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Current Update Status : Updated for Void Shadows DLC
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The goal of this guide is to provide future proofs good builds within a balanced party as well as gameplay explanation for the characters you are gonna use.

The Core Party is as Follow :
- Cassia Grand Strategist
- Jae Master Tactician
- Argenta Arch-Militant
- Pasqal Bounty Hunter

Those 4 members cover all skills (with the exception of Carouse) to a decent level as well as providing the core damage and support necessary for all difficulties. Feel Free to build your rogue trader however you want and bring anyone as your last party member.


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The rogue trader is nonetheless expected to be the "Face" of the party (ie : need High Coercion, Commerce, Persuasion). Jae or Pasqal can do it in a pinch, but either a Fellowship build or a Forge World / Calculated Relations / Int build Rogue Trader fit better from both a gameplay and RP perspective.

If you want to deviate from those skill distribution, feel free to adapt the relevant builds.


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Patches summary:
>Officers nerfed several notch. They are still the best class in the game, but they now do not scale on top of each other anymore, and missing Finest Hour (IV) doesn't make Jae a "wasted" officer. The best party now only need 2-3 officers instead of 5. Serial buffs have also bumped Ulfar from terribad to actually good.
>Melee Pyromancer slap

DLC :
>Blade Dancer x Executionner is very good but lack reach. Can one turn a lot of boss on unfair.
>Dots are a strong gimmick, but a gimmick nonetheless. They CC not enough vs killing the enemy dead + require more brainspace/setup.

Portrait link[www.nexusmods.com]

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Pen and papers RPG ruleset are meant to be a tool for a GM and it's players to create stories and engage with each other while drinking beer and eating pretzel among other nerds. The rules exist as a framework, are not absolute, and ultimately are here to give shy nerds a mean of interaction with other people they can understand as well as providing some guidance/boundaries to the over-imaginative social friends in your circle.

Of course, it also won't prevent autistic midwits to try and create optimized builds, rule lawyer on RAWs, and generally speaking try to break the game that a bunch of other sweaty, nerdy midwits have lazily copypasted without much testing or understanding of balance in order to sell more paper, resulting in content bloat that drown beginners in options and make it very easy to pick a "wrong" option. The bloat also force players to theorycraft a build in advance and then follow the talent picks each level up, encouraging netlisting and removing RP in favour of an adeptus-mechanicus worthy ritual of progression.

Sadly, when transitioning to Computer, a key element that could make sense of this whole mess has been lost : The GM.

And while a competent GM in pen and paper could sprinkle appropriate loot and challenge to your party, fudge the dice in the right direction, and forge compelling narrative out of whatever event was happening, no such thing in a video game. Instead, as a best effort to prevent ragequitting over bad dice rolls/to appeal to the completionist soul of the people playing such game, the savegame feature exist and can be used very often.

As a side effect, this also allow owlcat to get away with completely bullsh*t, unbalanced encounters and mechanics because "just load a previous save lol".

This mean owlcat RPGS are not hard. Ever. They are tedious.

It's a long preplanned checklist of actions, and if an encounter goes wrong ? Reload and try again.
Encounters are also not fundamentally different than basic skill checks : the whole system, lifted from P&P Rpgs, is about stacking buffs/improvement on a dice so that you pass the roll. Harder difficulties can be summed up as needing to stack more buffs on those rolls, ultimately making gameplans where the roll are too unreliable worthless but also needing more creativity and perusing of game mechanics in order to understand how to increase the likelihood of success of any given check/encounter.

And if it still doesn't work ? Just reload lol. The best builds are ultimately just time-savers in order to not have to reload. The best build is still not as good as a faster Hard Drive in term of how good you are at the game.

While barrelmancy a la Larian doesn't have an equivalent here, you can still start a fight with a long range attack (instead of walking to it), as well as retreating out of sight from the enemies and build up buffs/defeat foes piecemeal. This should solve most of the hard fight in the game.

With all of that said, let's dive into what a good build mean in the context of Rogue Trader.

Most builds you'll find on the internet sucks or are built around bug exploits/outdated. The main reason is that 99% of it is clickbait by someone as good as the game as a game j*urnalist *spit* can be, with the target of getting audience, not to git good. Even worst, some of them are straight up hours long youtube video. Not practical at all when you know, you are within a game and want to select which talents next.

I started to use internet builds because I knew nothing about the system, but very fast I realized the talents picks were barely above random in term of effectiveness, and just what the author think looked cool rather than any deep thought on it.

Nonetheless, it kinda worked due to the absolutely broken state of some interactions in the game, especially Versatility Stacks from Arch-Militant being granted at around 4x the correct rate and the inconsistency of the game when it comes to consider Burst attacks to qualify for AOE talents and abilities...

For new players, tough luck, those published build sucks, have always sucked, and just stumbled upon broken interaction that would make any random build work, and now you are faced with the daunting task of finding an updated build that doesn't ♥♥♥♥.

If you wanna bug exploit just use toybox. Less setup, more lore friendly. Pretend it's an Act of Faith or something.

Rogue Trader is a very standard CRPG, using flat D100 Roll under as a basis for nearly every action.

An encounter is subdivided in rounds. Each round, every character gets a turn, sorted by agility. Some abilities have turn cooldowns (eg : Limit of one attack per turn), some per round. Character can get activated out of normal round sequence following certain effects and ability.

Like any CRPG ever, the core of "winning" at the game encounters is action economy abuse. The party that take the most actions, have their actions succeed more often and crucially prevent their enemy from taking any action/have them fails win. In previous owlcat titles, it meant AOE terrain effect CC. In Rogue Trader, it mean using officers/master tactician to buff/give extra turn to your DPS who then shoot everyone dead as early as possible. There is no such thing as "tanking". CC/Taunting is too unreliable vs simply killing the enemies dead.

The skill checks are like any other game : Rather than a team of jacks of all trades, you are much better off having your party specialize in 2-3 skills per characters.

Unfair difficulty is making the encounters more difficult by inflicting huge malus on to-hit probability, especially behind cover, increased ennemy HP and damage, and finally making ennemy pass their own stat-check much more easily. This mean that you cannot relies on enemies failing their check and that dodge is more interesting than in normal difficulty. Moreover, any +hit % (or dodge/cover reduction) is way better in Unfair difficulty than in lower difficulties.

Contrary to other CRPG (ahem, DnD, Pathfinder, etc...) making unfair build can still be very theme and lore friendly in rogue trader, and outside of some small utility powers, there was not much hard CC to begin with. Instead, the action economy abuse is coming mostly from self buff.

In Rogue trader, there is (roughly) three encounters roles :

>Officer
>Carry
>Better than nothing (Support/Bruiser/Etc...)

The role of a Carry is to kill the enemies dead or make the party immortal. They generally spend their turn shooting at enemies, and when they don't it's to get some self buff or setup a wombo combo.
The role of an officer is to buff the carries and make them take as many action as possible.
There is no "true" tank role. At best you can have a bruiser/disruptor, but taunt is too unreliable of a mechanic, you have limited way to increase tankyness and control the enemy AI. You can however build your rogue trader as a decent enough dodge tank/CC machine thanks to planetary projects.

The best class in rogue trader is, by far, the officer. It can grant free turns/shoot to others, and buff allies at the same time. Many class scale well with a retinue of officers. They are the wombo combo enablers.

• Non-Psykers Officers themselves loves getting into Master Tactician as it allow them to buff the carry even harder, get some FEL, and they benefit hugely from a single high resolve character taking many turns.
  
