Draw Steel Tactician Guide

Introduction

The Tactician is the quintessential leader, with many of their abilities focused on directing allies to take actions or otherwise supporting them. They are also masters of warfare, being able to make use of two kits at once, and choosing a Tactical Doctrine which describes the kind of battlefield strategy they use.

For each choice I've assigned a star rating based on how powerful I think the option is and how often it will be useful, as well as a short explanation.

Base Features

The heroic resource Focus fuels the Tactician's abilities, and you gain more of it the first time each round that an ally uses a heroic ability, and the first time each round anyone on your team damages an enemy that you have marked.

The Mark maneuver gives your team a permanent edge against the target, which once established will be permanently available to bounce around the encounter to whichever target is most relevant to take out next. Marking an enemy is the first priority in an encounter, but afterwards it's necessary to find something else useful to do with your maneuver.

Anyone damaging a marked creature can be given a few extra benefits at the cost of 1 Focus, the most relevant of which are spending recoveries and dealing extra damage. The extra damage comes at a good rate (even at level 1 you get 20 damage out of 5 Focus) which establishes the baseline of how useful a heroic ability has to be to be worth taking.

"Strike Now!" is the other baseline ability to look at, which is more useful than a kit signature ability quite often depending on how powerful the class specific signature abilities of your allies are. Giving up 20 damage worth of Focus is almost never worth the upgraded version, but it could happen depending on the extra effects involved.

Ancestries & Kits

I'm not going to run through every Ancestry you can take, just point out any that are interesting for the Tactician for a specific reason. Kits are a more important topic as you get two of them combined, so I'll at least mention all of them and talk about some of the better pairings.

There are so many viable ways to build your character that it's hard to give an objective star rating to these options, so most of these get a high rating for being any good at all.

Ancestries

Dwarf ★★★★☆ There aren't many impactful features that ancestries can provide a Tactician, so a default +6 stamina, +1 stability might be all you need.

High Elf ★★★★☆ Dazed is the most punishing condition to suffer from, and notably can't be removed by the 5th level Vanguard feature "Shake it Off". The immunity to dazed is also available to Time Raiders, which mostly comes down to whether you prefer "High Senses" or "Four-Armed Athletics".

Hakaan ★★★★☆ Adding to forced movement distance isn't the best for the Tactician, as their heroic abilities aren't generally improved by it. It can still be worthwhile for a couple of the kit abilities and to make Knockback stronger when you don't otherwise have a use for your maneuver.

Kits

The basic premise here is to pick two kits that don't overlap in the bonuses they give you. A lot of heroic abilities can be used in melee or at ranged 5, so taking one melee and one ranged kit is a good idea, especially to get a ranged distance bonus. This also means hybrid kits are even less valuable than normal.

At 4th level the Tactician gets "Improved Field Arsenal" which together with the Mark guarantees a double edge on kit signature abilities. At 6th level "Master of Arms" removes a bane as well, which altogether makes it very likely to get a tier 3 result on these abilities.

This means +0/+0/+4 bonuses become better than +2/+2/+2 kits, and also that abilities with conditions are more likely to work.

Where applicable, some kits have been put into groups based on having similar stats and roles.

Arcane Archer/Sniper ★★★★★ Both of these have plenty of ranged distance, and a little bit of speed that your melee kit might not have. Sniper is better by default, but Arcane Archer might be able to target fire weakness and there are benefits to splitting damage with "Hit 'Em Hard!". Both should be paired with a high stamina kit.

Battlemind ★★★☆☆ Has an awkward mix of stats that make this kit inefficient to pair with anything. The pairing that makes the most sense would be a hybrid kit to still be a melee/ranged combo and get a little extra stamina, but that just doubles down on making suboptimal choices.
The signature ability is interesting for some of the teamwork combo abilities you have or for use with "Frontal Assault", but "Hit 'Em Hard!" is the far better 7 Focus ability.

