All Deep Rock Galactic Rogue Core Classes (Reclaimers)

Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core introduces five brand-new playable classes called Reclaimers, and they work very differently from the original game’s Scout, Gunner, Engineer, and Driller setup. Each Reclaimer fills a specific role on your team, whether that is holding the front line, marking targets for massive crit damage, or manipulating time itself to survive a bad situation.

This guide covers every Reclaimer class in Rogue Core, breaks down their abilities, explains their strengths and weaknesses, and helps you decide which one to pick first.

What Are Reclaimers in Deep Rock Galactic Rogue Core?

Reclaimers are Rogue Core’s elite dwarven specialists sent to Hoxxes IV to push through the Greyout Barrier and reclaim the dig site. Unlike standard DRG classes built around a mix of mining and combat, Reclaimers focus almost entirely on fighting. They push through randomly generated stages, collect Expenite and gear along the way, and try to survive until the end of the run.

There are five Reclaimers available at Early Access launch: Guardian, Spotter, Falconer, Slicer, and Retcon.

One important thing to understand before picking a class: your Reclaimer is your starting point, not your permanent identity. As you dig deeper into each run, Phase Suits, new weapons, and Expenite upgrades can shift your role entirely. A Guardian that starts as a defensive anchor can evolve into a hybrid frontliner. A Spotter that opens as pure support can scale into one of the highest damage dealers on the team by the end of a run.

All Reclaimer Classes in Deep Rock Galactic Rogue Core

Reclaimer	Role	Best Use
Guardian	Defensive tank with crowd control	Holding ground, protecting the team, stabilizing bad fights
Spotter	Support class focused on crit setup	Marking targets, boosting damage windows, helping the squad focus fire
Falconer	Drone specialist for remote support	Utility, covering fire, and reviving teammates from safer positions
Slicer	Aggressive melee DPS	Cutting through enemy ranks, fast close-range kills
Retcon	Time-manipulating damage and defense hybrid	Risky plays, damage control, and undoing mistakes with Time Rewind

Guardian

Role: Defensive anchor and crowd control specialist

The Guardian is the closest thing to a traditional tank in Rogue Core. His job is to keep pressure off his teammates using two powerful ability options built around his Seismic Gloves. He has two charges available and can deploy them in very different ways depending on the situation.

Guardian Abilities

Concussive Barrage: The Guardian fires 12 concussive munitions in a shotgun-blast cone in front of him. Each hit deals major damage to enemy armor and stuns the target for 6 seconds. This ability works extremely well for breaking up dense groups and giving your team breathing room during heavy swarms.

Repulsion Field: This ability creates a fear zone around the Guardian for 4 seconds, pushing enemies away. It costs ability charges while active and can be cancelled early by pressing RMB again. Use this when you are completely surrounded and need a quick reset.

Armor Beacon (Class Skill): The Guardian places a defensive field that restores up to 50% maximum armor for every player inside it while it remains active. At 15 seconds duration, this is one of the most impactful team utility tools in the game. It functions similarly to the Shield Generator from the original Deep Rock Galactic.

Who Should Play Guardian?

Guardian is the recommended starting pick for new players. His toolkit gives you enough room to learn how swarms work without being punished too hard for mistakes. You can stay alive on your own and support your team at the same time. The class stays useful from the first room to the final boss, and it gives you a clear, readable role that is hard to play badly.

If your party runs a Guardian paired with a Spotter and a Slicer, you have one of the strongest team compositions in the game. The Guardian locks down enemies while the Slicer tears through them and the Spotter amplifies everyone’s crit damage.

Spotter

Role: Support and crit amplifier

The Spotter is not a flashy class at first glance, but he might be the single highest-impact pick in a coordinated team. His core ability, Crit Dart, forces guaranteed critical hits on marked targets from all damage sources. That means every weapon, every ability, and every melee hit from every teammate deals crits as long as the mark is active.

Spotter Abilities

Crit Dart: The Spotter fires a dart that marks either a specific enemy or a ground zone. Direct hits on an enemy mark them for 5 seconds, granting 100% increased critical hit chance against that target. Shooting the ground creates a zone that lasts 10 seconds, applying the same crit bonus to any enemy that steps inside it. The Spotter has 3 charges, each with an 18-second cooldown.

The area mark is particularly strong against bosses and large enemies. Rather than chasing a fast-moving target, you can drop the zone in a chokepoint and let the enemy walk into guaranteed crits.

Scanner (Sonar Radar): Passively scans for enemies and allies in a 35-meter radius every 4 seconds, marking them as radar blips. When activated manually, it highlights all enemies and supply crates for the entire team. The active version is excellent for pre-clearing rooms and keeping track of flanking enemies.