• Psyker Officers should go Grand Strategist, as the most useful feature of the class is gotten at lvl 1 (free extra Go First turn), and then they can pick only their warp talents and abilities without losing much.
  
• Arch Militant can stack their versatility with each attack and scale exponentially well off it, and hence make fantastic extra turn dumps for officers.
  
• Operatives can use the extra turns from officers to setup as many exploit on a target as possible, then cast Tactical Knowledge, making the party near impervious to damage and giving themselves a huge damage boost.
  
• Bounty Hunter and their savour the kill talent allow them to take extra turns whenever one of their preys get killed, or simply with Hot on the trails to enable big chains of Operative Exploit Stacks. Not direct damage dealer carry, but combo very well to setup Tactical Knowledge.

Vanguard is the only subpar class. The class get weaker the more you win, as opposed to every other class that snowball. It is dependant on enemy taking actions to be useful and does not offer much wombo combo potential.
You only really need a tank/disruptor in higher difficulty for the first few rounds, and even then a Dodge Operative/Assassin is more reliable and disruptive than a Vanguard.

To completely and absolutely break the game, use mercenaries. At this point though, you are playing a puzzle game and are likely using toybox to cheat in respecs anyway, or are instead following a complex, step by step flowchart and not really "playing" anymore.
This is not the goal of this guide. The goal of this guide is to use only the regular companions. Not rely too much on convoluted buff loops for every encounters. Have balanced builds that complete each other while at the same time allowing people to just lift a single build and use it for their own games.

• Weapon Skill
  Parry, Parry Reduction (half), Melee Crit Chance
  
• Ballistic Skill
  Ranged hit chance = 30+BS%
  
• Strength
  1pt = +5% 1H melee Damage, +10% 2hand, Athletics
  
• Toughness
  1pt = +10% Wounds, Carouse
  
• Agility
  Turn order (Initiative), 1pt = 1% dodge chance, 0.5% melee dodge reduction, Demolition
  
• Intelligence
  1pt = 5% ranged aoe damage (non-burst). Lore(All), Logic, Medicae, Tech-Use
  
• Perception
  1pt = 0.5% dodge reduction (melee/ranged), half the worth of agility for turn order. Awareness
  
• Willpower
  Nothing by itself. Linked to a lot of psy power, either to cast or resist them.
  
• Fellowship
  Persuasion, Coercion, Commerce

• Officer
  S tier but need a carry to buff
  
• Master Tactician
  Natural continuation of officer, with even more buff generation and ap dump to buff your team.
  
  
• Soldier
  Ranged dps. By very concept the best carry mid game.
  
• Warrior
  Melee dps and by concept worse than soldiers as they need to invest in survivability and mobility, not just damage.
  
• Arch-militant
  The correct choice for scaling either soldier or warriors in the mid/late game.
  
  
• Blade Dancer
  S+ tier but pidgeonhole you into dual swords melee gameplay. Allow Medicae to scale of WS. Scale insanely with AGI.
  
• Executionner
  S+ tier if going medicae to wounds, serviceable otherwise. Either use it for the dot "gameplay" on a pyromancer/biomancer, or for the insane medicae scaling to wound on any other class.
  
  
• Operative
  For INT build. Due to the INT investment, you cannot go melee, you'll be too squishy.
  
• Bounty Hunter
  For getting free non-offensive turns when allies kill preys. Bounty hunters stack very well with each other as preys are shared.
  
• Assassin
  For offensive high agi/perception operatives.
  
  
• Grand Strategist
  The real value is in the free extra turn at the beginning of the fight. The micro management of zones is not worth the talents nor the real life time investment. Good build are supposed to make fights faster and requiring less decisions, not slower and more tedious. Good dump class for navigator/other specialist that need the talents slots.
  
  
• Vanguard
  Dump class similar to grand strategist. Only bring marginally better tanking. Workable with a melee Psyker.

Psykers/Navigator are by themselves several different subclass, depending on which spells and the scaling you want to have, as they'll need to take talents and ability slots away from your normal class. To add to the complexity, one of the best psyker gear in the game is a heavy armour.

On Unfair, enemies have +20% dodge. To fully negate their ranged dodge, the hard cap is hence
(40 + twice the enemy agility) pts of Perception (and/or Agi if melee) as well.

WS is a pretty good melee offensive as well as defensive stat as foes will need twice yours to negate it, even on unfair, and will not be reduced by armour (unlike dodge from agility).


A good party in rogue trader is at least one win condition setup to solve encounters ie. Kill/Hard CC every foes or become Immortal yourself.

Since the nerf, officers went from wanting 5 in every party to wanting 2-3 in every party (one per carry).
Then you have the choice of win condition :
-Snowball hypercarry (Arch militant receiving lots of turns, Caster getting absurd level of psy rating/wp, Kibellah one turning the boss, etc...)
-Turtling away from the encounter and picking opponents one by one as they come
-Operative Tactical Knowledge Stacks
-Actually solving the encounters as the devs imagined it would be (lol jk)

The first one can be achieved by any arch-militant, but work best with Argenta, as you get her early game and hence her build is not gimped.

The Tactical Knowledge combo can be achieved in different way :
>Ranged assassin with death whisper getting the officer extra turns, cleaning trash mob around a single exploit target and then casting Tactical Knowledge on it
>Bounty hunters using On the Trail or Savour the Kill to take many empty turns and accumulate exploits before casting Tactical Knowledge

Ranged Assassin works well with either Pasqal or Yrliet, Bounty hunter with any Operative and does not require to be the extra turn targets as much as Asassins.

Hence, my builds exist along the following core party :

- Cassia Grand Strategist
- Jae Master Tactician
- Argenta Arch-Militant
- Pasqal Bounty Hunter

This party can setup either win conditions, fetch every member early game, and allow for two flex slots of other party members.

Moreover, your party should contain a dedicated a character for each skillcheck to be passed.

The most abundant skills checks in the game are :
Awareness > Tech Use > Demolition > Athletics > Lore Xenos (Janus & Act III) > Everything else


As you can see from the above table :

• Jae is a great skill monkey thanks to her fellowship scaling on most skills and cold trader making reputation boost her skills.
  
• A Party of Face Rogue Trader, Cassia, Jae, Argenta, Pasqal can cover all skills, leaving 1 flex slot that can do whatever.

Once again, the above is merely a suggestion for a party that works and can clean the game on unfair. You should absolutely bring the characters you like the most and outside of medicae/lore xenos for Executionner/Drukhari Weapon prof, every single skill is purely down to party synergy for skill checks.
My personal opinion is that P&P skill roll checks with only negative to fail a check do not belong in a computer game, and that if you are ready to optimize your run/save scum skillchecks, just use toybox to makes your party always takes 1 on skillcheck. It will save you tedious loading time. Pressing F8 in a solo game aint exactly hard, you are not missing much of the gameplay of staring at a loading screen.

Literally me

This build allow you to RP as the most "typical" kind of upstart rogue traders, rich people used to have other people doing things for them becoming filthy rich people having other people do everything for them.

Homeworld : Imperial World.
Humanity's Finest : Fellowship
Origin : Noble
Triumph : Illustrious Glory
Darkest Hour : Grim Portents 177013
Stats : Fellowship, Willpower, Agility
Portrait : The most attractive one in your collection
♥♥♥ : Yes

Weapons ? That's for decoration and prestige, not actually using them. Spend all of your AP buffing allies and giving them extra turns, extra damage, faster heroics buildup, etc... Become a complete simp/stan for a carry and watch them melt encounters.

