All Star Wars Zero Company Focus Trees/Skills

Latest Update: August 22, 2026 – Categories: Star Wars Zero Company

In this guide we review every single Focus Tree for all Classes and Authored Operators (Story Companions) in Star Wars Zero Company.

Related SWZC

• All Story Characters
• Complete Classes Guide
• Character Creation
• All Focus Trees/Skills
• All Species Explained
• Weapons & Mods Guide

Quick Summary: Focus Points are earned by completing Tactical Missions and by increasing Bond levels between operator pairs. They are spent in the Focus Tree at the Den’s Personnel facility to upgrade class abilities, Passives, and Talents across up to six tiers. Every ability upgrade is available from the start of the campaign: you are not unlocking new skills, you are improving the ones your operator already has. Cross Training bonuses earned through the Bond system can also award additional Focus Points directly, making high-deployment pairs more progression-efficient over a full campaign.

Star Wars Zero Company Focus Trees

All Custom Operators and Authored Operators have their own Focus Trees. Custom Operators combine their Specialization (Class) tree with their chosen Universal Talent, while Authored Operators/Story Companions have their own fixed Focus Tree and Talent.

Assault

The Assault is a frontline fighter that excels at maneuvering in battle to score medium to close-range kills against targets hiding in cover. Operators trained in this way are lethal opponents.

Gunslinger

The Gunslinger specializes in multi-target blaster attacks and fast strikes that allow them to spread offense across numerous targets.

Heavy

The Heavy is a frontline combatant, thickly armored and tough as nails. These Operators specialize in survivability and soaking up enemy attacks while out in the open.

Medic

The Medic excels at healing and the prevention of Injuries. Medics can also boost their teammates, both physically and psychologically.

Scoundrel

The Scoundrel is a wildcard, adept at taking advantage of situations without much preparation and making the most of every opportunity in combat.

Scout

The Scout is a tactical Operator trained in reconnaissance tactics. Their planning and timing benefit their entire team, creating opportunities where none existed.

Sharpshooter

The Sharpshooter is an expert marksman that excels at long-range engagements, focused on singling out and defeating chosen enemies in battle.

Soldier

The Soldier is a mainstay offensive unit, capable of engaging enemies at close to medium-range with melee, grenades, heavy blaster fire, and a powerful rocket launcher.

Jedi Padawan

The Jedi Padawan class belongs permanently and exclusively to Tel-Rea Vokoss. Tel-Rea cannot be respecced out of Jedi Padawan, and no other operator can be respecced into it. The class is built around Force abilities and dual-lightsaber combat.

Jedi Padawan Fixed Talent

Strong with the Force (Tel-Rea Vokoss)

Tel-Rea begins each turn with stacks of Harmony. Harmony affects Deflection and Lightsaber Attacks.

Tier 1: 2 stacks of Harmony Tier 2: 3 stacks of Harmony Tier 3: 4 stacks of Harmony Tier 4: 5 stacks of Harmony Tier 5: 6 stacks of Harmony

Mandalorian Warrior

The Mandalorian Warrior class belongs exclusively to Cly Kullervo. The class is built around her jetpack, specialized armor, and Mandalorian combat style, providing high mobility and skirmisher behavior.

Mandalorian Warrior Fixed Talent

Combat Jump (Cly Kullervo)

Jump to a nearby location, Pushing nearby enemies out of position.

Tier 1: Jump up to 14m Tier 2: Jump up to 17m Tier 3: Jump up to 20m Tier 4: Jump up to 23m; inflicts 4 stacks of Burning

Astromech

The Astromech unlike other exotics is not locked to a single named character. Astromechs can unlock early in the game as support units, giving you more flexible squad members from the start. Instead, any droid built through the Den’s droid builder runs the Astromech class, and you can field multiple Astromech operators simultaneously. Available chassis include the R2, R3, and R4 series, as well as the BR-1, a new model created specifically for Zero Company by Bit Reactor.