Cloak and Dagger/Raider/Ranger ★★☆☆☆ Taking a middle of the road choice is rather pointless when you have access to 2 kits, and none of the signature abilities are particularly interesting. Cloak and Dagger has a little more speed than the top tier ranged kits, but having 5 less range is far more impactful to targeting distant enemies than 1 speed.

Dual Wielder ★★★☆☆ Generally pointless to take, any reason for this kit would be done better by Martial Artist or Swashbuckler.

Guisarmier ★★★☆☆ Same idea as for Dual Wielder, but this time that it's better to take a full tank kit like Mountain, Shining Armor, or even Sword and Board.

Martial Artist/Swashbuckler/Whirlwind ★★★★☆ Instead of taking a ranged kit you could have a much higher speed bonus and focus on melee. The other direction of replacing the melee kit makes less sense as you'll end up with a low stamina bonus; the speed and the ranged distance fulfill the same role anyway so it's a waste to have both.

Mountain ★★★★★ Has everything you need that a ranged kit isn't giving you, and with the preferable arrangement of melee bonus damage.

Panther ★★★☆☆ The only real thing to look at here is the signature ability, which can be good for making sure to get in melee. You'll get better stats going Mountain with a Ranged kit, or even Mountain with a +3 speed kit for the same focus on getting into melee combat.

Pugilist ★★☆☆☆ Gives up half of the effectiveness of a full melee kit for +2 speed, which doesn't make sense when you can just gain these bonuses from separate kits and end up with better stamina, melee bonus, and signature ability.

Rapid-Fire ★★★★☆ Arcane Archer or Sniper have extra range over this kit for no real cost, so there's no reason to take this kit, but it's still good for the same things.

Retiarius ★★★☆☆ With how easy a tier 3 result becomes to achieve this can reliably apply the restrained condition, but the stats aren't great to pair with anything. Sword and Board could be used as a tier 3 condition applier instead, and has much better stamina to go with a ranged kit.

Shining Armor ★★★★★ Having the highest stamina bonus you can get is a solid baseline for any relevant pairings. The 2nd level Mastermind feature "Goaded" gets a lot of value out of the taunted condition, which is far better if you don't have to spend Focus on the Mark benefit of taunting.

Spellsword/Stick and Robe ★★☆☆☆ The same kind of poor stat spread as Battlemind or Panther, but without a redeeming signature ability.

Sword and Board ★★★★★ Loses 3 stamina to Shining Armor, or 1 stability to Mountain, but when fishing for tier 3 results the signature ability is a strong option to constantly apply prone to the enemy.

Warrior Priest ★★★★★ The Tactician has a lot of abilities based around granting multiple attacks at once to benefit from this signature ability. Especially "Now" as a maneuver is simple to use after applying damage weakness, and you don't lose much compared to the other big melee options.

Tactical Doctrine

Each Tactical Doctrine gives a different triggered action, features at 1st, 2nd, 5th, 7th, and 8th level, as well as your choice between two heroic abilities at 2nd, 6th, and 9th level.

Insurgent

Triggered Action - Advanced Tactics ★★★★☆ For damage this isn't great, but for helping potencies take hold it can be amazing. Far worse if your allies don't have strong conditions to apply somehow, and it overlaps in function with surge granting abilities that every Tactician has access to.

1st Level Feature - Covert Operations ★★★★☆ Intrigue is a great skill set for day-to-day adventuring, you could even commit to being really bad at Intrigue skills and only use the Lead skill to assist those tests instead.

2nd Level Feature - Infiltration Tactics ★★☆☆☆ Becoming hidden is a weak use of a maneuver, and this isn't enough to change that. Most Shadow builds would appreciate you having this.

2nd Level Heroic Ability - Fog of War ★☆☆☆☆ Every part of this ability is far too low damage. "Now!" fills a similar role while actually being usable.