Armour : Light.
Your buffs scale off Fellowship and a bit from Willpower.
For the rest equip whatever look the most fashionable and that your party doesn't need. Using a sword will grant you slightly better melee protection. Your defence is entirely Agi/Dodge based.

• You. Serve Me
  Slap on Argenta as the first action of the first turn. She get bonus stats.
  
• Voice of Command
  Cast on argenta as early and often as possible.
  
• Bring it Down
  The best ability in the game. Priority target is Argenta. At level 36, get 3Ap but if she consume it all, she will suffer some dmg that scale with the rogue trader willpower, so use the extra AP with caution.
  
• Air of Authority
  Slap on argenta as soon as you casted voice of Command on her, then spread to the rest of the team, Ideally a bounty hunter/anyone with extra turns afterward.
  
• Take Aim!
  Situational. Cast it on a ranged DD to let it kill a target behind cover.
  
• Press the Advantage
  Don't. It will ruin your TA stacks to give your measly damage a one off % increase.
  
• Linchpin
  Cast it on the target that gonna get the most turn before your next turn (Usually Argenta or Pasqal). Do not cast it before && in the same turn as Inspire.
  
• Inspire
  Cast it the turn after a Linchpin target gave you lots of TA stacks. If You wanna cast Linchpin this turn, do not cast inspire or make sure you cast it beforehand.
  
• Fervour
  At the end of the first (and maybe second) turn to get early TA stacks. Do not cast anything after it. Wound cost too great for regular use. Totally not a Warlock life tap.
  
• Move, Move, Move
  Reposition allies, Extra free turn.
  
• Assign Objective
  Only useful to get the snowball rolling. The target enemy killer's will generate momentum and get +5 all stat untill the end of the encounter, non stackable.
  
• Get Back in the Fight!
  Purge dots/stunned on an ally.
  
  
  Heroic Actions
• Finest Hour!
  Cast on Argenta. Nerfed from being the best ability in the game to now only be the best ability in the game.
  
• Orchestrated Firestorm
  Extremely situational. You can ignore it. Spammable though.

More dots, more dots. This warlock-style build focus on fighting at range and applying dots.
Until late game, this specific build doesn't posses the raw AoE power of a lot of the other carry build. It's also very fragile early game, with 0 investment in any defensive stats outside of wounds. Nonetheless, it is excellent at picking up trash or doting elite to death.
An another distinctive feature of the build is being Int => Calculated relation, meaning nearly every skills are naturally covered. Simply slap Kibella for extra battle synergy (Executionners stacks very well with each other) and Skill-Check Synergy (Demoltion/Athletic) and pick whoever you want for the rest of your party without worrying about skills.


Homeworld : Forge World - Analytic System
Origin : Sanctionned Psyker - Pyromancer
Triumph : Illustrious Glory
Darkest Hour : Grim Portents :.|:;
Stats : Willpower, Int, Perception
Portrait : Mom took it
♥♥♥ : No
Autism : Extremis

Tweaked down skill malus in unfair mean an Int/Calculated Relations character is an excellent skill monkey. Executioner Dot gameplay is kindof playable on a ranged character, as you do not need to invest in melee/mobility talents like a bruiser would need to.

This build is an exception in term of party composition as if you combine it with Kibellah, most skills are covered to a good enough level to have a chance at passing every skill check in the game without the need of any other party members.
It should be however noted that Cassia/Idira have access to excellent Willpower buffs for this build on top of completeting it's realtively weak early game AOE, and that ofc it being a carry build Jae round it up well for extra turns.

Moreover, several executioners stack well together, and Carnival of Misery goes from meh on Kibellah to pretty good if casted twice in a fight.

The gameplay is to mostly be a buff ♥♥♥ and use one damaging power a turn.

By virtue of being relatively independent from companion selection AND a psyker, this build is perfect for heretical playthroughs.

Currently NOT optimized to fetch psyker's breastplate. If you want it, respec at higher level and put enough in str to then get Heavy armour proff. Not worth building for it beforehand.

Armour : Whatever bump willpower/psy rating the most
Amulet : Daemon Tool can be acquired early game and increase your burning.
Weapon : Your best staff. Staff of Blood is a strong contender, and so is the early Pyromancer's staff in Act1. Make sure to not have ranged weapons equipped once you are Exemplar.

• Ignite
  Your bread and butter attack if not using Pyromancer's staff. Castable without ending your movement.
  
• Iron Arm
  Buff Str (melee damage) and Toughness of you or an ally. Kibella loves it.
  
• Orchestrate Flame
  Buff/Debuff that allows you to attack still. Pretty funny on any melee party member, complete very well your Ignite/Firestorm and trigger more burning damage.
  
• Warp Speed
  Excellent buff on any carry. Yourself is a carry. Allow Kibellah to do absurd things.
  
• Molten Beam
  Beam Aoe and your main source of damages. On weaker enemies/Repeated use, can also put enemies aflame.
  
• Where it hurt
  Next attack consume all the dot to deal extra 3x all dots effect extra damage. Situational compared to Kibellah, as you are most often better off attacking new targets to dots them.
  
• Enfeeble
  Debuff enemies in the aoe to take extra damage and be easier to hit. AP dump.
  
• Inflame
  Cast to make burning more powerful, and recast every turn to trigger a tick. This + Carnival of misery can solve late game encounters.
  
• Reckless Abandon
  By the time you unlock it, allow truly absurd dots damage boost for no downsides. Use it every time you run out of temp wounds. Feel free to take it earlier in the build, but be aware that the %itself depend of your number of wound and hence is not that impactful vs more aoe/warp speed if taken earlier.
  
• Analyse Enemies
  Generate more exploit stack if you got nothing else to do
  
• Expose Weakness
  Use it BEFORE molten beam on a target you want to set aflame. Use inspect to see if the armour reduction is enough (or save scum to save your IQ points).
  
  
  
  Heroic Actions
• Dismantling Attack
  You need to equip a pistol/gun to be able to cast it. Main use is to add more exploit to the enemies and debuff the target. Use the staff heroic instead early game, never even look at it once you have Carnival of Misery.
  
• Carnival of Misery
  Double all dot damages for the rest of the encounter. One of the highest damage potential ult in the game, but it doesn't have the instant CC of killing the enemy dead >right now< Death Waltz/Finest Hour have.

This build is very similar to the noble officer, in that you will mostly be hanging around in the backline and babysitting your carry and the team with buffs/extra turn, but with one key difference : endgame, you can actually deal very good damages, both at range, melee and AoE.
The build is nonetheless much harder to play, as you'll constantly need to fight your bloodlust and resist sending into melee what is ultimately a very squishy character with no real parry/dodge/damage mitigation to speak of.

Homeworld : Imperial World.
Humanity's Finest : Fellowship
Origin: Sanctionned Psyker - Biomancer
Triumph : Illustrious Glory
Darkest Hour : Shadow of Torment
Stats : Fellowship, Strength, Weapon Skill
Portrait : The most glorious one in your collection
♥♥♥ : Chaste

I swear living saints are totally not the Emperor's Demon. The gameplay with this build is to babysit a carry with buffs, and you are barely less good at it than a noble officer. You are very squishy, with even less EHP than other backliners. You can still hit things in melee fine, but don't expect tons of damage. At level 30, you acquire purge soul, which allows you to finally deal decent damage even at range. At level 42, the build really comes online with Sword of Faith.

Armour : Heavy and then Psyker Breastplate. This is your BiS.
Weapon : A good melee weapons that other chars don't need, and then a Force Sword. You can try to use a staff, but you don't have any WP to make good use of it.

The rest of the gear should just stack as much resolve/Psy rating as possible.

