10 Worst Talents in Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader to Avoid

There are dozens of different talents in Rogue Trader split across Homeworlds, Origins, and Archetypes. While there are many great ones, some are just not that optimal or too situational to be of any practical use over others. Here are our 10 worst talents in Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader.

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader — 10 Worst Talents Ranked

Comprehensive Analysis

For this Operative Talent to be of any use, enemies should have a couple of exploits through your beginning-of-turn passive exploit application. Even then, you’re using a talent slot to gain one extra exploit that isn’t guaranteed every time. That’s a small percentage of extra damage or debuff with Expose Weakness. Continuous Analysis isn’t the greatest either, but at least it’s a passive effect that you don’t have to spend AP on.   

Fired Up

This Soldier Talent is too slow in combat, especially on single-shot builds. That said, it does find some values on area attacks and burst fire. However, the bonus is quite miniscule and takes time to ramp up to any real effectiveness. Furthermore, you’re not even gaining critical strike chance but just a percentage of increased damage if you were to critically strike. This sort of works on specific builds but is overall a suboptimal choice.

Integrity

Another extremely situational Soldier Talent is Integrity, which grants a bonus to BS and an additional two movement points when you’re at full wounds. As with FU, this can work in some specific team compositions and cover situations if you get lucky. However, you’ll most likely be hit by a stray shot for minimal damage and you’ll lose this talent altogether until you’re back at full wounds. What’s more, the bonus isn’t that impactful either even when it works.

Bloody Mess

Any time a voidborn character scores a critical hit, there’s a 10% chance to double the damage. Honestly, there are much better voidborn Talents, as I’ve not had much success with this one since the effect is so specific. First off, you’re already not getting that many critical hits in combat and now there’s a one in ten chance that rare crit is going to deal double damage? No, thank you BM. I’d rather pick up reliable critical chance instead.

Stronger Together

ST states that all allies, excluding xenos, in the current party gain +5 to the same characteristic as was chosen for Humanity’s Finest. Now HF is a great Talent that you’re usually picking up for your Rogue Trader main character.

Unless you’re already planning a party during character creation, there’s no reliable way to know whether this talent will benefit other companions in your party that much. A +5 is already not that impactful and having it apply to characters who won’t make much use of it is wasteful, especially when it doesn’t apply to xenos companions like Yrliet.   

Ready to Serve

This is arguably one of the worst Talents in the game. Don’t get me wrong: Resolve is important, the whole game is about getting as much Momentum to turn the tides with that Heroic Act. However, not only is this a minor situational buff to Resolve, but it only lasts for one round. We can do better.

Strength in Numbers

This one’s for hive world characters where they gain a small amount of resolve when there are three or more creatures within three cells. It’s not as bad as Ready to Serve since it’s permanent under these specific conditions. However, it has a downside of reducing your resolve by two if there are no creatures around you. A minor buff with a downside? Let’s skip this one.

Fire Within

Psyker Talents are usually decent options, but the Pyrokinetic or Pyromancer sometimes struggles a bit with their talents and effects. The main issue is that it takes too long for them to deal any decent damage. Fire Within summarizes this by requiring your Pyro to kill or score a critical hit 8 times in combat just for your next attack to be free. While this may sound exciting to some, I’ve found that it’s just quite slow and not that impactful at the end of the day.

Edge of Fate

Even the worst Psyker Talents are at least marginally useful and that’s the case for Edge of Fate. At the beginning of every combat encounter, the psyker’s allies gain +15% critical hit chance. The first critical hit removes this effect. There are no downsides to this talent, it just works eventually. But we’re giving up other great Psyker Talents just to get a small boost to critical hit chance and then our talent is off for the rest of combat. At least the Operative’s Fresh Target working if any enemies remain at full HP throughout the fight.

Steel Resolve

Steel Resolve is quite decent granting a small resolve increase that adds up overtime. However, I don’t recommend getting it as there are just so many other great Officer talents you should be prioritizing. Steel Resolve is a minor trap that will slow down your support ability progression.

Thanks for reading my list on the 10 worst talents in Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader. For other tips and tricks like our Abelard and Argenta builds, click the links or check out our WH40K Rogue Trader guides hub for even more.