We’ve seen plenty of changes to specialists since launch, with various abilities and gadgets getting disabled while the team work on balance patches and bug fixes. If a specialist has been temporarily altered, you should see a message above the gamemode button on the Play tab in the main menu. With that in mind, we’ve changed this list frequently to ensure it is up to date for the most recent version of Battlefield 2042. There are more patches planned in the coming weeks, and we’ll let you know if they make any changes to the specialists in Battlefield 2042. At launch, there are 10 specialists in Battlefield 2042. We will rank them below in a list so that you can see which specialists are best and worst, and then we’ll break down each specialist so that you can see which one suits your playstyle most. New specialists will arrive with each season in Battlefield 2042, alongside new guns, maps, and a battle pass. We’ll add any new specialists to this list as they arrive.
Sundance Casper Boris Irish Mackay Falck Angel Dozer Rao Paik
Battlefield 2042 Best Specialists
Sundance
Sundance is the best Specialist in Battlefield 2042. She uses a Wingsuit instead of the regular parachute, which makes her much more mobile in the air. With the Wingsuit, you can travel between objectives much quicker than other allies. Simply leap into the air and activate it to start gliding across the map. This might not seem that important, but it allows you to travel much faster, and the Wingsuit is also much more subtle than a parachute, so it’s easier to sneak into enemy zones. Her unique gadget, the Grenade Belt, is undoubtedly one of the best gadgets in Battlefield 2042. The Grenade Belt has three different types of grenades that you can use to wreak havoc on the enemy. The Scatter grenade splits into multiple explosives, making it extremely effective against infantry. The Anti-Armor grenade locks onto nearby enemy vehicles and chases them. The EMP Field grenade emits an EMP pulse that disables enemy vehicles and gadgets. With those tools at your disposal, you should be prepared for a wide variety of situations, making Sundance an extremely versatile Specialist.
Casper
Casper is an extremely strong offensive Specialist thanks to his Recon Drone. You can use it to mark enemies from above, and then whip out a sniper or run in with an SMG to catch them off guard and capture an objective. Casper’s Recon Drone is extremely useful for your team, as it acts like a UAV, marking enemies on everyone’s minimap. However, it is also extremely useful for you, as it provides huge amounts of XP if you mark enemies and then wait for an ally to kill them. It is incredibly easy to farm XP in Conquest and Breakthrough if you use a Recon Drone at an enemy objective and then mark enemies while your allies assault the area. The Drone can travel almost 300m away from you before losing signal, making it easy to rack up XP while you hide far away in an inconspicuous building.
Boris
Boris can deploy a sentry gun that swivels around and fires at any nearby enemies. This makes it the perfect teammate to watch your back, as you won’t have to bark orders or squabble over who shot first. There are plenty of scenarios that show just how good the sentry gun is, but we found it most useful when attacking enemy objectives. If you can get into cover in a building within a capture zone, you can throw down the sentry gun at one door and then cover the other side of the room yourself. This means you won’t need to worry about watching your back, as your sentry gun will be ready and waiting for any enemies that come knocking. Boris also has the Sentry Operator ability, which makes nearby Sentry Guns even better. When Boris is nearby, Sentry Guns become more accurate, making them much more effective at suppressing enemies. Since the above tactic places you in the same room as the Sentry Gun, you can rest assured that you should be close enough to benefit from this ability. If you want to be sure, look for the ring around the Sentry Gun, which indicates where you need to stand to activate the Sentry Operator ability.
Irish
Returning from his adventures in the Battlefield 4 campaign, Irish is now a playable specialist, and he’s definitely worth trying. Irish has a Fortification System that you can use to deploy barricades. This allows you to quickly create cover while on the move, completely changing how you play Battlefield 2042. While most players need to avoid open spaces, you can run right ahead and throw down a deployable shield to absorb incoming fire. Irish also has the Veteran ability, which allows him to use more armor. This is extremely useful, as you can absorb more bullets than other specialists, making it much easier to survive a firefight. If you’re one-on-one with an enemy and you have more armor, the odds are certainly in your favour.