Keep in mind that :
Resolve = more momentum generated each turn/kill
Full momentum bar = Heroic action

• Voice of Command
  Stat buff. Cast on Carry, then whoever needs it
  
• Bring it Down!
  Best ability in the game. Cast on whoever gonna make the best use of it.
  
• Air of Authority
  Resolve buff. Cast on the last target of the Voice of command for extra AP.
  
• Iron Arm
  Str/Toughness buff. The toughness is great for pseudo-healing allies.
  
• Word of the Emperor
  Stackable AOE resolve buff. Try to catch most of your allies and yourself turn 1.
  
• Press the advantage.
  Useless until late game where you can use it to do lots of damage as a boss finisher. At level 43, allow to ignore dodges.
  
• Linchpin
  An another resolve buff. Cast in on yourself or the carry
  
• Inspire
  % damage buff. Cast on a DD.
  
• Purge Soul
  A single target nuke that scale multiplicatively between your resolve and psy rating. Start off weak, can get pretty significant late game as you can stack them indefinitly (Psyker's Breastplate x Word of the Emperor)
  
• Hammer of the emperor
  Excellent buff for any DD in the team. Cast it every round they attacked.
  
• Sword of Faith
  The best self buff in the entire game. Castable every turn, adding+resolve to the damage. Damage is multiplicative between your psy rating and your resolve, and then again with any inspire/press the advantage cast. With enough setup, can one shot anything in the game.
  
• Enfeeble
  You'll only get access to it very late game. % damage increase on enemies in an area.
  
  
  Heroic Actions
• Finest Hour
  The best heroic in the game. Cast it on the carry.
  
• Orchestrated Firestorm
  Ignore entirely

This build differ from the other build for the rogue trader presented in this guide, as it is >not< a party face rogue trader. Instead, it focuses on being a brutally effective melee bruiser. At the core this is a Warrior/Arch militant build, dipping into Pyromancy and Sanctic to boost melee damage output.

Two caveats to the build :

• Blade of Light is specifically not picked. If you want to use a force weapon, feel free to pick the talent. Overall, better melee options are often available.
  
• If you want to use the halo device, ditch willpower entirely and replace it with more AGI/TGH/STR. From a RP perspective, keep in mind that the immortality of Halo Devices come at a price.[warhammer40k.fandom.com]

Homeworld : Deathworld
Origin : Psyker - Pyromancy
Triumph : Apex of Brilliance
Darkest Hour : Grim Portents You just Lost the Game
Stats : WSx2, TGHx2, WP, AGI
Portrait : Hot
♥♥♥ : Torrid

Despite being a "psyker" origin, this build is not a caster/buffer build, but instead a melee carry build. You'll be playing like you would a normal melee arch-militant, but with extra damage and tools built in. Every psy power can be woven in to increase versatility stacks.

A major difference with other Rogue trader build in this guide is that this is NOT a party face rogue trader. Refer to the skill table in a previous section to decide how to compose your party. Cassia/Jae are both very interesting addition for this Rogue trader, as they cover the missing skills as well as providing buffs/Extra turn that you'll take full advantages of.

Armour : Heavy, you can use Psyker Breastplate.
Weapons : Two 1H weapon. Noble Sword can be used in mainhand to trigger Disturbed on AoA, but is not meant to be used as your main attack cast. Chainaxes are great. The second set should be a staff with high WP, that you swtich to (x default keybind) every time you cast a power.

Overall, you make great uses of a lot of Melee attack/Psy rating gear.

If going for a Halo device, do not take any willpower but more AGI/STR/TGH Instead.

• Ignite
  Your main dot/attack at range tool. Doesn't end movement. Abuse it.
  
• Orchestrate Flame
  Cast it on yourself Asap. Tremendously increase your melee output, and later allow to setup firestorm.
  
• Charge
  Movement tool more than a damage one.
  
• Endure
  Use it every turn you expect to take damage
  
• Break Through
  Make sure you have 2 1H equipped. Mobility+very decent damages
  
• Reckless Rush
  Instant MP. Starting level 21, allows you to attack without ending move
  
• Wildfire
  Extra attack. Use it on your big AP attacks.
  
• Firestorm
  Cast on yourself or a burning ennemy to ignite stuff around.
  
• Molten Beam
  More damage than ignite but only set aflame enemies stripped of armour already
  
• Word of the Emperor
  Resolve buff. Your crit chance scales of resolve too. Mostly an AP dump though. Santic utility is in the talents we are taking.
  
• Inflame
  Trigger flame debuff tick. Ap dump, can get spicy if multi-pyro party.
  
  
  
  Heroic Actions
• Daring Breach
  Situational over Steady Superiority. More instant dps, attacking doesn't stop move anymore. Restore all MP/AP.
  
• Steady Superiority
  Situational over Daring Breach. More remaining turns dps and much faster versa buildup, but attacking will still end movement.

A masculine and traditional older white man positive role model ? In a western video games ???While not having higher difficulty hypercarry potential like some of the other builds here, he is still very decent as a brawler, being able to move around the battlefield, endure punishment and dispatch foes on his own without much support.

Abelard is held back at a conceptual level by being melee instead of being ranged/psyker.

His origin ability with the right talents is a very potent wombo combo enabler, especially for Cassia as even very early game she will receive a massive +35 Willpower buff.

Abelard T2 archetype options are Vanguard, Assassin and Arch-Militant.

• Vanguard has very poor damage outpout and the only things it does well is getting attacked. Outside of vanity/rp build, this doesn't have much use in the current game.
  
• Assassin is serviceable, but a bit schizophrenic as Lethality doesn't play well at all with any kind of armour and Abelard doesn't have the agility to pull off tanking without it.
  
• Arch-Militant, on top of being the most versatile, allow us to swing a Warhammer 40.000 times per turn. Sold.

When deploying, huddle everyone around him so that he can cast Brace For Impact! and buff everyone. Use the free turn to position better. Afterward, optionally buff his Strength/Toughness and unleash him on foes. He doesn't mechanically interact as much with other party members as the other builds in this guide, and hence won't need much babysitting.

DLC Update : Get him Silent Verdict ASAP (you get this 2H blade from meeting Kibellah). This weapon lift him from an early game meh to an absolute unit.

Armour: Heavy
Weapon: Thunder-Hammers and other 2-hand melee weapons.

As a secondary weapon, a shotgun can work but you really are better off not attacking and Endure + Defensive Stance instead.

He scales off WS, TGH, STR, AGI.

• Brace For Impact!
  Very obvious defensive buff but not only. This is Abelard most exploitable ability and the reason game-breaking teams use him. Gather the party around him and use this on the first round. After level 10, every member of your team will get a free extra move turn. This will instantly grant Cassia a whopping +35 willpower bonus.
  
• Charge
  Movement tool, damage is a bit underwhelming. Use it to position yourself where you want to be. Often, this is in melee anyway so might as well do the damages.
  
• Endure
  Abelard main survivability tool. Very often, it's better to cast this than to attack, as it will also activate Defensive Stance.
  
• Sworn Enemy
  Very RP. Use it on whoever deserve the AP spent.
  
• Taunting Scream
  What could have been an amazing tool is instead situational. Ennemies are taunted, but only if they fail a willpower test. You do not need to taunt enemies on lower difficulty, enemies will resist it at the worst moment on higher difficulty. Pure savescum bait. After level 33 though, the main use of it is to debuff the enemies ability to resist spell from other characters, such as Cassia.
  
• Versatility
  Read the tooltip and understand what it does. You build stack by alternating single target and AoE attacks.
  
• Reckless Rush
  Use it everytime it's free.
  
