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Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader

Ulfar Builds - Rogue Trader: Melee, Bolter & Flamer Builds

By
Craig Robinson
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After recruiting Ulfar in Rogue Trader, you’ll note that he is like Yrliet and "Marazhai" iconMarazhai, in that he will require heavy weapons or specific Astatres-labeled gear. The most notable thing about this is that you can get a lot of gear for very specific builds from many traders. In addition, due to you getting "Ulfar" iconUlfar in the middle or later stages of the Chapter 3, Ulfar has the vast majority of his talents locked-in up to level 30. It means you only have a little room to play around with his builds. So, the aim of our Ulfar Build guide in Rogue Trader is to list a few potential builds you can run for funsies and the type of items you want to look for. We’ll also recommend certain skills and talents you want to grab to round out your Arch-Militant and Exemplar to get the build you want running.

Ulfar Builds in Rogue Trader

Okay, so from what we have found so far, there are some good item synergies for Ulfar using a mixture of Burst Fire, "Flamer" iconFlamer, and melee weapon-type playstyles. We’ll separate them as follows using these links:

Be aware that each of these builds will require you to be in a spot where you have a lot of Profit Factor and a lot of cargo to dump into the Explorers or Drussian trade factions, depending on what you do. Sadly, most of the Astartes gear is locked behind these two traders, so it’s hard to give Ulfar a dedicated build on your team without a few key items.

The most likely build you will be going for is the melee build since you get a few key items just for playing the game normally, and it is the build that utilizes most of the locked-in Soldier and Arch-Militant options you cannot repec out of.

Ulfar Melee Build

Use Go for the Throat to close in on key enemies after consuming movement, and pinning them in for attacks of opportunities as they are forced to flee.

The Ulfar "Melee" iconMelee build takes advantage of the base of the melee Soldier and Arch-Miltant traits already selected in the build that you cannot change without using Toybox. You have a lot of skills to get you up close and serve as a tank, and you even have "Kick" iconKick and its talent upgrade to get control of the map. However, once you collect the items we list below during Chapter 4, you’ll gradually turn more and more into a Berserker with a lot of critical strike damage. The items we recommend looking at are as follows:

  • Bladewings - Requires Drussians Rep 24 and allows the wielder to spend all their movement points to move to a cell within range. This movement does not trigger attacks of opportunity and performs a melee cleave attack.
  • Greaves of the Black Archon - Every time the wearer scores a crit hit with a melee weapon, they restore (agility bonus/2) Wounds and gain +2 MP. You also get +15% Crit damage.
  • Fury Incarnate - When under the effects of "Reckless Rush" iconReckless Rush, you gain 50% Critical Hit and Crit damage. However, enemies who hit you also have 50% hit chance and damage bonuses.
  • "Singer of Fearsome Sagas" iconSinger of Fearsome Sagas - Unlocked via his companion quest in Chapter 4 and offers a "Power Axe" iconPower Axe weapon with the ability to make a target bleed using a single attack or cleave attack.

Essentially the aim of the build is to get Ulfar into melee range, using the combination of the Bladewings movement effect for a free cleave attack, followed by the use of his special Astartes skill, "Go for the Throat" iconGo for the Throat or by using a single weapon attack using his melee weapon. Both grant ways to increase crit damage and his "Versatility" iconVersatility stacks. Combine it with Greaves of the Black Archon, and then you have a reliable way of getting Wounds back in the frontline, and then using excess Versatility stacks to either give you tankyness with "Cautious Approach" iconCautious Approach. Additionally, the "Fired Up" iconFired Up Soldier talent also helps your crit damage for even more damage output using this style of play.

You also want to take advantage of Ulfar’s "Death World" iconDeath World Talent. The "Trusty Weapons" iconTrusty Weapons talent grants bonus crit as long as you are using Axes, Hammers or "Lasgun" iconLasguns. Since you’ll be using this build with the special Power Axe from his quest, that’s a 15% crit chance, and the bleed attack will trigger "Brutal Hunter" iconBrutal Hunter to raise it to 25% crit chance. When adding that with Fury Incarnate, you get 75% crit chance just from your items and talents alone. You can get to 100% easily from "Weapon Skill" iconWeapon Skill, ally crit buffs, or other items. Any bonus crit chance is then converted into more crit damage so Ulfar should be critting almost all of the time using these techniques and items. Just be aware this build cannot come online until mid to late chapter 4 due to the requirements of specific items.