Astromech Fixed Talent

Built-In Comlink (Astromech Only)

Grant an ally AP. Costs 1 AP to use.

Tier 1: +1 AP; 1 per turn Tier 2: +1 AP; 2 per turn Tier 3: +1 AP; Unlimited

Universal Talents

Universal Talents are selected for Custom Operators and have a variety of offensive and defensive bonuses. Only one Universal Talent can be chosen for each character, and some talents such as Thievery and Espionage do not stack on a team.

Talent	Effect	Tier Upgrades
A Life of Labor	The Operator gains bonus Health and Defense as well as Melee Damage and Critical Hit Damage at higher tiers.	Tier 1: +5 Health; +1 Defense Tier 2: +5 Health; +1 Defense; +2 Melee Damage Tier 3: +5 Health; +1 Defense; +2 Melee Damage; +2 Critical Hit Damage Tier 4: +7 Health; +2 Defense; +4 Melee Damage; +4 Critical Hit Damage
Anticipation	This Operator gains a stack of Evasion. Costs 1 AP per use.	Tier 1: 1 use per turn Tier 2: 2 uses per turn Tier 3: 3 uses per turn Tier 4: 3 uses per turn, can also target an ally
Cold Blooded	Applies a stack of Vicious to this Operator.Costs 1 AP per use.	Tier 1: 1 stack; 1 per combat Tier 2: 1 stack; 2 per combat Tier 3: 1 stack; 3 per combat Tier 4: 2 stacks; 3 per combat
Espionage	Earn additional rewards when this Operator completes a combat mission. Does not stack.	Tier 1: +5 Intel Rewards Tier 2: +7 Intel Rewards Tier 3: +9 Intel Rewards Tier 4: +12 Intel Rewards
Fortitude	Increases Defense while this Operator is injured.	Tier 1: +2 Defense Tier 2: +3 Defense Tier 3: +4 Defense Tier 4: +6 Defense; ignore the chance-to-hit penalty for injury
Grit	Applies stacks of Invulnerable to this Operator and increases their Max Health.Costs 1 AP per use.	Tier 1: 1 stack per 1 turn, +2 Max Health Tier 2: 1 stack per 1 turn, +4 Max Health Tier 3: 1 stack per 1 turn, +8 Max Health Tier 4: 2 stacks per 1 turn, +12 Max Health
Sabotage	Trigger an explosive object on the battlefield to detonate, immediately affecting any nearby units. Costs 2 Advantage per use.	Tier 1: 1 per combat Tier 2: 2 per combat Tier 2: 3 per combat Tier 4: Unlimited
Taunt	Taunts the selected enemy and reduces its Damage for the rest of the turn at higher tiers.Costs 1 AP per use.	Tier 1: 1 Taunt per turn Tier 2: 1 Taunt per turn; reduces Damage by 2 Tier 3: 1 Taunt per turn; reduces Damage by 4 Tier 4: 1 Taunt per turn; reduces Damage by 6
The Bigger They Are…	This Operator’s Ranged and Melee Attacks deal bonus damage against Elite and Boss enemies.	Tier 1: +2 Damage Tier 2: +3 Damage Tier 3: +4 Damage Tier 4: +6 Damage
Thievery	Earn additional credits when this Operator completes a combat mission. Does not stack.	Tier 1: +150 Credits Tier 2: +200 Credits Tier 3: +250 Credits Tier 4: +300 Credits

Authored Operator Fixed Talents

Additional Authored Operator Talents are fixed, though their actual classes can be changed, letting you selected from any standard class tree.