• WildFire
  Free attack. Build a versatility stack even if you did not weave your attack kind.
  
• Devastating Attack
  Lore accurate thunder hammer attack. Use it if you wanna CC/Debuff the enemy.
  
• Reckless Strike
  AP dump if you wanna kill someone dead.
  
• Cautious Approach
  Endgame, your attack taunts. Use this to tank.
  
  
  
  Heroic Actions
• Daring Breach
  No limits on attack this turn. Past level 9, also guaranted taunt of whoever you hit this turn.
  
• Steady Superiority
  One more attack Every turn. Don't forget to alternate the attacks kind for versatility stacks.

>be me
>be brown
>be into some voodoo crap
>really like that purple juice
>be some rich white woman housepsyker
>the police is always watching me and wanna shoot me even if I dindunuffin
>I'm actually an escaped dangerous criminal and the police is justified in doing so

What next owlcat, watermelon and fried chicken for the complete scholar-american bingo ?

Anyway, Idira can do tons of damage. Very straightforward and powerful to use once you get the hang of how mark the prey works. Was slightly nerfed by the Saviour the Kill patch, as now you cannot melt brain during the free turn of it.

Being an unsanctioned psykter of slightly heretical tendencies, she also get access to exclusive gear.

Bit worst than at release. Still your main prologue DD for the fight against the Spawn in unfair, and your main source of damage until Argenta get enough Ballistic Skill.

On unfair and until deep in chapter 2, she will most likely be your main DD due to psy never missing and her overkill spilling to other mobs.

Psykers are kinda anti-synergic with each other. Early game, they share a common resource trough the veil and might underperform if you bring several in a team. Late game they all want the same unique items. It is of course completely irrelevant on easier difficulties where you can faceroll anyway.

Idira is not as brainless as before, as savour the kill extra turns cannot be used for more dakka anymore. Instead, Focus on buffing the party and debuffing elite enemies rather than the pure nuker she used to be.

Armour : Light, ideally one that scale with Psy
She get access to exclusive gloves (Warp Conduit), give it to her.

She scale off WP, PER, INT.

• Forewarning
  Situational, if you know someone gonna get heat
  
• Psychic Shriek
  Single Target nuke.
  
• Analyse Enemies
  Very situational on Idira. Better use your spare AP for buffing/dmg.
  
• Expose Weakness
  Very situational on Idira. Useful if you want the rest of your party to nuke someone.
  
• Sensory Deprivation
  Excellent single target soft CC, as the worst outcome is a blinded target.
  
• Prescience
  An excellent buff on anyone. First cast should go to your carry because of Advice and Guidance/Fatebringer. Many situational use. It's buff of felowship is good on Officers/Abelard before he cast prepare for impact. Willpower is ofc excellent on Caster, on Argenta before Litany of Hatred, and Int on Pasqal/Operatives/Any non burst ranged attacker.
  
• Hunt Down the Prey
  Mark the preys on your first activation. Let allies kill them. After lvl 18, Get a free 2AP turn every time it happen, where you can cast some more spells.
  
• Foreboding
  Very good AOE dodge area. On higher difficulty, consider taking it earlier.
  
• Psychic Assault
  Aoe Cone damage that inflict hard CC. Excellent spell.
  
• Mind Rupture
  Wololo. Cast this first then Sensory Deprivation on elite enemies. Decent chance of CC even on highest difficulty.
  
• Iron Arm
  Cast this on melee, or characters that need the Health now.
  
• Invigorate
  Heal + Purge in one spell
  
• Warp Speed
  All that speed, and nowhen to put it.
  
  
  Heroic Actions
  
  You will spend entire playthroughs where you never cast any heroics with Idra that are not the staff spell, as you need an appropriate weapon to perform them.
  
  
• Dismantling Attack
  Debuff the target
  
• Wild Hunt
  Cast it to regain 3 preys marker.

Between "bugfixes" to versatility/concentrated fire and the more recent officer exterminatus level of nerf, gone are the day where Argenta could single turn every encounter in the game. She is now also very weak in the early game where she cannot hit the side of a barn unless buffed by VoC. Due to multiple nerf/reduction in the way she used to scale, her damage output is now a shadow of what it was late game.

She is can still be quite strong if only because it's a ranged dps companion you get early in the game and are free to properly build.

If you are playing in unfair, you can replace some agility with perception.

She has been nerfed directly or indirectly every single patch since release, and will still likely be the main carry of your party if you don't run a pyro or Kibellah. Her concept (weapon dependant ranged dps) simply need to be viable in the game for most of the combat mechanics to even make sense, and you getting her early prevent owlcat from making her garbage. Argenta is the closest companion to a mercenary you can have. She trade not being from a Fortress World with being able to wear sororitas power armour and faster momentum generation than a mercenary.
This build focus on pure high ROF bolter shooting for early/mid game. Late game, she use the Improved heavy bolter and your choice of either Heavy flamer or Heavy Melta.

When you get her, she is equipped with an autopistol, which is very weird for a Battle Sister ;) Swap it to a bolt pistol for style points.

Give her blessed bolter casing as soon as you get it. It tremendously open up her options until you get confident approach.

Then, her equipment is roughly as follow :

- Early game -
Weapon Set 1: Sword/Bolt pistol OR Some kind of sniper rifle.
Weapon Set 2: Boltgun with high rof and enough dmg
Armour: Light

- Mid/Late Game -
Wpn Set 1: Sword and Hand Flamer / Heavy Stubber for 20 damage 50+ shots per wildfire
Wpn Set 2: High Rof Boltgun or Heavy Bolter / Precise Bolter
Armour: Light or Sororitas Power Armour

- End Game -
Set 1: Improved Heavy Bolter
Set 2: Judex or Eruption
Armour: Soritas Power Armour

She scale off Ballistic Skill, Perception and Willpower. Her defence is entirely Agi based.

• Run and Gun
  As often as possible. Basically free extra attack every round. The malus and cooldown can instantly be reset by Revel in Slaughter.
  
• Revel in Slaughter
  Just after Run and gun to remove the winded debuff. At level 13, can be cast after 2 kills instead of 3.
  
• Rapid Fire
  Before your must buffed burst fire of the round. make sure to have enough rounds in the bolter.
  
• Concentrated Fire
  Before using an attack flagged as area attack. >DOES NOT WORK WITH BURST ANYMORE<.
  
• Reckless Rush
  An another movement tool. Pop it to increase versa stack until end of turn.
  
• Wildfire
  Once per round, extra attack. Use it after Reckless Rush to reduce cost.
  
• Confident Approach
  Situational. Starting lvl 31, toggling this ability on makes you lose roughly 2/3 of the bonus damage from Versatility stacks but allows you to make every hit a crit and ignore dodge and covers while active
  
• Entrench
  Before popping run and gun. The next cast of Run and Gun will reset other soldier cooldowns, allowing 2 use of them per rounds.
  
• Dash
  Fleeing melee
  
• Cautious Approach
  Self purge/Heal. Toggle it off for damage dealing again.
  
• War Hymn/Litany of Hatred
  Pop it once using it will allow the momentum bar to go over 175, to use Argenta's heroic action. If you already can, use Litany of Hatred anyway for extra dmg until end of round.
  
  
  Heroic Actions
• Firearm Mastery
  As early in the encounter as possible. Between level 19 and 27, if you have a High ROF bolter, Firearm Mastery is better than Steady Superiority but build versatility stack worst. Use both afterward.
  