As for other must-have talents, check out the following:

These talents essentially find ways to improve your survivability, especially the first two Exemplar talents. Revel in Slaughter is a Soldier skill you want to simply increase crit damage once you’re eligible to use it in combat. Revenge is also a great Exemplar skill because when you lose Wounds in combat, it increases your melee damage. Since you’re playing a berserker-type build and taking lots of wound damage, you increase your damage easily and can mitigate lost wounds through Flesh Wounds and Tough as Steel.

Ulfar Burst Fire - Bolter Build

You can start Burst Firing enemies using Ulfar’s starter gear, but move onto more powerful guns as you progress through Chapter 4.

The Ulfar "Bolter" iconBolter build is your bog standard Space Marine, using Bolt guns to strip away at enemies, and essentially serves as an Argenta Rapid Fire build, albeit a bit more scuffed. However, there are some perks to the build arriving from unique items for Ulfar.

  • Emperor’s Justice - An Astartes helmet sold by the Explorers for 120 Profit Factor and requires rank 28 reputation with them. The item grants all burst fire rounds the ability to be automatically dodged by allies.
  • Annihilating Astartes Bolter - Requires level 34 with the Explorers and 160 Profit Factor.

It is worth noting that you will find a lot of improved "Heavy Bolter" iconHeavy Bolters, and other forms of Bolter-type weapons as you go through Chapters 4 and 5, so don’t sweat too much about the Annihilating Astartes Bolter. You can even get the "Improved Heavy Bolter" iconImproved Heavy Bolter from the max rank of Drussians and use the spare on either Ulfar or "Argenta" iconArgenta.

Essentially the aim of the game is to use your Bolter to deal ranged damage, overpenetrating when possible, and then using the "Rapid Fire" iconRapid Fire and Burst Fire combo to shred bosses, similarly to Argenta. Albeit the difference here is that you don’t need to worry about using "Controlled Shot" iconControlled Shot as you’ll likely be using the Emperor’s Justice Helmet. This means you have an Extra AP to spend however you like, and you’re automatically in the good books of your Assassins and Vanguards if you’re running a melee-heavy comp. Alternatively, you can use the "Crusade" iconCrusade Plate Helm, which is another Astartes Helmet unlocked via the Drussians at level 23 that grants 50% damage bonuses to heavy weapon, but you can no longer crit. It’s handy if you’re running damage builds and want to give your ballistic crit items to a sniper or another character.

After that, you’re essentially looking to improve your damage modifiers, using "Muzzle Velocity" iconMuzzle Velocity, "Cataclysm" iconCataclysm, and other Arch-Militant talents that increase your stacks of Versatility for those bonuses. Take a better bolt weapon for single target and Overpenetrating attacks when you don’t need to drill an enemy with a Burst Fire attack.

Ulfar Flame Build

For those determined to get some Flamer experience on the field, Ulfar has some decent Flamer synergy thanks to a purchasable helmet.

The Ulfar Flame build takes advantage of the unique Astartes helmet to make a very strongly increasing burning build, fitted with some supportive passives to make him a great map controller. This is another later game build since you’ll need the Profit Factor and Rep from the Drussians to get these two key items, yet, if you’ve garnered enough Profit Factor and reputation, you’ll likely be able to do it earlier in Chapter 4. To do this, you’ll need two key items from the Drussian traders:

  • Virtue of Contempt - Requires 22 Rep with Drussians and 81 Profit Factor. A headpiece that enables the Astartes to double the amount of burning a target receives.
  • Judex - From the Drussians, this flamer grants the Agonising Flames and Burning feature. Enemies hit with Agonising Flames must pass a "Willpower" iconWillpower Resistance test (10) at the start of their turn. If the target fails, they run to a random ally and inflict burning equal to the target’s burn level. It also inflicts Agonising Flames on that ally too.
  • Anatomist’s Amulet - Level 4 amulet from the Kasaballicca trader that grants +2 stacks of either Toxic Burning Bleeding or another DoT when you apply the appropriate effect.
  • Seal of the Purifier - A ring that grants momentum whenever two targets are hit with an area attack.

Your game plan is to burn as many targets as you can using Judex. Do a large AOE attack using the Flamer, and then "Run and Gun" iconRun and Gun and go again with the flame attack. This will put four stacks of burn, and those four stacks of burn enable you to spread those stacks about easily. The next time you get a turn, either through "Bring it Down!" iconBring it Down! or some other form of bonus turn, you can push that to six. Allow that target to run off and spread those stacks like wildfire.

