Space Marine 2's Operations classes are close enough in raw power that ranking them by damage misses the point. What separates them is how much they contribute to a squad on Ruthless and above, and how badly the run goes if nobody brought one.
Classes
| Tier | Class | Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| S | Bulwark | The banner refills squad armour. No other class keeps three people alive through a bad spawn. |
| S | Tactical | Auspex Scan multiplies damage on a marked target, which is the answer to every Extremis enemy the team is struggling with. |
| A | Heavy | Enormous sustained output against everything, entirely dependent on the squad keeping melee off it. |
| A | Sniper | Cloak is a full reset button and it deletes Extremis targets. Poor when the screen fills. |
| B | Vanguard | Best armour engine in the game via grapple, least margin if you grapple the wrong thing. |
| B | Assault | Highest fun, highest death rate. Struggles to contribute on Lethal without a very good player. |
Assault and Vanguard at B is about reliability. In skilled hands both are excellent; in a random squad they are the ones on the floor.
Weapons worth the Armoury Data
| Tier | Weapon |
|---|---|
| S | Melta, Bolt Sniper, Power Fist |
| A | Heavy Bolter, Thunder Hammer, Plasma Incinerator |
| B | Chainsword, Bolt Rifle, Auto Bolt Rifle |
| C | Combat Knife, Bolt Pistol as a primary answer |
Melta is absurd inside its range and useless outside it, which is exactly why it suits Bulwark and Assault and nothing else.
The composition rule tier lists ignore
Three melee classes fail on Lethal regardless of individual skill, because Zoanthropes float, shield each other, and cannot be reached.
Somebody needs a reliable answer to a shielded floating target. That requirement outranks every ranking above, and it is the actual reason a squad wipes.
Difficulty flattens this
Up to Substantial, play anything. The list above only starts to matter at Ruthless, where Extremis enemies stop being interruptions and become the encounter.
Perks are ranked wrong everywhere
Most lists rank perks by damage. Take armour-restoration perks first instead.
A Vanguard that restores more armour per grapple grapples more often, which is more total damage than a damage perk provides. The same logic applies to every class here, because your uptime is gated by armour rather than by cooldowns.
Team perks are undervalued for the opposite reason: you never see the number, so nobody takes them. Take them anyway.
Private versus matchmaking
The reliability penalties on Assault and Vanguard mostly disappear in a coordinated group. With friends who cover for each other, both play a tier above where they land here, which is worth knowing before writing them off.
Campaign versus Operations
The campaign has no class system, so none of this applies there. Everything above is Operations, which is where the progression and the difficulty both live.
The Space Marine 2 builds guide covers perks and the armour economy.