• Steady Superiority
  As early in the encounter as possible. Between level 19 and 27, if you have a low ROF bolter, steady superiority is better than Firearm Mastery and build versatility stacks much better. Use both afterward

I can fix her. She can ruin me.
Very fun to use, pretty good damage output at any difficulty, great tanking potential, will bear your children.
Dots damage is honestly overrated despite the space they occupy in the talent tree. This build pretty much ignore them and focus on alpha strike damage instead.

A very mobile unit that can soak quite a bit of attacks thanks to high dodge/parry/HP pool. Her damage are also very good as long as you give her a pair of blade that combo well with each other. The drukhari weapons have a lot of toys for that.
Bladedancer is a very solid mobility/damage base for any dual wielding melee character.
What makes the build completely nut though is the insane amount of Wound a character can acquire trough Blade Dancer/Executioner thanks to making them scale off medicae + medicae scaling off WS (!), and then comboing it with Reckless Abandon/Peak Condition to reach excellent, turn 1 ready amount of damages. The highly advertised feature of the new archetypes (Dots/Blood Stacks) are completely overshadowed by Death Warden/Anatomy Expert and all the crazy efficient scaling they unlocks. For this reason, i'm expecting this build to eventually be completely gutted by owlcat in a future patch, to the point of uselessness.

Helm : Face of the Sovereign will carry you most of the game.
Armour: Light. You wanna dodge.
Weapons: A Pair of 1H swords. Many viable DE weapons. Special mention to Blackhaze Venom Blade / Virulent Slicer.

• Raining Blood
  Complete Gimmick. Like sure, you can spend the AP if you can spare it, but not worth the brain space and AP for a measly % damage increase. Compare to talents like cataclysm. Short version is any party member that moves into the blood receive stacking, temporary 2% damage buff. Enemies same to damage received.
  
• Blade Dance
  The main reason Bladedancer is so good even early game. Scale insanely well with AGI and two equipped swords. Late game, you'll be doing at the minimum 12 attacks per cast of this ability. Don't use this next to allies.
  
• Death from Above
  Excellent repositioning tool. Allow to get in the best position for blade dance. Do stupid amount of aoe damage on doted enemies.
  
• Blood Oath
  Next attack is autohit. Refund Hp, AP and attack slot if it kills the enemy. Excellent against trash and boss alike.
  
• Acrobatic Artistry
  An another excellent ability. Allows you to play very aggressive with the DCA and safely return behind cover for 1AP. The extra damage is a nice bonus lifting this ability from good to very good. Downright broken after Death Waltz.
  
• Where it Hurts
  Extra burst of damage instead of applying dots. For 0 AP Always consider it on enemies already doted.
  
• Reckless Abandon
  Possibly one of the best ability in the game. Recast it every time you run out of temporary wounds. It's free insane extra % damages. There is no real downsides to it.
  
• Pain Resonance
  You use it for the blind, not the damages. Combo very well with toxic weapons.
  
• Gift of Torment
  AP dump. Moderately boost your defences for a turn. Scale with toughness, so maybe get buffed first by your friendly biomancer.
  
• Captive Audience
  Jump into a pack of trash mobs. Captive Audience + Aoe melee on trash => Full cover from ranged. Fun, but still gimmicky.
  
• Terrifying Strike
  Battlefield control. For OAP it's fun, but not that useful.
  
• Oath of Vengeance
  Sound great on paper, but easy fights don't justify it's wound cost and in hard fights you'll want to save Kibellah HP pool. Overall situational. Can be taken much earlier on lower difficulty.
  
  
  Heroic Actions
• Death Waltz
  An Ult scaling directly with your Agi. Pretty good burst. Ofc less good than finest hour, but nonetheless one of the better ults. Combine with Acrobatic Artistry for maybe the highest single turn, no setup damage in the game. It will win boss fights for you in unfair.
  
• Carnival of Misery
  Very meh. Maaaaybe if you are running a pyro alongside Kibellah.

Overall the strongest standalone companion, but there is not a lot of varieties to her build : Navigator powers are too good to justify dipping more than the bare minimum in any other archetype.

Grand strategist is the better 2nd tier archetype here. It allows her to take two turns at the beginning of every fight, buff the entire team with zones, and require 0 investment other than picking the archetype, making you free to focus on her navigator powers and talents.

The core of Cassia gameplay is to stack Willpower early rounds level thanks to Mastery of time bumping it by 5 every time someone get an extra turn, and then aoeing the entire encounter to death.

Armour : Light
Infusing staff are meh unless you picked Reveal the light as your first power.
Devastating Staff is how you get Cassia to deal even more absurds amount of damage.
She Scale off Willpower and Perception.

• Voice of Command
  Give temp stat boost to the target and allow to cast Bring it Down on them even if they move out of range. Do not use on Argenta, other officers do it better.
  
• Bring it Down
  The best ability in the game. Priority target is a carry
  
• Lidless Stare
  Aoe Trash Mob cleaning. Can stun on lower difficulties.
  
• Waking Nightmare
  Aoe debuff that remogh toughness (hence even though it's technically not damage you are reducing ennemy HP) and make enemies more likely to fail WP resistance test. Also trigger other passives, such as armor reducing from Undam the Sea of Souls, etc...
  
• Zone of fear
  Move enemies out of cover and damage them
  
• Point of Curiosity
  Gravity pull. Cluster and damage the enemies
  
• Notch of Purpose
  Cannot be resisted. Pull an enemy out of cover so Argenta can Bring It Down!
  
• Reveal the Light
  Cast it on Argenta before she pop her first War Hymn/On anyone that scale of Willpower. Also work great on anyone in the team to bump their wound amount and trigger Cassia's passive buff to allies
  
• Frontline
  Put ennemies in there
  
• Backline
  Put your exposed teammates in there
  
• Rear
  Put ranged carry and navigator there
  
• Warp Curse Unleashed
  Cast on Boss/Elite as early as possible. Free extra dmg
  
• Mend Reality
  Prevent Inra/Henrix heads from exploding
  
• Immolate the Soul
  Lazor
  
  
  Heroic Actions
• Finest Hour!
  Cast on carry.
  
• Take and Hold.
  Not really usable. Encounters punish you for grouping up, yet this power want you to group your team AND enemies in a big brawl. At best marginally better than Finest Hour!, but require tremendous setup.

Pasqal is a strong contender for best character in the game, outshining mercenaries and the Rogue Trader and fighting for top dog spot with Cassia. He can do every role but officer very well. The core reason he is so good is the all the unique goodies he get :
- Unique plasma related talents ( Filtering Protocols)
- Machine Spirit Communion for Argenta
- Extra heal and perception talents
- Operative
- Int build and access to Calculated Relations can also make him an excellent skill monkey/party face.

Several ways to build him :

- Assassin (Highest dmg, low utility)

- Bounty hunter (Damage, CC, Debuff, and stack very well with other bounty hunters)

- Grand Strategist Pasqal, where he will act first instead of taking more extra turns with bounty hunter.

This is the bounty hunter build.
You can optionally bench Argenta and use the officer turns on Pascal instead, with roughly the same end result.

Gameplay changed trough the patches. On Easier encounters, just use pasqal as a ranged point and click carry. On Tougher one, use him to setup tactical knowledge.

Armour: Medium
Weapon: Plasma.

Pasqal scale off Int, Ballistic Skill, Perception.

• Machine Spirit Communion
  First round, try to put Argenta and the dangerous ennemies with burst weapons within it. Then as needed.
  
• Analyse Enemies
  Cast it on the same isolated enemy, without attacking it, for several turns before casting Tactical Knowledge on it.
  
• Expose Weakness
  You enventually get it for free. Overall good AP dump when you want your team to kill a target.
  