Talent	Effect	Tier Upgrades
Fearless Leader (Hawks)	When Hawks is present, increases Assist Damage and Defense for all Operators.	Tier 1: +1 Assist Damage Tier 2: +1 Assist Damage, +1 Defense Tier 3: +2 Assist Damage, +1 Defense Tier 4: +2 Assist Damage, +2 Defense Tier 5: +3 Assist Damage, +2Defense Tier 6: +4 Assist Damage, +3 Defense
For My Brothers (Trick)	Once per mission, when Trick is downed, he automatically revives at the beginning of the next turn.	Tier 1: Trick revives at Half Health Tier 2: Trick revives at Full Health Tier 3: Trick revives at Full Health; Does not receive an Injury on first down Tier 4: Trick revives at Full Health on the same turn; Does not receive an Injury on first down; restores 1 AP
Combat Gas (Luco Bronc)	Gain stacks of Sharpened Senses. Each stack increases Chance-to-hit and Ranged Attack Damage. One stack expires after each Ranged Attack.	Tier 1: TBD Tier 2: TBD Tier 3: TBD Tier 4: TBD
Final Shot (Jae Mordant)	Once per turn, Jae immediately fires her blaster and eliminates any enemy left with low Health after an allied Operator’s attack.	Tier 1: Eliminates enemies with 4 health or less Tier 2: Eliminates enemies with 6 health or less Tier 2: Eliminates enemies with 8 health or less Tier 4: Eliminates enemies with 10 health or less
Uppercut (Kabb Uppercut)	Rush an enemy and strike it, dealing Melee Damage and Pushing it backwards. Defeating the target restores all AP used. +4 impact damage for each enemy struck.Costs 1 AP	Tier 1: 10 base damage Tier 2: 11 base damage Tier 2: 12 base damage Tier 4: 14 base damage Tier 5: 16 base damage Tier 6: 18 base damage

Zero Company Focus Trees Explained

The Focus Tree is a tiered upgrade grid specific to each operator, accessed through the Personnel facility at the Den. Every operator has their own separate Focus Tree, and upgrades purchased for one operator do not carry over to any other. The tree covers three categories of upgrades: class abilities (the Ultimate, Standard ability, and Passives tied to the operator’s current Specialization), plus the operator’s individual Talent.

Each upgradeable ability has up to six tiers, with each tier requiring more Focus Points than the last, with the final tier often delivering either a numeric improvement or a fundamental change to what the ability does. Sweeping Salvo’s final tier, for example, removes the restriction on Critical Hits, which is a powerful bonus and game-changer for the skill. Cold Blooded’s final tier shifts from one use per combat to three uses per combat and adds a second Vicious stack, again a huge change rather than a small improvement.

How to Earn Focus Points

Focus Points come from two main sources in Z COM: completing Tactical Missions and increasing Bond levels between operator pairs.

Completing Tactical Missions

Every Tactical Mission completed awards Focus Points as part of its standard reward pool alongside Credits, weapon mods, and zone influence. The exact amount per mission can vary based on mission difficulty and completion quality. Preview coverage from Game Informer describes Focus Points as something that accumulates naturally through regular play: “if you do everything great, leaning on your teammates and relying on assists, your characters will level up, earn focus points to upgrade their abilities.” Players who maximize combat efficiency and complete missions cleanly will earn Focus Points faster than those who struggle to get through the same content.

Increasing Bond Levels

The Bond system is the second and more strategic source of Focus Points. Think of Bond Levels as a short cut to even more power – power-leveling if you will.

As two operators fight alongside each other, heal each other, use Call for Backup assists together, and interact through Den dialogue, their Bond strengthens through confirmed tiers of Low, Neutral, and High. When a Bond rises to a new level, both operators in the pair unlock a Cross Training, and the player chooses one benefit from three options. One of those options is Freeform Training, which awards 2 Focus Points to both operators in the pair simultaneously. Choosing Freeform Training over the other two Cross Training options at a Bond level-up an easy way to earn Focus Points faster in the game.

Reaching maximum Bond level unlocks a special Cross Training that grants a Passive Ability, which is the most powerful tier of benefit in the Bond system. This is the only way to access these max-Bond Passives, and it provides a strong incentive to pair specific operators together consistently across the campaign.

