Melee-Officer build?

[=M$= Oroberus]

Yeho,

still dabbling around with different origins and archetypes and replaying the tutorial a bunch. While I find the Melee of the Warrior highly fun so far, I'd actually find the Commissar-Officer combination more pleasing in terms of roleplay.

My question now probably is, what would you say is the more fun combination to go. While the warrior probably is the more powerful in melee, will the officer still be viable although missing out on the Charge ability?

Here'se the base take on this combi
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3111452495

[Zsrai]

You're going to miss out on a lot of mobility without Charge and it's related perks, but you can still get stuck in as an Officer. Hold the center, have your Warrior(s) run up the sides and kill shooters, whatever works.

[x_equals_speed]

I'm playing an officer / noble and mostly stand at the back yelling orders at people and am finding that works great, but in some of the skills I've passed up there's been potential for a melee build. There is a skill that lets you have every third officer shout apply to yourself as well as your target which feels like it'd have some potential. Break their ranks gives you fellowship to melee damage so could be a good one to hit yourself and a mate with.

[O'Connell]

I think the variations in this game are astounding.
To your point,
Roleplay-wise, he's a leader that charges into battle unaffected by the lousy bullets whizzing by his person still barking orders all the while.

Gameplay-wise, I do wonder if many of his leadership buffs will go unused. You have action points that you have to decide do I bolster the team or do I go in there and handle this mess myself since these louts can't seem to do the job themselves.

I'm going to suggest
roleplay-wise and gameplay-wise it makes sense to make your main completely officer and find a way to really make your origin compliment that.

I toyed with three roleplaying concepts on that. Two were nobles and one was Naval officer.

Krøssus is a young ensign who faced early success and promoted way too speedily to commodore then learned hard cold abject failure in his budding career.
-erased-

Lady Catalina who loved her father spending less time learning court life and more studying her fathers notes on policy, edicts and military maneuvers.
-erased-

The one I'm using now..

Baron Iolanthus learned he was a bastard child, but only after seeing the fall of another noble house.
Discovering that he was switched at birth with a child taken into the "fabled" Grey Knights Space Marine Order he quietly set forth to lead a secretive campaign to locate his true family origin. Doing so he finds himself summoned by a rogue trader who may know something more about his true origin.

[Kunic]

I kinda have the feeling with all the options and variety you got it´s probably best to go for roleplay mainly...

[BenShinobi]

I chose an Astra Militarum-style officer and while at first I thought maybe I'd lose interest, it's going well for me still. The ability to give other allies additional attacks or even full turns is very effective, given how often there's not enough cover to move up everyone without being exposed.

He's also competent enough, while not excelling, at ranged and melee, meaning that when needed, or if the fight goes on long enough, he'll be getting stuck in a little, finishing enemies off. I've even just given him a longlas (which I would have thought would have some limitations on moving & shooting, but apparently not) so he's actually able to damage high priority targets from early on too.

I'm at level 9 so far, so not been playing that long, but I do feel like the strat is to not just focus on getting your characters to do highest dps. buff & de-buff powers are hugely important & with an officer (2, now I've found another party member) You can make a couple people your priority damage dealers and just spam buffs & extra turns on them to get huge damage.

In this way, the second time I encountered a chaos spawn, which almost downed Abelard first time round, I melted it before it came into melee range with mostly just bolter fire from Argenta

[Neoz]

Officer-> Vanguard is a great tank build.
Officer-> grand tactician is good for burst damage, but likely won't have staying power. You would largely buff other people, and only move in for big finishing blows. Actually, that sounds pretty fun.

[JimmysTheBestCop]

I would say Officers will never be on the front line. They would get obliterated not just in melee but they would then be wide open to all of the Ranged characters.

Officers cant wear heavy armor you would waste too talents to get the STR requirement. You dont have the soldier talent to wear Medium with 100% dodge so you will have to use Light. But you will never get armor/dodge/parry high enough.

Officers is the 1 class that is 100% support based. You will basically never have a chance to attack yourself and if you do its best with a sniper rifle and deadshot 2ap so you can actually hit something.

Cassie is an Officer but her REAL class is Navigator. It is so good you will never take an Officer talent unless it gives it to you.Your officer will basically be using all their talents on Cassie, Tank or Sniper.

Literally every AP you get will be used to buff some party member to do something.

If you want to stabby things you really have to go Warrior. If you want to shoot things you can actual go Operative or Soldier. As operatives make just as good snipers.

But Officers are full support if they are Attacking either something bad has happened or you are doing something wrong.

