(Image: Owlcat Games / Ben Barr)
Justin's foray into gaming started with classic Resident Evil 3 and has only expanded since then. He graduated from RIT in 2021 and aspires to have his name in the credits of a video game one day.
Reviewed by Benjamin Barr
Every citizen of the Empire is a cog in the war machine against the heretic and the Xeno. And without firm leadership, these cogs would rust and break. This is where the Officer comes in. If you want to be the steady hand that leads your team to victory then the Officer is the Archetype for you. In this guide, I’ll be going over the best way to build your Officer and lead the Von Valancius dynasty to victory.
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Homeworld
To optimize our build, we need to make sure we make the correct choices during character creation. While you can respec your character, there are some options you can’t change once you start the game.
For this build, we want to maximize our ability to command our teammates and buff them when we can. For this, the best Homeworld to choose would be the Imperial World. With this Homeworld you get a +10 bonus to any stat you want, as well as a couple of nice talents to help your team. Use your Imperial World bonus on either Fellowship or Agility and you should be good.
Origin
There are a couple of origins that exemplify the Officer’s ability to command, but the best option here is the Noble. Not only do you get a bonus for Fellowship and conversation skills, but you also get a bunch of talents that help buff your squad.
Archetype
Since we’re building an Officer we want to grab the Officer Archetype here for our starting class. What you’ll notice here, however, is that each Archetype has access to certain advanced Archetypes once you hit level 16. Each Advanced Archetype will better help you define your role on the battlefield.
The Officer has access to the Vanguard, Master Tactician, and Grand Strategist. The Vanguard focuses on survival and tanking. The Master Tactician focuses on buffing teammates based on gaining momentum. Grand Strategist focuses on controlling the battlefield and providing team buffs.
Characteristics
Finally, we choose our starting Characteristics for our character. Since we are mainly focused on helping our teammates kill enemies we want to raise our Fellowship as high as possible. This will also make us incredibly effective in conversations. After that, we want to increase our Agility to help us dodge attacks and then Ballistic Skill for when we need to fight ourselves.
Here’s a Characteristic breakdown for a character with the Imperial World Homeworld, +10 to Fellowship from Humanity’s Finest, and the noble Origin.
| Stat | Amount |
|---|---|
| Weapon Skill | 30 |
| Ballistic Skill | 40 |
| Strength | 30 |
| Toughness | 30 |
| Agility | 40 |
| Intelligence | 35 |
| Perception | 30 |
| Willpower | 30 |
| Fellowship | 55 |
Officer Talents
As you level up through Officer you’ll be able to choose Archetype-specific talents. Whenever given the chance, you should always choose an archetype talent over a common talent since your chances to grab them are limited.
Here’s a breakdown of the best Officer talents to grab while leveling:
- Level 4: Seize the Initiative
- Level 6: Commanding Voice
- Level 8: Personal Oversight
- Level 11: Leader’s Assault
- Level 13: Focus!
These talents are built around making sure the Officer can dispense buffs to companions quickly so they can wipe out your enemies.
Officer Abilities and Special Abilities
While leveling, you’ll also be given access to different abilities and special abilities specific to the Officer. Like talents, you can’t grab all of them so you want to make sure you grab the ones best fit for your playstyle.
Here’s a breakdown of my choices for abilities:
- Level 7: Air of Authority
- Level 9: Finest Hour! Upgrade IV
- Level 12: Break Their Ranks!
- Level 15: Finest Hour! Upgrade I
The abilities chosen here will help us better direct our allies and help them hit harder.
Advanced Archetype
As I mentioned earlier, the Officer gets access to three Archetypes upon hitting level 16. This decision is entirely up to what your party needs, as each Advanced Archetype fills a specific role.
If you want to be a frontline tank then grab Vanguard. If you want to snowball your damage the longer the fight goes on, then grab Master Tactician. If you want to control the battlefield and everyone on it, then grab Grand Strategist.
Your companions share all these Archetypes as well so you’ll find some overlap between Archetypes in your party depending on how you build them. Each option is powerful and you shouldn’t have any trouble progressing through the game no matter which you choose.
Grand Strategist
For this guide, I’ll be going over a possible level route through the Grand Strategist Archetype. This Archetype focuses on controlling the battlefield. Their unique ability Combat Tactics allows them to create zones around the area providing specific buffs depending on what zone they make.
The Grand Strategist continues to make use of Fellowship and Ballistic Skill so we’ll continue to up these Characteristics as normal. This time around, however, we start adding points into Intelligence. We want to increase this Characteristic when we can’t up our Fellowship since a lot of our new abilities rely on our Intelligence bonus.
Below I’ll go over a breakdown of the Grand Strategist’s talents, abilities, and special abilities to grab while leveling. And just like the Officer, we want to prioritize Grand Strategist talents over common talents whenever possible.
Grand Strategist Talents
- Level 18: Strategic Perfection
- Level 21: Diversion Zone
- Level 23: Blurred Locus
- Level 25: Point of Interest
- Level 28: Strategic Offense
- Level 31: Improvised Strategy
- Level 33: Inescapable Zone
All these talents are chosen to help buff the effects of the strategic zones we place on the battlefield.
Grand Strategist Abilities and Special Abilities
- Level 17: Killzone Stratagem
- Level 22: Combat Locus Stratagem
- Level 27: Take and Hold Upgrade II
- Level 20: Trenchline Stratagem
- Level 35: Take and Hold Upgrade III
These abilities, like the talents, give us the option to massively boost the effects of specific zones to aid our allies or debuff our enemies.
Exemplar
The Exemplar is the third tier and last Archetype you’ll unlock while leveling up in Rogue Trader. While technically every class gains access to the Exemplar, it is unique in that this Archetype is somewhat made up of your previous two Archetypes.
Use the Exemplar to fine-tune what you want your character to be. Pick up any archetype talents you couldn’t grab while leveling, and round out whatever weakness your character may have while moving into the end-game.
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