What to Spend Focus Points On

Focus Points spent in the Personnel facility apply across three distinct upgrade categories, and knowing which category to prioritize for a given operator is the central decision the Focus Tree asks you to make.

Class Ability Upgrades

Your operator’s Ultimate, Standard ability, and Passives all upgrade through the Focus Tree. Each has up to six tiers, with most tiers providing numeric improvements and the final tier sometimes changing the ability’s fundamental behavior. This makes partial upgrades a viable early-campaign strategy: pushing an ability to tier 3 gives you most of its value at a fraction of the total cost, leaving points available for other upgrades.

The most important class ability upgrades to prioritize by role: for damage dealers, the Ultimate and the investable Passive are the highest-return upgrades. For support operators like the Medic, the Standard ability and Passive that affect allies directly are more valuable than the Ultimate, since Morale Boost’s value comes from its stack count and duration rather than a damage number. For the Scout, Combat Recon’s area of effect upgrade is the single highest-value Focus spend in the game for Advantage generation, since each tier directly increases how many enemies can be detected in one cast.

Talent Upgrades

Every operator’s Talent upgrades through the same Focus Tree interface as class abilities. Talent upgrades follow a three-rank structure rather than six tiers, and the upgrade path changes significantly between Talents. Some Talents improve a single numeric stat at each rank. Others change what the Talent does at rank 3, extending a personal bonus to allies or adding usage stacks that were not available at lower ranks.

Cold Blooded at rank 3 is worth accelerating on any damage dealer where guaranteed crits are the core mechanic. Fortitude at rank 3 is worth accelerating on any operator you have already had to treat at the medbay once, since the injury penalty removal is immediately valuable on a twice-injured operator.

Cross Training Stats from Bonds

Cross Training bonuses earned at each Bond level-up are not Focus Tree upgrades in the traditional sense, but they feed directly into the same operator improvement system. Confirmed Cross Training options at High Bond level include Timing Exercises for 5% Critical Chance, Reflex Fire Training for 1 Overwatch Damage, and Freeform Training for 2 Focus Points. These bonuses apply to both operators in the pair, making high-value Cross Training options a double-spend of the same Bond investment. Timing Exercises on a Sharpshooter paired with a Scoundrel, for example, increases the Critical Hit chance of both operators simultaneously, compounding with Cold Blooded and Identify Weakness for the pair’s combined crit chain.

Focus Tree Priority by Role

Because Focus Points are finite and the full cost of maxing out every ability on an operator is significant, going into the campaign with a priority order for each operator type saves you from spreading points too thin.

For frontline damage dealers like the Assault or Gunslinger, the upgrade priority is the investable Passive first, the Ultimate second, and the Standard ability third. The investable Passive for the Gunslinger is Keen Eye, which scales Critical chance all the way up to 18% at max rank, and the Onslaught passive compound across the entire Gunslinger turn means every additional crit is paid out multiple times. For the Assault, Fleet of Foot at max rank adds 3 meters to the first movement, which combined with a fully upgraded Bull Rush gives the operator traversal range that changes what it can reach in a single AP.

For the Scout, Combat Recon is the first priority without exception. Each tier increases the ability’s area of effect and maximum range, and the Advantage generation it provides at high ranks justifies front-loading Focus investment there over almost any other upgrade in the game. Tactical Timing at max rank shifts from a 20% chance to 100% chance of generating bonus Advantage on a Spotter defeat, which compounds with the Scout’s already high hit rate on low-durability targets.

For the Medic, Combat Stim’s duration and power upgrades are the first priority, since a max-rank Combat Stim buff lasting the entire fight rather than two turns fundamentally changes how durable the operator it targets becomes. Life-Saving Measures at max rank adds 30% to all healing including the auto-equipped med pack, which directly scales Morale Boost’s effective output across the whole squad.

For tank-role Heavies, the Conditioning Passive should be invested early, adding up to 20 Max Health at max rank. Bulwark’s range and defense upgrades follow, since the ability to taunt all enemies in a larger area at higher defense values is the primary combat function of the Heavy’s entire kit.