[mspaetauf]

Commissar - Officer here.
not as powerful damage wise as the Sister or the Senechal, but always goes first, and can enable an ally to take a turn immediately. Which is quite useful for either a charge, a ligthning or some burst fire.

[=M$= Oroberus]

Okay, thanks a lot, I'll keep away from this for now as I REALLY don't like to be just buffing left and right xD

I'll take some time off from thinking about this and maybe later think about some Commissar-Warrior into Assassin or about some Astra-Militarum Soldier into Arch Militant

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

Okay, thanks a lot, I'll keep away from this for now as I REALLY don't like to be just buffing left and right xD

I'll take some time off from thinking about this and maybe later think about some Commissar-Warrior into Assassin or about some Astra-Militarum Soldier into Arch Militant

Sorry it just occurred to me that if you wanted to Go Psyker like biomancy as an officer then into Vanguard you could do melee and tank. You need the psyker for the talents which you would focus on instead of the officer stuff.

I dont think it would be an easy build and wouldnt know how to build it out. But its possible.

[Mallechai]

Cassie has a navigator power that gives her ally charge and an extra turn to use it. You can use that to increase mobility.

[=M$= Oroberus]

Originally posted by JimmysTheBestCop:

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

Okay, thanks a lot, I'll keep away from this for now as I REALLY don't like to be just buffing left and right xD

I'll take some time off from thinking about this and maybe later think about some Commissar-Warrior into Assassin or about some Astra-Militarum Soldier into Arch Militant

Sorry it just occurred to me that if you wanted to Go Psyker like biomancy as an officer then into Vanguard you could do melee and tank. You need the psyker for the talents which you would focus on instead of the officer stuff.

I dont think it would be an easy build and wouldnt know how to build it out. But its possible.

This would be possible but completely defeat the idea of using the Commissar Origin, especially I find the Psyker-Officer combination quite appalling in terms of fluff, although not unheard of

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Yeah its not the best but probably only way to make officer have any combat value as an individual.

If you want to be in combat best to stick to the other 3 classes.

[I'm A Distraction!]

I've been giving it a shot as a Santic-Biomancer Psyker Officer. Santic at least seems to combo well with officer (buffs, and everything scales with Resolve, which scales with Fellowship and other bonuses from Officer). Got to effectively the end of Act 1 before I wanted to restart (due to not noticing the beard character options...). That, and as the Rogue Trader I want to maximize my Persuade/Commerce/Coerce checks.

The main problem I was having is the lack of mobility. Especially with how crazy mobile Warriors can get with their ultimate and giving them an extra turn from officers to charge. There's one fight on Minoris where you have an enemy sniper on a building, and I knew Warriors were busted was when I got Abelard onto that roof top in effectively one turn from the extreme mobility of his ulti. So I think you NEED to grab Nimble for that extra +2 MP to make up for it, and likely want a decent ranged option if you can't quite close.

Grab 35 Strength at character start, stick with light armor for Act 1, then when you get to Vanguard you can nab two Strength advances for the magical 45 for heavy armor or power armor (not sure which would be best right now, and respeccing at that tier costs Profit Factor, so...).

One thing to keep in mind between the two classes, too, is that you only get Resolve to Momentum on your characters turn if they've not used their ulti (at least, that's what the journal says). So if you want to use your main character to maximize Momentum, you'll likely want to hold off on using your Ulti and let your allies use it. This works well with Santic, since their Psuedo-ulti blade isn't a Heroic action, so you can use it and still keep generating Momentum (to feed into your sword, or into your party members Heroic actions).

[I'm A Distraction!]

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

Originally posted by JimmysTheBestCop:

Sorry it just occurred to me that if you wanted to Go Psyker like biomancy as an officer then into Vanguard you could do melee and tank. You need the psyker for the talents which you would focus on instead of the officer stuff.

I dont think it would be an easy build and wouldnt know how to build it out. But its possible.

This would be possible but completely defeat the idea of using the Commissar Origin, especially I find the Psyker-Officer combination quite appalling in terms of fluff, although not unheard of

Well, just treat the archetypes as a collection of loosely flavorful abilities (archetypes :P ) than an official position. Officer matches the abilities a Rogue Trader would cultivate the most (Fellowship and Commerce, hybrid melee or ranged, etc). So you can picture it as a high Fellowship Sanctioned Psyker that has to start learning the rogues.

(At least its a far more tolerable interpretation than somehow a Rogue Trader tracking down a Sanctioned Psyker of her bloodline, and then the crew being perfectly fine with having a Psyker for a captain, lol).