specialization reinforces that role with tools such as Zero-In and Pick Them Off.
The important difference between Luco and somebody like Jae is consistency.
Jae’s unique value comes from finishing weakened enemies after somebody else attacks. Luco wants to establish a firing position and keep putting accurate damage into important targets himself.
That makes him particularly attractive in encounters where reliability matters more than movement.
Recommended specializations: Sharpshooter + Scoundrel.
Best squad style: Ranged teams that can protect a dedicated backline damage dealer.
Best missions: Boss encounters, elite-heavy fights, defensive positions, and maps with long unobstructed sightlines.
Main weakness: He is less comfortable when objectives force constant relocation or enemies can rapidly collapse onto his firing position.
Luco is the easiest authored Operator to recommend when the mission briefing suggests one or two dangerous enemies matter more than clearing a room of weak droids.
Best general-purpose canonical squad
If you do not know what a mission is about to throw at you, a particularly efficient four-Operator foundation is:
Hawks + Jae + Tel-Rea + Kabb
Hawks improves the team, Jae removes wounded enemies without demanding another normal attack, Tel-Rea controls positioning, and Kabb converts weakened close-range targets into AP-efficient kills.
It is not universally optimal. That is the point.
Swap Luco for Kabb when the map favors long sightlines or a major boss. Swap Cly for Tel-Rea if raw mobility matters more than Force control. Early in the campaign, Trick can take either slot and give you a much larger safety margin while your equipment and Bonds are still developing.
The strongest Zero Company squads are usually built around interactions rather than four individually powerful characters. Tel-Rea pulling an enemy out of cover for Luco matters. A teammate softening something for Kabb matters. Jae removing the nearly dead enemy somebody else would otherwise waste an AP on matters.
That is also why Bonds complicate the answer. A mathematically attractive Operator who barely knows the rest of your regular squad may initially contribute less than a slightly weaker choice whose Bond upgrades are already doing useful work.
Bonds are an incredibly flavourful, but also relatively complex system.
Check our guide to learn how to make the most of of your operator’s relationships.
Which Zero Company Operator should you bring?
| If the expected mission problem is… | Bring… | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You want a safe all-round team | Hawks | Fearless Leader improves the rest of the squad without consuming actions. |
| You are still learning the game | Trick | His self-revive makes mistakes less punishing. |
| Too many enemies survive on a sliver of health | Jae | Final Shot turns wounded enemies into free cleanup. |
| You need more actions from one turn | Kabb | An Uppercut kill refunds the AP spent on the attack. |
| Enemies are entrenched in good positions | Tel-Rea | Force Push and Pull can reshape the fight. |
| The map is large or the objective is far away | Cly | Combat Jump bypasses much of the normal movement problem. |
| A boss or elite needs to die reliably | Luco | Sharpened Senses improves his sustained ranged accuracy and damage. |
Build your own Zero Company
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Zero Company Operator FAQ
Who is the best Operator in Star Wars Zero Company?
There is no universally best choice, but Jae and Kabb are exceptionally efficient because their unique talents directly reduce the number of normal actions required to finish enemies. Tel-Rea is the standout control specialist, while Hawks is the safest general-purpose support pick.
Are canonical Operators better than custom Operators?
Not automatically. Custom Operators can be built very efficiently around the standard specializations and can cover roles your authored cast is missing. What they cannot reproduce are character-specific talents such as Final Shot, Uppercut, Strong With the Force, or Combat Jump.
Should I use the same four Operators every mission?
Usually not. Zero Company rewards adapting the squad to the battlefield. Luco becomes more valuable on long-range maps, Cly on mobility-heavy objectives, and Tel-Rea when enemy positioning is the problem. Bonds provide a reason to maintain a regular core, but mission requirements should still influence the final four.
More Star Wars Zero Company on G2A News
- Zero Company review – a triple treat – our full review covering the tactical combat, strategic layer, Bonds, story, and technical issues.
- Star Wars Zero Company: Release Date, Editions, Gameplay, and Story Guide – the broader guide to the game, its campaign, systems, and editions.
- Zero Company vs. XCOM and Midnight Suns – how Bit Reactor’s tactical RPG compares with two of its clearest inspirations.
- Zero Company guide megapost – all our guides gathered in one spot for your convenience.