Pro Tip: Before spending Focus Points at the start of a new Cycle, check which operator is closest to a Talent rank 3 upgrade and whether that upgrade changes the ability’s function. Rank 3 Talent changes can be incredibly strong relative to their cost and often justify delaying class ability upgrades by a Cycle to reach them first.

Focus Trees and Secondary Specialization Unlock

At Cycle 18 of the campaign, every operator unlocks a Secondary Specialization slot. This is a second full class that sits alongside the primary, giving each operator access to abilities from two different Specializations simultaneously. The Focus Tree expands at this point to cover the abilities of the secondary class as well, meaning the pool of upgradeable abilities roughly doubles for every operator who takes a secondary.

This has two implications for Focus Point strategy in the first half of the campaign. First, Focus Points spent before Cycle 18 go entirely to the primary class and Talent, which means early investment is not wasted: those upgrades carry forward and remain active after the secondary unlocks. Second, players who have been spending Focus Points conservatively in the early campaign will have a larger pool available when the secondary class opens up, giving them more flexibility to invest in the new abilities from the start rather than catching up on both classes simultaneously.

The dual-class combinations that emerge from this system are where Zero Company’s build variety fully opens up. A Scout secondary on a Gunslinger shares the Scout’s Advantage generation with the Gunslinger’s rapid-fire attack chain for example. The focus tree at this stage rewards players who have a clear picture of the two-class identity they are building toward rather than splitting points reactively between whichever upgrade looks useful in the moment. Make sure to review our Star Wars Zero Company builds to get some ideas for this progression, as it does get quite complicated.

The Final Word

The Focus Tree rewards deliberate planning over reactive spending. Every ability your operators will ever have is available from their first mission: Focus Points are the only thing standing between a tier 1 Sweeping Salvo and a tier 6 one that can land Critical Hits. Identify which abilities define each operator’s role, push those to tier 3 or 4 in the early campaign for most of the value at manageable cost, and then selectively push the highest-impact upgrades to tier 6 as your Focus Point income grows.

Star Wars Zero Company Focus Tree FAQ

1. How do you earn Focus Points in Star Wars Zero Company?

Focus Points are earned by completing Tactical Missions and by increasing Bond levels between operator pairs. Choosing Freeform Training as a Cross Training reward at a Bond level-up grants 2 Focus Points to both operators in the pair simultaneously.

2. Can you upgrade abilities for operators you are not actively using?

Focus Points are spent per-operator and upgrades apply only to that specific unit. Operators who are not being deployed on missions are not earning Focus Points from mission rewards, and their Bond levels with active squadmates may also decay without consistent deployment. Operators who sit on the bench fall behind the upgrade curve over time.

3. Do Focus Tree upgrades carry over if you respec an operator’s class?

Class ability upgrades in the Focus Tree are tied to the Specialization they belong to, not the operator themselves. The exact behavior of Focus Points already spent on a class when that class is respecced has not been fully confirmed in official pre-launch sources. We will update this guide with confirmed details at launch.

4. How many tiers does each ability have?

Each class ability or talent upgrades across up to six tiers. The cost per tier increases at each level, with later tiers representing a significantly larger Focus Point investment than early ones.

5. What is the best Focus Tree upgrade to prioritize first?

It depends on the operator’s role, but as a general rule the investable Passive and the ability that defines the operator’s core combat function should be upgraded first. For the Scout, Combat Recon’s area upgrade is the highest-value first spend in the game for squad-wide Advantage generation. For the Medic, Combat Stim’s duration upgrade is the most impactful early investment.

6. Does the Focus Tree change when the Secondary Specialization unlocks at Cycle 18?

Yes. When the Secondary Specialization slot opens at Cycle 18, the Focus Tree expands to include the abilities of the secondary class. Focus Points already spent on the primary class and Talent remain active and are not reset. Operators will need additional Focus Points to upgrade their secondary class abilities going forward.

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