Midway through the Star Wars Zero Company campaign, your operators unlock a secondary specialization: a second full kit layered under their primary, with one limitation: secondary abilities cap at Tier 5 instead of the primary’s Tier 6. It’s the campaign’s biggest power spike and the moment squad building gets genuinely interesting. Here’s how it works and the pairings that make sense.
The Rules
- Secondaries unlock mid-campaign through story progression.
- An operator’s secondary comes from the same eight standard specializations (Assault, Gunslinger, Heavy, Medic, Scoundrel, Scout, Sharpshooter, Soldier).
- Secondary abilities cap at Tier 5; primaries reach Tier 6. Your primary stays your identity; the secondary is the supporting toolkit.
- Abilities in both kits upgrade with the same Focus Points, so the secondary adds spending choices, not free power.
- Respecs remain free at the Den’s Personnel facility, for both layers.
The Design Logic: Cover a Job, Not a Fantasy
The temptation is doubling down (Sharpshooter/Gunslinger, all guns all the time). The stronger play is using the secondary to close a squad-level gap:
- Scout as a universal secondary. The early consensus is that Scout’s utility (mobility, vision, and Advantage-feeding tools) works better as a Tier-5 support layer than as someone’s whole career. It’s the most recommended secondary in current coverage.
- Medic secondaries decentralize survival. One dedicated Medic plus a Medic-secondary elsewhere means an Injury never depends on a single operator’s positioning.
- Scoundrel under a frontliner gives your space-holder a way to convert attention into Advantage generation.
Suggested Pairings for the Core Squad
For the consensus squad from our composition guide:
- Hawks (Scoundrel primary): Scout secondary, doubling down on tempo and Advantage flow for the whole squad
- Jae Mordant (Sharpshooter): Scout or Gunslinger, either feeding her repositioning or her mid-range fallback
- Trick (Heavy/Gunslinger): Medic secondary turns the self-reviving frontliner into the squad’s emergency response
- Astromech recruits: exotic class rules differ; their kit is already the game’s best utility layer
Focus Point Budgeting After the Unlock
The secondary’s arrival doubles your spending surface, and the Tier 5 cap sets the strategy: finish your primary’s core abilities to Tier 6 first, then build the secondary’s two or three genuinely-used tools to Tier 4 or 5. A shallow-but-wide secondary beats a half-built primary every time, because Tier 6 is where a primary kit’s defining upgrades live.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I change my secondary later? Yes, respecs at the Personnel facility are free and cover specialization choices.
Do secondaries change talents? Talents remain the operator’s own layer (fixed for authored characters, pooled for recruits); the secondary adds abilities, not talents.
Should I delay unlocking it? It arrives via campaign progression; there’s no reason to avoid it, only to budget Focus Points deliberately once it’s there.
Does the Tier 5 cap make secondaries weak? No, most abilities’ workhorse value lives in the early tiers; the cap only means your secondary never headlines.