2nd Level Heroic Ability - Try Me Instead ★☆☆☆☆ The extra mobility from shifting is slightly interesting. Otherwise, this does hilariously low damage, the recovery is only worth 1 Focus, and applying frightened at melee range is not ideal. I would start considering the use of this ability if it cost 2 Focus.

5th Level Feature - Distracted ★★★☆☆ This makes becoming hidden much simpler, but there are still many better uses for a maneuver.

5th Level Feature - Leave No Trace ★★☆☆☆ To benefit from hiding the entire team has to do it, which is a lot of maneuvers to use. Even with the decreased chance it's still likely that at least one of you is found, which only costs the enemy a maneuver to attempt.

6th Level Heroic Ability - Coordinated Execution ★★★★★ The payoff for the hiding build that the Insurgent has been working towards. Even the least threatening elite will have 100 stamina by this level, and your allies should be happy to use a maneuver and an action to obliterate one of the strongest enemies in an encounter.
Nowhere near good enough against leaders or solo creatures, but it can be okay against minion groups if there are no area abilities available for them.

6th Level Heroic Ability - Panic in Their Lines ★★☆☆☆ In an ideal situation this starts to do enough damage to be reasonable, but it's still worse Focus efficiency than similar multi hit abilities, and there are many ways that this can be made suboptimal.
It's also only useful in group battles, which is where "Coordinated Execution" will far outpace it in potential value.

7th Level Feature - Asymmetric Warfare ★★★☆☆ An automatic success is useful, especially in negotiations which require very few rolls to finish. The extra benefit is mostly only useful if your director crafts a situation for it.

8th Level Feature - Bait and Ambush ★★☆☆☆ Saves an ally their maneuver when trying to activate "Coordinated Execution" if they have something important to do with it, but it's not a huge benefit for 2 Focus.

9th Level Heroic Ability - Squad! Hit and Run! ★★☆☆☆ This gets a little credit for giving enough surges for a potency increase, but it's bad damage for how much Focus it costs. The free hiding can make up some of the difference if it gives an edge to important abilities.

9th Level Heroic Ability - Their Lack of Focus Is Their Undoing ★★★★★ Enemy signature abilities can be very strong, and often hit 2 targets. If you manage to target this well, it will massacre any minions in the combat and leave the strongest creatures dazed.

Overall ★★☆☆☆ The Insurgent gets a lot of very bad features, the worst of which are the completely unusable 2nd level heroic abilities. It eventually gets the powerful "Coordinated Execution" to justify the poor hiding strategy, which is a bit of a one-dimensional build.
Overall, this Doctrine does nothing uniquely well except "Covert Operations" until far too late and even then, only in group combats.

Mastermind

Triggered Action - Overwatch ★★★★☆ For a kit-based ally a free strike is fine damage, and forced movement can be used to guarantee it happening. Being able to slow an enemy can be helpful to prevent them acting, and doing so as a triggered action makes it obvious when it will work.

1st Level Feature - Studied Commander ★★☆☆☆ The discount of project points is okay if you have appropriate lore to discover. I dislike having to spend a respite activity for the other benefits, which are inconsistent and only worth going for in important situations.
Surprise is a great benefit if you can achieve it, but the tier 2 result is basically useless except in some kind of sandbox or West Marches campaign when you can't tell how strong a certain area of the map is. The negotiation test has a slightly better tier 2 result, but motivations can often be discovered easily without spending a respite activity.
Too campaign/director dependant overall.

2nd Level Feature - Goaded ★★★★☆ Normally switching who takes damage from an ability isn't very important, but this can give taunted enemies a double bane on their strikes easily, which works even better with the Shining Armor kit to apply taunted for free.

2nd Level Heroic Ability - I've Got Your Back ★★☆☆☆ With a ranged kit it's a fun idea to taunt an enemy that can't reach you, but "Goaded" can do a similar thing for free anyway. Most of the pieces of this ability can be purchased as Mark benefits, and will end up doing more damage for the same Focus.