• Machine Spirit Banishment
  Useful late game where target get 40%+ damage penalty for one round.
  
• Joint Analysis
  Next turn mean until Pasqal next round's natural activation. Amazing AP dump. Carry extremely hard early game.
  
• Tactical Knowledge
  Either cast it on a group of 3+ ennemies as often as possible or on an isolated target with 3+ stacks. Enemies need to be in line of sight for stacks to be consumed
  If properly setup, will make your team near immortal (Armor mitigation Cap at 90%) and Pasqal a damage god.
  If you survive any encounter long enough, Pasqal will win it for you.
  
• Hunt Down the Prey
  The ability that require the most brain of this whole guide.
  > The first way to use it is by marking preys one by one, using Pasqal to snipe them, and racking in the bonus for the kill. If only one target is marked, the bounty hunter heroic ability will deal tremendous damage to it.
  > After lvl 18, The second way to use it is to mark the preys and letting your allies kill them. You will get a free extra half AP turn immediatly after your ally turn. You cannot attack during those "half" turns, but you can use all your other abiltites, and use it to buff/generate more exploits and seting up a Tactical Knowledge bomb.
  
• Claim the Bounty
  One Free Attack per round.
  
• Cull the bold
  Repeatable anti-elite/boss combo that do not rely on accumulating stack of exploits.
  Designate the target as prey, then use a Cull the Bold + Attack from Pasqal on it.
  Then, Cast Raid and end your turn with Hot on the Trail.
  Let your party melt the target before it's your natural turn again.
  
• Perfect Spot
  If you have spare AP and wanna shoot from there/need to survive the next turn.
  
• Raid
  Bonus damage on preys by the party until Pasqal's next natural turn. Situational.
  
• Precise Attack
  Buff the next attack ignore cover.
  
• Medical Mechadendrite
  Heall an ally. Once per fight.
  
  
  Heroic Actions
• Dismantling Attack
  Situational, to create more tempo in a fight. Generate more Exploit stacks, cast on a boss to snare and cripple them (Hello Aurora)
  
• Wild Hunt
  Situational, to finish the fight faster. Mark as many prey as possible before using it or at lvl 35+ make sure you see only a single prey.

Psyker dodge tank.

The build name is a reference to OSS 117
While Abelard is Hammer Time, Henrix is can't touch this.

As you can see, I'm just as good with plays on word as Henrix.

The build i've settled on is an Arch-Militant dodge tank. Arch militant will allow him to perform well if you decide to stack buff and extra turns on him, but it's main use is as a disruptor that enable your party to do their sheninagans.
This build allow him to play the early game as a buffer/scrapper, and starting mid game act as an excellent melee unit able to do damage as well as tanking them. Do not over-expose him on higher difficulties though.

Heinrix is a weird beast. Due to the way the difficulty works, he will struggle a bit in higher difficulty and be pretty much stuck as a buffbot that pickup the occasional melee threat, whereas in lower difficulty he'll jump in the thick of the melee and melt everyone's face.
This build allows him to get Sword of Faith midgame (instead of Cautious Approach) as well as overall focusing on being a dodge tank.

Armour: Light. You wanna dodge. Synskin.
Weapons: Staff in one Set, Force Weapon/Watcher From Above (Janus) and pistol in the other.

He really likes Helmet of the Devoted protector, until you replace it with Tactical Genius.

Give him TGH/AGI/STR

He scale well with Resolve too.

• Word of the Emperor
  Always cast this at the beginning of the battle, on the whole party. It will determine who receive your later buffs, and you want that to be everyone
  
• Iron arm
  Melee buff
  
• Charge
  Main use is the mobility. Small chip damage.
  
• Endure
  To be used when you know you are about to take heat
  
• Taunting scream
  Can easily fail in higher difficulty, and then higher difficulty enemies ignore more of Heinrix dodge/parry, so it's far less good in the difficulty where you would expect it to be far more useful.
  
• Enfeeble
  Enemies in the area dodge/parry less and take more damage from your whole party.
  
• Wildfire
  Extra attack.
  
• Shield of the Emperor
  Defense buff for the whole party until your next natural turn
  
• Hammer of the Emperor
  Offensive buff for the whole party until your next natural turn
  
• Sword of Faith
  Steal St Celestine Sword. Can do decent damages.
  
• Light of the Emperor
  Heal the party
  
  
  Heroic Actions
• Daring Breach
  Useful if only as a free taunt.
  
• Steady Superiority
  One more attack every turn. Combined with wildfire, that's 3 attack per turn, which will allows you to build versatility stack at a decent pace even without the officer's attention.

Most people kind of ignored her at release, because she lacked Finest Hour (IV) back when it was one turning the game.
Nevertheless, she is one of the two officers among the recruitable companions, and she can make good use of picking up Master Tactician. Despite never reaching the damage level of a carry, she is an excellent buffbot for them through the extra turns and inspire. Her dual pistol gear coupled with Fervour and Press the Advantage allow her to finish enemies in a pinch better than say, a Noble Officer Rogue Trader.

If benching Pasqal, take Tech-Use as early and often as you can instead of the suggested skills.

She plays very similar to the Rogue Trader: Noble officer build from this guide, and can even entirely replace it with some skills tweak if necessary.
Basically nanny your carries with extra turns, use Linchpin to generate Tactical Advantage stacks and the next turn, use Inspire on the carry for stacking bonus damage on them until the end of the fight.
She is significantly less good than the Noble officer as a buffbot due to a subotimal build given by owlcat, so instead she is a slightly less bad damage dealer.

We pump her BS so that she can benefit from Duellist Uniform increased dodge.
Outside of combat, she is a decent skill monkey, feel free to tweak her to cover anything your party need.

Armour : Light, Ideally Duellist Uniform
Weapons : A pair of pistols

Your buffs scale off Fellowship and a bit from Willpower.
Secondary stats are Agility, Ballistic Skill.

• Voice of Command
  Slap on your assign carry that need the stats / use it as extra reach for Bring it Down!
  
• Bring it Down
  The best ability in the game. Cast on your assigned carry.
  
• Move, Move, Move
  Reposition allies, Extra free turn.
  
• Take Aim!
  Situational. Cast it on a ranged DD to let it kill a target behind cover.
  
• Press the Advantage
  Situational. Useful to cast befor an attack to finish an oponent in a pinch, but remove stacks. Past level 28, ignore cover and Dodge
  
• Linchpin
  Cast it on the target that gonna get the most turn before your next turn (Usually Argenta or Pasqal). Do not cast it before && in the same turn as Inspire.
  
• Inspire
  Cast it the turn after a Linchpin target gave you lots of TA stacks. If You wanna cast Linchpin this turn, do not cast inspire or make sure you cast it beforehand. If you have a burst pistol, yourself is not a bad target.
  
• Fervour
  At the end of the first (and maybe second) turn to get early TA stacks. If you need a burst from Jae, can be comboed with Self-Inspire then Press the Advantage then attacking immediatly afterward.
  
• Air of Authority
  Slap to anyone that hasn't received it yet and that is gonna take the most turns.
  
• Finish the Job
  Free Attack that generate Tact stack thanks to Joint Offensive
  
• Assign Objective
  Cast on enemies an ally is gonna kill.
  
  
  Heroic Actions
• Finest Hour!
  The best heroic in the game. Not much worst than other officer's anymore. Give Temp wound instead of -1AP actions.
  
• Orchestrated Firestorm
  "On some longer fight where the whole team has high resolve, castable every turn if you haven't cast Finest Hour!
  Still situational, but she is the better user of it."

