Space Marine 2: Best Bulwark Build Guide

The Bulwark class is currently one of the strongest classes in Space Marine 2. It excels in close-range melee combat and can provide your team with tons of damage and utility. All that said, Getting the most out of the Bulwark class will require you to build it the right way.

So to help you out with that, our guide will be looking at the best Bulwark build that you can go with.

Best Bulwark Build

Class Perks

• Core
  • Intimidating Aura – A perfectly timed parry deals area of effect damage within a 5-metre radius.
  • Shock and Awe – Enemies in a Shock area take 25% more damage.
  • Defensive Advantage – A perfectly timed parry creates a Shock area for 5 seconds. Cooldown is 30 seconds
• Team
  • Unyielding Ceramite – The delay before armor begins to passively regenerate is reduced by 5 seconds (base 25 seconds) for all squad members.
• Gear
  • Focused Strength – Shield bash knocks enemies back and makes them lose control for a longer period of time.
  • Purity of Purpose – The banner deals a small amount of damage over time to enemies within its area of effect.
  • Inspiration – All squad members within the banner’s area of effect deal 10% more damage.
• Signature
  • Emergency Countermeasure – When your armor is depleted, a reserve shock grenade automatically detonates at your position. Cooldown is 120 seconds.

When playing as the Bulwark, you’ll mainly want to take on enemies in your melee form. The Perks above go very well with that playstyle, as they allow you to play very aggressively and deal tons of damage. All 3 core perks have amazing synergy with each other, and they will massively increase your DPS.

Your banner ability and the gear perks that go with it will also provide your team with some much-needed utility. You can also be a bit flexible with these perks, as the Bulwark class has access to a lot of very good perk options here.

The same is the case for your Team and Signature perks. Both of the options listed above work very well with this build, but the other options are also very good if you are looking for something different.

Melee Weapon

For your Melee weapon, the best option in almost any scenario will be the Gathalamor Crusade variant for the Power Sword. This variant gives you the perfect stat balance and more importantly, it has a Fencing defense. Weapons that have a Fencing Defense will give you bigger windows for perfect parries.

A lot of your build relies on perfect parries, so having Fencing will make it easier for you to play as the Bulwark. Of course, if you feel you are very good at perfect parrying with a balanced weapon, you can go with that defense too.

Perks

• Standard
  • Armored Strength – When you have full armor, melee damage increases by 10%
• Master-Crafted
  • Master of Offence – After switching sword combat style, you deal 20% more melee damage for 5 seconds. Cooldown is 10 seconds.
  • Perpetual Strength – Melee damage increases by 5%
  • Momentum Gain – Every consecutive light attack increases light attack damage by 3% (up to 30%) for 3 seconds.
• Artificer
  • Fencing Blade – Speed style combo length increases from 4 to 5 strikes.
  • Chaos Slayer – Melee damage against Chaos enemies increases by 10%
  • Hard Target – While Performing a light combo, you take 15% less ranged damage.
• Relic
  • Reeling Blow – Enemies hit by Power Rake deal 30% less damage for 4 seconds. Cooldown is 10 seconds
  • Majoris Slayer – Melee damage against Majoris level enemies increases by 10%
  • Terminus Slayer – Melee damage against Terminus level enemies increases by 20%
  • Speed Restoration – Speed-style attacks restore 100% more contested health

The combination of weapon perks above will massively boost your weapon’s overall damage. There is a good combination of universal damage buffs and damage buffs that target specific enemy types.

The Hard Target and Speed Restoration perks will also help you stay alive and restore health much quicker. Getting 100% more contested health during combat can be a lifesaver in extended engagements.

Secondary Weapon

The Gathalamor Crusade variant for the Plasma Pistol is probably the best secondary weapon that you can go for. If you prefer some other weapon you can go with that too. Plasma Pistols are generally a good choice here due to them having more uptime in fights.

Perks

• Standard
  • Common Cooling – Common shots generate 10% less heat
• Master-Crafted
  • Rapid Cooling – After killing 10 enemies in rapid succession, weapons do not heat for 5 seconds. Cooldown is 30 seconds
  • Blast Radius – Damage radius of a charged shot increases by 10%
• Artificer
  • Blast Radius – Damage radius of a charged shot increases by 5%
  • Perpetual Velocity – Shots charge 20% faster
  • Perpetual Velocity – Shots charge 20% faster
• Relic
  • Perfect Radius – After a perfectly timed shot, the damage radius of a charged shot increases by 10 % for 5 seconds.
  • Charged Cooling – Charged Shots generate 10% less heat

All of your perks for the secondary weapon will be focus on having more uptime for the weapon and dealing more damage. So if you are forced to use your secondary weapons, these perks will ensure you can deal damage for extended periods.

General Playstyle

When playing as the Bulwark, you will want to play very aggressively. Look for perfect parries a lot, as they will boost your damage by quite a bit. Other than that, staying close to enemies and parrying and attacking them will help you make use of your perks. A lot of your perks will reward you when you are playing aggressively.

The speed stance for your Power Sword is generally the way to go when playing as the Bulwark class. It will give you good single-target damage and help you take down any enemy with ease. Your class perks and the banner ability can help you deal AoE damage, so you won’t need to switch the stances on your sword.

Also, always try to fight within the radius of your banner. The banner ability is extremely strong when used correctly, and in many engagements, it can be the difference between life and death.