2nd Level Heroic Ability - Targets of Opportunity ★★★★☆ In a long group combat this can get a lot of value as long as your team has strong strike heroic abilities. The first ability copied is reasonable at the cost of 7 Focus, but every time after that getting basically an entire extra heroic ability for just 2 Focus will be amazing.

5th Level Feature - Anticipation ★★★☆☆ There are some reasons to have more creatures marked at once, such as area abilities benefitting from "Hit 'Em Hard!" against additional targets. Often this won't matter as finishing a target and then moving the Mark on is more efficient anyway, but it's nice when your attention is forcibly split.

5th Level Feature - I Predicted That ★★★☆☆ A bonus to a few skills, especially if you're good at arguing to use Reason in unusual circumstances. Most project rolls can use Reason, so this is also a buff to downtime projects for any characters with appropriate stats, and all followers.

6th Level Heroic Ability - Battle Plan ★☆☆☆☆ Spending 9 Focus to discover information that could already be obvious, or at worst is completely unimportant is a horrible deal. There are far better ways to give out surges, and the new way of dealing damage through the Mark is only useful if you don't have a way to avoid the damage immunity you just learned about.

6th Level Heroic Ability - Hustle! ★★☆☆☆ This is also a weak way to give out surges, but it gains a star for the movement being helpful sometimes.

7th Level Feature - Grand Strategy ★★★☆☆ An automatic success is useful, especially in negotiations which require very few rolls to finish. You might not always have a research project active to add progress to, and with followers this won't be a substantial upgrade to research speed.

8th Level Feature - Pincer Movement ★☆☆☆☆ Paying for a shift is one of the worst Mark benefits, and being able to do it twice at once is unlikely to be worth it. It isn't hard to establish flanking during normal play anyway, and I wouldn't pay 2 Focus just for an edge.

9th Level Heroic Ability - Blot Out the Sun! ★★☆☆☆ If this causes 6 ranged free strikes to happen it starts to be competitive with "Now!", though it still costs an action instead of a maneuver. It's not the smallest area, but being grouped up with this many allies can make you vulnerable to area damage.

9th Level Heroic Ability - Counterstrategy ★★★☆☆ Using an action and costing 11 Focus makes it difficult to get enough value out of this ability. Malice is sometimes spent more than once in a round, which is required to get a good discount on this ability unless you're in a very long combat.
If you don't manage to get a full discount there's still some tactical utility in rounding up ally heroic resources when they don't quite have enough, but it's difficult to say this is worth it when there are other important value over time abilities to set up such as "Hit 'Em Hard!".

Overall ★★★☆☆ The triggered action works well with the Tactician gameplan of handing out strikes and buffing them, and "Goaded" is a fun build for repeatedly giving important targets a double bane on their abilities. After level 2 it's routinely underwhelming, but "Targets of Opportunity" continually gets better as your allies gain better abilities.

Vanguard

Triggered Action - Parry ★★★★★ Compared to other similar abilities this is very versatile, as it's usable on others in emergencies and already coming with the potency decrease at no Focus cost.

1st Level Feature - Commanding Presence ★★★☆☆ This ability is strangely worded; it feels like the benefits should work for yourself, but it doesn't read that way. Regardless, the benefit is fine if it boosts Renown into being famous to an NPC, but it's equally likely that the bonus won't make a difference either way.

2nd Level Feature - Melee Superiority ★★☆☆☆ Certain enemies have abilities based around moving which this can prevent, but most of the time this isn't impactful at all. As written the Mark benefit isn't even an opportunity attack to reduce the targets speed, so it's barely worth using.

2nd Level Heroic Ability - No Dying on My Watch ★★★★☆ This has the potential to grant a lot of temporary stamina, which is important as you're giving up an already strong triggered action in order to use this. You then might end up taking opportunity attacks, so this ability could be difficult to make effective.