Mackay
Mackay is a fast-paced, versatile Specialist. You unlock him a little bit later than other specialists, as he is locked until level 15, but this makes sense as his Grappling Hook uncovers a lot of new options in Battlefield 2042. You can use it to find new vantage points and scale buildings faster than other players, making it ideal for lots of scenarios. Whether you need to infiltrate an enemy objective and flank defenders, or find a new vantage point so that you can cover allies with your sniper rifle, Mackay’s Grappling Hook gives you the means to dominate on the battlefield, making him one of the best Specialists in Battlefield 2042.
Falck
Falck is the first support character on our best specialist list. Everyone can revive allies in Battlefield 2042, so you no longer need to wait for a specific Medic like in previous Battlefield games. However, Falck doesn’t simply revive allies. She revives them with full health, and can use her S21 Syrette Pistol to heal teammates from a distance, preventing them from going down in the first place. The Syrette Pistol can also be used to heal yourself if you take damage, so you can use it to quickly heal in the middle of a fight and then get straight back to shooting, piling the pressure on your enemies.
Angel
With the ability to call in loadouts, we expected Angel to be much higher on this list. However, with the creative freedom built into Battlefield 2042’s loadout and Specialist systems, it’s now much easier to drop in with the perfect loadout and swap weapon attachments on the fly. Since we rarely had the need to entirely swap our loadout, Angel’s unique gadget didn’t prove useful. However, his Trauma Specialist ability is much better. When you revive allies, they will gain armor which allows them to absorb a few more shots before dying again. This is crucial in the middle of a large firefight, as that extended time-to-kill for your allies might make it easier for them to run to cover and fight back against the enemy.
Dozer
In the days following Battlefield 2042’s early access launch, Dozer’s unique Ballistic Shield gadget was disabled, making him rather useless. However, the Ballistic Shield is now back and it certainly helps with pushing enemy objectives. Dozer can use his shield to absorb some incoming fire, making him a tank that you can use to distract enemies whilst your teammates gain the upper hand. However, Dozer is completely disarmed when using the Ballistic Shield, as it is held with both hands. This means you’re reduced to nothing more than a damage sponge. It also leaves you open to enemies who flank you from either side or from behind, making the Ballistic Shield somewhat of a curse. Fortunately, Dozer isn’t completely useless. He also gets the Blast Resistance ability, which reduces explosive damage. This makes Dozer much more capable in the chaos when defending or attacking objectives, as you can withstand some enemy grenades.
Rao
Like Casper, Rao can reveal enemy locations for his teammates. However, Rao doesn’t have the ease of a recon drone that flies around and spots enemies from the air. Instead, you’ll need to be on the offense, as Rao reveals enemy locations when he kills other opponents. This forces you into combat to perform surveillance on the enemy team, making it more difficult to develop tactics around your new intel as you’ll be too focused on your current fight. His Cyberwarfare Suite, which you can use to disable enemy hardware, also seems largely redundant at the moment. While disabling enemy devices and turrets can be useful when stealthily approaching enemy objectives, we found that most situations in Battlefield 2042 are filled with lots of shooting, some explosions, and almost no chance to sneak around. Gadgets tend to have very little health, making it easier to just destroy them with bullets or a well-placed grenade.
Paik
Paik is able to use her scanner to highlight enemies hiding behind cover, while also spotting anyone who damages her. These are both useful abilities, but Paik seems to do it worse than other Specialists that fill the recon role. Casper has a drone that marks enemies while he remains out of sight hiding in a bush or nearby building. Similarly, Rao can reveal enemy locations by killing their teammates, which is much better than taking damage to mark opponents. Paik isn’t inherently bad, but her abilities just don’t seem to match other Specialists that fill a similar role. That covers everything you need to know about the best specialists in Battlefield 2042. Make sure to take a look at our tips and tricks before jumping into a match, so that you’re primed and ready to come out on top. If you want to net plenty of kills, take a look at our list of the best guns in Battlefield 2042 and check out our PBX-45 loadout. If you want to know what we thought about Battlefield 2042, check out Ed’s review.
