so other than justicar spam

[elationtheory]

is there any other viable team comps?

[Slapstick]

Purgator and Interceptor was my MVP for most of my prior playthrough until I got a librarian. Justicar was a nice addition to give them more AP or Hammerhand a foe every now and then, but the justicar was by no means essential. Two purgators and two interceptors will evaporate enemies on first contact if that's your jam.

[Mohrrunkel]

I agree, 2 Intierceptors + 2 Purgators is a healty mix and never encounters situations it can't handle.

Paladin, Aphothecary and Librarian for stun-combos is one of the stongest teams there is. The former has increased stun, the second gives a stun buff, the Librarian has an AoE-stun ability plus his mass teleport and stun grenades as backup for the whole team. That means you can almost always stun with one hit of your Pala and get executes off with the others for more AP. Since executes got buffed in the recent patch it's viable on every difficulty level now.
The 4th slot is variable, maybe a grenadier for more stun-grenades, an Interceptor for plain out damage against unstunnable units (e.g. mechanicals), a Justicar for extra AP incase you make a mistake, or maybe a Chaplain for his execute-litany and as a (will-)powerbank for your 3 essential Knights.

The meta is actually Interceptor spam, without going into details, their support fire, high mobility and AP-resets on their teleport spells/crits makes them the highest damage dealer by far. Plus they are straight forward, so easy to learn and use. Justicar might be a good support, so take one maybe, but they are probably the weakest class in terms of damage output, after the Aphothecary.

With a Librarian every melee team gets better. A Purifier for example can deal devastating area damge if he doesn't need to spend AP on walking in. Together they just wipe the floor with the tears of their enemies, thinning out the ranks with their combined AoE. Add in a Purgator with additional spread attacks (Psylencer or Psycannon) and you can only laugh about the DLCs increased patrol sizes.

Furthermore, you can use the Chaplains litanies to buff all ranges and create an absolute longrange crit lineup with 3 Purgators. Maybe two if you want to throw in a Techmarine for his support fire and cover clearing servitors.

But the Chaplain can also work great with any other crit-combos as he has another litany that increases general critdamage. Plus if you Interceptor spam you need one ranged to trigger the support fire on those anyway and while he himself is not dealing much damage, up to 6 triggers of support fire + an average of 4 AP (with resets and healty amount of crit and focus on Intis) x 3 Intis x 3critDmg, thats over 60 damage passively.

Maybe I missed some, but those are the general combinations I use.

[elationtheory]

oh when i meant justicar spam, i meant multiple (up to 3) justicars just buffing up an interceptor from across the entire map.

♥♥♥♥ gets stupid when a single interceptor can kill a 60hp bloom + mobs in 1 turn.

[Akhyleus]

Originally posted by elationtheory:

♥♥♥♥ gets stupid when a single interceptor can kill a 60hp bloom + mobs in 1 turn.

No need to spam Justicar for this. At high level the interceptor with weeping blade does it alone with TP included, crit bonus and AP refill on TP and Crit, he deal his 6Atk with nice crit and crit damages, he could wipe some bosses in one turn

[onewhofound]

All-tank is one way to do it, and a good choice, but there are plenty of other viable tactics. This game has some questionable choices to its design certainly, but lack of options is definitely not one of them.

[JPLRocket]

Apothecary-Librarian-Interceptor-Chaplain (stun focus) is probably the strongest overall team for missions. 3/4 of these classes get extra AP from crits, chaplain can expand this further, apothecary with maxed autos is saving 2AP and giving two party members +2 stun. It's nigh impossible for pods you open to survive contact.

A good alternate squad (ideal for the 'backup' team in the finale) when equipment supports it is librarian-purgator (cannon)-purifier-purgator (psilencer). This takes on an AoE focus and exploits the power of the arcane weapons skill, which is a buff that lasts until you attack, and grants a boost much like flames of purity, which with the helscorcher goes up to +12 damage on the purifier's AoE (and about +6 for the purgators). This squad does a crazy amount of AoE at a reasonable WP cost.

[Mohrrunkel]

Hmmm, good thing I went back and checked, because in the past Arcane Weapons definetly didn't affect AoEs like the psylencers Scatter Shot. I made an entire post about this. Seems to have changed to buff an otherwise very underpowered ability.

[JPLRocket]

It definitely does work now.

[JPLRocket]

A little comparison of justicar spam vs things in stun builds:

Justicars spend 3WP and 1AP to generate 3AP and 1WP (on the target), netting 2AP for 2WP

Chaplain activates guidance (+1WP when force striking/warp charging) outside combat for 1WP, leaves up if desired (Hammer of the Righteous). This will recover 4WP for the party most turns. Even without the hammer, it's still 3WP/turn, and if the chaplain himself is force striking, he's getting in on this.

Chaplain can activate litany of hate for 1AP and 1WP AFTER targets are stunned and the guidance autos spent, for 1WP and 1AP and generate up to 3AP. Litanies function as autos and benefit from enduring reflexes and focus bonuses, and changing litanies lets you double-dip, so swapping back and forth is frequently very effective.

Librarian uses mass teleport for 5WP and 0AP, typically saving 8AP (2AP per party member), then recovers 2WP from his own auto and the chaplain guidance auto. Net 3WP for 8AP.

Apothecary spends 3WP and 0AP (auto recovers) and places iron arm on itself and another knight (other auto). If these two knights then spend 6AP to stun 2 targets which are executed by an infiltrator with +1AP/crit (2/turn) for a further 2AP, they gain back 2AP each, the infiltrator gains 4AP and the fourth knight gains 2AP. This net gains 2AP for 3WP, just like honor the chapter, but also kills 2 enemies.

This is the foundation of stun builds, which snowball this free-flowing AP to completely wipe enemy pods and often operates 'between' turns, also saving warp meter and additional WP by keeping iron arm active since you never actually end turn.

In a given turn your knights are working with effectively an extra 13AP each fight--more than double their built-in totals--and are spending 5WP or less spread across the team for the trouble.

Now yes, you can do great things with the AP the justicar hands out. But other classes can hand out even more. I rely on justicars early on, but by the mid-late game, they tend to get sidelined by the most influential classes. As your gear gets better these effects get stronger--the force strike->AoE melee weapons make stun builds ludicrously effective.

[onewhofound]

Seems like there are indeed a lot of highly effective builds. Imma give the devs an internet high five for pulling it off.

Oops, the Denuvo DRM on my high five app prevented me from doing so