2nd Level Heroic Ability - Squad! On Me! ★★★☆☆ The targeting of this ability is quite limiting to how useful it can be. Certain encounters will benefit from the stability increase, but it's only for one turn, and otherwise this is mostly a more expensive and difficult to target "Battle Cry".

5th Level Feature - Shake it Off ★★★★★ By this level 1d6 stamina is barely an issue, while ending certain effects in advance can significantly improve a hero's turn. Consequences in tests are also much worse than taking damage, the default being that the director gains 2 Malice. The only downside of this feature is that it can't remove the dazed condition.

5th Level Feature - Tactical Offensive ★★☆☆☆ This can be nice to not worry about speed bonuses in kits, but with two kits it's likely one of them will have some mobility, and a lot of abilities have the choice to be used at range anyway.

6th Level Heroic Ability - Instant Retaliation ★☆☆☆☆ Buying an extra use of your triggered action is already a poor use of Focus, and this requires you to be directly next to an ally to use it. Dazing an enemy who is already mostly finished with their turn is an awful time to do so.

6th Level Heroic Ability - To Me Squad! ★★★★☆ Unlike "Hammer and Anvil" this wants allies to have melee signature abilities, which can be a benefit as it also moves allies into position. Poor damage efficiency, even if you do achieve the highly desired tier 3 result, but the guaranteed strong potency to apply dazed is an amazing benefit to help it take hold.

7th Level Feature - Shock and Awe ★★★★☆ An automatic success is useful, especially in negotiations which require very few rolls to finish. Extra crafting progress will always be helpful, though with followers it won't be a substantial upgrade to crafting speed.

8th Level Feature - See Your Enemies Driven Before You ★★☆☆☆ Having an on demand extra push is good for hazardous terrain or pushing people off cliffs, but as a way to deal damage this is less efficient than the default benefit even before stability.

9th Level Heroic Ability - No Escape ★☆☆☆☆ It's impressive how boring an ability can be for 11 Focus. This ability is nowhere near usable; it just does a tiny amount of damage and maybe lightly nudges some enemies out of the way.

9th Level Heroic Ability - That One Is Mine! ★☆☆☆☆ The upgrade from a free strike to a signature ability is irrelevant for how much Focus you're wasting on such poor damage. You can only grant yourself free strikes with "Melee Superiority", which would still only break even as a way to spend Focus compared to default Mark benefits (while of course losing 11 Focus for nothing).

Overall ★★★★☆ Has the best triggered action/version of the 7th level feature, and the completely useless levels come much later than for the other Doctrines. "Shake it Off" is an amazing feature that can also help out of combat.

Ability Choices

3-Focus Abilities

Battle Cry ★★★★☆ A cheap ability that lets you get value out of your maneuver once Mark has been used. The surges are best used for applying conditions, so it's quite bad on a tier 1 outcome.

Concussive Strike ★★★★☆ Might can be a tough potency to target, so often I prefer supporting other characters attempts to apply conditions with "Battle Cry" and/or the Insurgent triggered action. Dazed is strong so this is worth taking if no one else can apply it.

Inspiring Strike ★★★☆☆ Having emergency healing can be helpful, but you have some attached to your Mark ability anyway. The damage is also low, and most of the power here relies on a tier 3 result.

Squad! Forward! ★★☆☆☆ Achieves certain combat objectives easier with how much movement it can give out, or can be used to set up positioning for your other abilities, but most of the time this is just a waste of Focus even with how cheap it is.

5-Focus Abilities

Hammer and Anvil ★★★☆☆ Combined with the Mark this can easily grant a double edge attack, but you need to roll a tier 3 result to make this ability worthwhile.
At tier 3 the average is around 10 more damage than what using a signature ability and spending the Focus on Mark damage would deal. As a way to take advantage of damage weakness, "Now!" is far more consistent.

Mind Game ★★☆☆☆ Not enough damage, and the condition isn't great. You get more recoveries happening in large parties, or by going early one round then late the next, which is important because this needs to hit 5 recoveries granted to start being better than just what your Mark can do.