Please Ownlcat let me saix the Elfu Waifu. Love Can Bloom on the battlefield. I promise I'll purge her later. Let's make Vulkan proud.

Pretty straighfoward build and gameplay. For once, the default build provided by owlcat is not severly gimped by must-have talents missing. She is still much worst than a crime lord for the same gameplay. You have two specialisation choices : Bounty Hunter and Assassin. Bouty hunter overall I feel provide less value for a non-int, non caster operative, and Yrliet is a bit more dumb dumb than the like of Pasqal nor is she a psyker.
Hence, we are gonna go assassin so that she double-down on what she does best : tons of damage in alpha strike.

Sit and shoot. That's it really. When you compare her to an arch militant hypercarry, she snowball less (no versatility stacks), but she start at a much higher damage power level in her first activation. She is one of the few companions that will perform relatively better in higher difficulties due to having a lot of her damage scaling with %HP as well as her dodge reduction being overkill for lower difficulties.

Armour: Light. You wanna dodge.
Weapons: A big sniper rifle.

She scale off AGI, PER, BS.

• In my Sight
  Anti-boss/Target in cover setup.
  
• Analyse Enemies
  AP dump
  
• Expose Weakness
  Situational, to let allies kill a boss
  
• Precise Attack
  Situational, anti cover
  
• Perfect Spot
  AP dump self buff, to use before you start shooting. Don't move afterward.
  
• Aim for the opening
  Situational. 1 Ap worth 10% of the HP of the target
  
• Killing Edge
  Pretty much replace your standard attack
  
• Death Whisper
  0 Ap attack
  
• Elusive Shadow
  Repositioning Tool
  
• Tactical Knowledge
  Situational, most often high stack count allow for insta kill anyway. Use it rather on ennemy group
  
• Poised to Strike
  Anti-Boss
  
• Feinting Attack
  Grab Foes from cover
  
  
  Heroic Actions
• Dismantling Attack
  Not really worth it outside of the extra attack. Create more tempo in a fight by debuffing the target.
  
• Dispatch
  Big baddie finisher. This is your goto heroic.

Ulfar used to be a worst Argenta. Following massive nerfs to Argenta and insane buffs to Ulfar, Ulfar is now a worst Argenta.
Joking aside, he doesn't compete for gear with her as much anymore, and contrary to the -4 Str SoB, he can achieve good tankyness and melee performance while still focusing the build on his ranged output.

Ulfar takes four cases on the grid and can't decide whether he wants to be in melee or not.

His gameplay is henceforth a less shooty Agenta that can tank asburd amount of damages and that prefer to kick enemies in melee once they have reached him rather than fleeing. As long as he can squeeze through, the basic sequence is to move to the enemy, kick it away, and then bolt burst it down. This will generate versatility stack fast while costing a minimal amount of AP and creating good battlefield control. This build doesn't profit as much from a dedicated officer and instead focus on being able to scrape by itself without support from the team.

Peak Condition gives Ulfar stupid amount of strength when combined with high Toughness, and hence if you want to build him more melee, replace every perception levelup with a Weapon Skill one, although Arch Militant + Broad Expertise should still serve him decently on lower difficulties

Give him whatever best space marine equipment you have.
Keep in mind this build is optimized for Bolter Burst dps as well as 0 Ap kicks.

• Run and Gun
  As often as possible. Basically free extra attack every round. The malus and cooldown can instantly be reset by Revel in Slaughter.
  
• Revel in Slaughter
  Just after Run and gun to remove the winded debuff. After level 36, only need 2 kills.
  
• Controlled Shot
  Extremely situational. Never used it in my playthrough.
  
• Rapid Fire
  Before your must buffed burst fire of the round. make sure to have enough rounds in the bolter.
  
• Kick
  Build versatility stack for free/remove an enemy from melee. Use as often as possible.
  
• Wildfire
  Extra Attack.
  
• Devastating Attack
  CC tool. Boltguns are impact damage.
  
• Entrench
  Before popping run and gun. The next cast of Run and Gun will reset other soldier cooldowns, allowing 2 use of them per rounds.
  
• Confident Approach
  Situational, toggleable. Lose some melee defence, but allows you to go full crit and ignore cover.
  
• Reckless Rush
  Movement Tool
  
  
  Heroic Actions
• Firearm Mastery
  As early in the encounter as possible. Between level 19 and 27, if you have a High ROF bolter, Firearm Mastery is better than Steady Superiority but build versatility stack worst. Use both afterward.
  
• Steady Superiority
  As early in the encounter as possible. Between level 19 and 27, if you have a low ROF bolter, steady superiority is better than Firearm Mastery and build versatility stacks much better. Use both afterward

JBR husbando. Marazhai come already near-fully prebuilt. The build kinda haphazardly execute the concept of a nimble melee assassin dancing trough the battlefield as a lone wolf. Sadly, the concept of a nimble melee assassin that don't want support is absolute garbage on higher difficulty. Let's face it though, if you like to have Marazhai in your party for "RP", you are not the kind of person playing on high difficulty anyway.

This build henceforth take the necessary talents to be able to equip Dark Lance in secondary slot, and continue focusing on dashing around the battlefield to do half the damage an another character would do.

A kinda mobile melee unit that cannot really take damage. The entire gameplan is to hide him as a low priority target using Elusive Shadow. Once it's your turn, pounce on group of mobs using Break Through, and then Danse Macabre trough the survivors before casting Elusive Shadow again, ideally from cover. A lot of AP spent and grid moved for in fine not much damage, but that's really how the character works.

Armour: Light. You wanna dodge.
Weapons: A pair of 1H melee weapon in the first slot, a Dark Lance/whatever you fancy in the second slot.

Sadly, warriors do not get access to the ability to remove the dodge penalty on medium armour. (while soldiers do but neither Argenta nor Ulfar need it... WP Owlcat, great design)
He scales of WS, AGI, PER.

• Joyful Torture
  Make sure you are always bleeding for stats buff, including +5 bs/ws per kill later on.
  
• Charge
  Mobility, chip damage. Break Through is better
  
• Endure
  AP dump if end of turn. If it's useful, it's because you ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up beforehand.
  
• Break Trough
  Fun to use, horde cleaner.
  
• Reckless Strike
  Bigger Attack. Savescum bait.
  
• Danse Macabre
  Mobility, useful to chip enemy health too. Cross enemies to get better dodge against them.
  
• Aim for the opening
  Situational. Trade 1AP for a 10% raw damage on enemy if you attack it this turn
  
• Death Whisper
  0 Ap attack
  
• Elusive Shadow
  Cast it as often as possible. If not active at the end of your turn, enemy will focus on you and kill you. Excellent synergy with professional Acumen.
  
• Sworn Enemy
  Not really useful, but you have to pick an another soldier ability when levelling up.
  
• Poised to Strike
  Anti-Boss
  
• Feinting Attack
  Is used as a variant of Aim for the Opening
  
• Killing Edge
  A stronger normal attack on already damaged enemies. More situational with Marazhai than Yrliet.
  
  
  Heroic Actions
• Daring Breach
  Can be entirely ignored
  
• Dispatch
  Big baddie finisher.

2024-10-13 : Added Kibellah build
2024-10-18 : Psykautismo reworked into Operative => Executioner WoW Afflilock gameplay
2024-10-20 : Firefighter (Melee Arch-Militant Pyromancer) added.

Future plans :
Have a look at Cassia build order for taking Held in my gaze early (bigger utilty in unfair Act1/2 than movement skills) and replacing zone of fear with Notch of Purpose.