In addition, you can get some pretty neat skills from the Soldier tree when you start accessing the Exemplar Archetype to buff the build. Take a look at "Concentrated Fire" iconConcentrated Fire for better hit chances. While in the Arch-Militant tree, you can also grab "Devastating Attack" iconDevastating Attack and then inflict blind on enemies as your burn counts as this debuff for the sake of the skill. Blinding means enemies hiding in cover or at the back affected by burn have increasingly difficult shots, which helps serve as a support tool for the team.

You can also take a mixture of Solder and Arch-Militant talents to make burning builds better, such as Tenderize and "Ingenious" iconIngenious for the burning blind enemies, and Fired Up to increase any crits your burn attacks do. Exemplar traits that are good for the build are defensive ones, since Ulfar is a 2x2 base and is easier to hit, this means Tough as Steel and Flesh Wound are good options for your build. As for more aggro, Cataclysm is likely a good option for the build since you’re hitting a lot of enemies using the flamer we recommend.

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This is not a proper build guide for this game. It has almost no talent information, lacks info on several of the weapons, and has no item choices for many of the slots. The internet NEEDS builds for this guy, and if you had one that worked well you did everyone a disservice by not posting it in its entirety. As it stands most of the information on the internet basically says "dont bother using him unless you have to, hes not as good as anyone else in their intended roles and sometimes is barely useable." Since this "guide" lacks enough information to determine if there is a viable build for him, i guess that stands.

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He starts at lvl 20 and it has a lot of some general talents up for a Versatile Ranged/CQC combatant. If you decide to make a better build guide for him, it would be very appreciated

39
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Hey Israfil. Yeah, this build page was meant to be more of a general idea of what items and accessories you can use on Ulfar to create a few different builds and playstyles. Considering Ulfar's talents are already pre-set, there isn't much tinkering you can actually do to him to make any builds feel really good. I think he starts with 30 levels already placed in a half-butchered melee soldier arch militant, if memory serves correctly. Not much room to really play with until you start getting the third archetype stuff. It is kind of like you have to work backwards with Ulfar. Overall, there is not much point in taking him.

It was mainly meant to be a more light-hearted and for fun thing. My apologies that it didn't come across that way.

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1
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This is not a proper build guide for this game. It has almost no talent information, lacks info on several of the weapons, and has no item choices for many of the slots. The internet NEEDS builds for this guy, and if you had one that worked well you did everyone a disservice by not posting it in its entirety. As it stands most of the information on the internet basically says "dont bother using him unless you have to, hes not as good as anyone else in their intended roles and sometimes is barely useable." Since this "guide" lacks enough information to determine if there is a viable build for him, i guess that stands.

2
User profile pic

He starts at lvl 20 and it has a lot of some general talents up for a Versatile Ranged/CQC combatant. If you decide to make a better build guide for him, it would be very appreciated

39
User profile pic

Hey Israfil. Yeah, this build page was meant to be more of a general idea of what items and accessories you can use on Ulfar to create a few different builds and playstyles. Considering Ulfar's talents are already pre-set, there isn't much tinkering you can actually do to him to make any builds feel really good. I think he starts with 30 levels already placed in a half-butchered melee soldier arch militant, if memory serves correctly. Not much room to really play with until you start getting the third archetype stuff. It is kind of like you have to work backwards with Ulfar. Overall, there is not much point in taking him.

It was mainly meant to be a more light-hearted and for fun thing. My apologies that it didn't come across that way.

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Guide Information
  • Publisher
    Owlcat Games
  • Platforms,
    PS5, Steam, XB X|S
  • Genre
    RPG
  • Guide Release
    23 November 2023
  • Last Updated
    16 June 2024
    Version History
  • Guide Author

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In the grim dark future of the 41st millennium, there is only war. The Imperium of Man, ruled by God-Emperor of Mankind from atop his Golden Throne, is a vast interstellar empire with countless armies. Despite the Imperium’s apparent strength, however, its enemies are even more numerous and threats to mankind both surround the Imperium and gnaw at it from within. Where the constantly strained military might of the Imperium can’t reach, humanity must find other champions, and blessed with holy Warrants of Trade, Rogue Traders have almost unlimited authority to operate in the unconquered reaches of the galaxy beyond the Imperium’s direct influence. After unexpectedly inheriting the title of Rogue Trader von Valancius, you’ll have to secure your holdings in the Koronus Expanse, establish and develop new colonies, investigate the conspiracy that led to your ascension and fend off threats, internal and externals, humans, xenos and worse…

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