Now! ★★★★☆ By default this ability doesn't do enough damage to be worth the Focus, but it's better with some ways to improve free strikes such as kits or damage weakness. Regardless, it dishes out damage faster than waiting for individual Mark damage triggers and is easy to combo with the Warrior Priest kit to apply damage weakness.

This Is What We Planned For ★★★★☆ Breaking the turn order doesn't inherently do anything, but it can eliminate enemies before they can act, or take advantage of conditions and damage weakness before they can be removed.
In smaller parties it's possible to skip solo creature turns with this as they aren't allowed to take their turns consecutively.

7-Focus Abilities

Frontal Assault ★★☆☆☆ It's hard to make sure the push is impactful enough to be worth the Focus investment, and it only happens once per turn unlike "Hit 'Em Hard!". The Battlemind signature ability can be used to make this better, but it's still bad against enemies with stability. The other effects are okay for a little mobility.

Hit 'Em Hard! ★★★★★ Even just looking at the damage of the surges, it's pretty easy to trigger this ability enough to be worthwhile. Plenty of characters will be able to activate this at least twice a round, and it makes abilities that deal damage multiple times a lot better, such as "Now!".

Rout ★★☆☆☆ Passing the frightened condition around like this is very awkward as it only does anything on rolls between the frightened and the frightener. Really expensive just to apply a weak condition.

Stay Strong and Focus! ★★★☆☆ Ending the combat faster with "Hit 'Em Hard!" is better than extending it by easily spending recoveries. In a long combat this can achieve a discount over just spending Focus on Mark recoveries.

9-Focus Abilities

Squad! Gear Check! ★★★☆☆ Requires melee allies who are already in position, but if that happens this can generate decent extra survivability. Each character's individual temporary stamina won't be amazing at increasing survivability, as it's quite small compared to damage and recovery values at this echelon.

Squad! Remember Your Training! ★★★☆☆ This ability is "Hammer and Anvil" if it had a guaranteed tier 3 result. Definitely less Focus efficient than similar options, but if you don't have an ability to fill this role it's fine to use with "Hit 'Em Hard!" or damage weakness. The signature ability you use could even be from Warrior Priest to set up the damage weakness.
Vanguard Tacticians have the similar "To Me Squad!" next level which comes with the dazed condition, but wants your allies to specifically have melee signature abilities.

Win This Day! ★★★★☆ Removing all conditions is the main benefit here, which can be very helpful in certain situations. It's a lot less useful for Vanguard Tacticians who can just use "Shake it Off" to clear important conditions and save their Focus to end the combat faster instead.

You've Still Got Something Left ★☆☆☆☆ At level 5 this basically costs 5 Focus to give your main action to someone else, which isn't a sensible trade when you could just use your main action and not waste Focus.
There is some tactical utility of letting other characters use their most powerful abilities more often, but the best use of this would be to use area abilities to clear out groups faster, which isn't allowed.

11-Focus Abilities

Go Now and Speed Well ★☆☆☆☆ Technically usable if there is an encounter winning condition that you can force to apply with the potency increase. However, 11 Focus and a main action is absurdly over costed as you could just use a real heroic ability instead.

Finish Them! ★★★★☆ It's very easy to use this to finish off an elite, which will be an efficient use of Focus. It's substantially worse than the Insurgent's "Coordinated Execution", but for the other Doctrines it does the job fine.

Floodgates Open ★☆☆☆☆ There are very few signature abilities with potency effects worth using, and even if your team has some, this will be far too Focus inefficient compared to "Hammer and Anvil" or "Now!".

I'll Open and You'll Close ★★★☆☆ Kind of awkward that an ally has to pass their turn with all their heroic resource available to use this, but it could let you use Focus for better abilities than what you have access to.
Two Tacticians could theoretically pass this ability back and forth between themselves infinitely if they really want to break the game.