Ranger Pockets (Class Skill): The Spotter throws a single-use ammo resupply pack that any nearby player, including himself, can pick up. It replenishes after using an Ammo Crate. In Rogue Core’s ammo economy, this matters a lot in the early stages of a run before your squad finds additional supply options.

Who Should Play Spotter?

Spotter is strong in both solo and team play, though his full value shows in a coordinated party. Early in a run, your job is straightforward: spam Crit Darts on the biggest threats and activate Scanner whenever it comes off cooldown. As you collect better gear and Expenite upgrades, you can scale into a genuine damage dealer with the crit perks your run provides.

Spotter pairs exceptionally well with Falconer. Falconer’s Thunder Rod and Spotter’s Crit Darts stack together, and combining both abilities on a single target produces some of the highest burst damage in the game.

Falconer

Role: Drone specialist and remote support

The Falconer is perhaps the most unique Reclaimer in Rogue Core. Rather than engaging directly, she deploys a drone that handles scouting, combat, and reviving downed teammates. Her playstyle rewards patience and positioning over pure aggression.

Falconer Abilities

Shock Drone: The Falconer orders her drone to attack targets, dealing electric and explosive damage. The drone consumes ability charges while active and fires 3 bursts per charge, each dealing 25 to 35 damage with an electrocution arc effect. You can recall the drone at any time to preserve charges. The Falconer has 5 charges, each restoring in 10 seconds.

The drone also provides vision. Sending it ahead of your team to scout the next room gives your squad a major advantage before any engagement starts.

Remote Drone Revive (Class Skill): The Falconer sends her drone out to revive a fallen teammate from a safe distance. This is one of the most valuable utility tools in Rogue Core because it lets you get teammates back on their feet without exposing yourself to the fight that dropped them. In co-op runs where positioning falls apart quickly, Remote Drone Revive can save entire missions.

Thunder Rod (Class Skill): The Falconer places a stationary rod that gives all nearby allies 100% increased electric damage for 8 meters. When combined with Spotter’s Crit Darts and any electric-damage weapons, the burst output inside a Thunder Rod zone is staggering.

Who Should Play Falconer?

Falconer is beginner-friendly in the sense that her drone handles a lot of the mechanical workload for you. However, getting the most out of her requires smart positioning and thinking a few moves ahead rather than reacting on the fly. She is also surprisingly capable in solo play, because having an extra gun pointed at enemies at all times makes up for a lot.

If you want a class that avoids the front line but still contributes heavily to kills and team survival, Falconer is your pick.

Slicer

Role: Aggressive melee DPS

The Slicer is the most straightforward offensive Reclaimer in Rogue Core. His entire kit pushes you to close the gap, slice through enemy ranks, and use mobility to stay alive in close quarters. He is one of the best starting classes because his role is clear and his tools are effective even early in a run.

Slicer Abilities

Slice (Plasma Blade): The Slicer draws his wrist-mounted plasma blade and cleaves through enemies in a horizontal arc, hitting any number of targets and cutting through armor. This ability deals 560 damage and has a 20-second cooldown. Against groups of smaller enemies or heavily armored targets, the Plasma Blade is one of the most satisfying tools in the game.

Blitz (Class Skill): The Slicer performs a gravity-defying dash forward. Use it to close the gap on ranged enemies, escape a surrounded position, or chain into a Slice follow-up. Blitz is the core of the Slicer’s survivability and the main reason the class stays mobile in chaotic fights.

Shield Belt (Class Skill): The Slicer activates a directional force field for 15 seconds that destroys incoming projectiles from one direction. While it does not protect you from all angles, it gives you a strong front-facing defense that lets you hold position in melee range without taking ranged damage to the face.

Who Should Play Slicer?

Slicer is the best pick for players who prefer direct, aggressive gameplay. He has solid offensive and defensive tools, and his Plasma Blade gives him a unique melee identity that no other Reclaimer matches. While he does not bring as much team-wide utility as Spotter, Falconer, or Guardian, his ability to lock in and fight through a swarm on his own can save runs when coordination breaks down.

Slicer pairs well with Guardian and Spotter. Guardian handles crowd control while Slicer dives in, and Spotter’s Crit Darts turn every Plasma Blade hit into a guaranteed critical strike against marked targets.

New players can pick up Slicer after learning the basics with Guardian. His mechanics are easy to understand, and one or two runs are enough to feel confident with him.

Retcon

Role: Time-manipulating damage and defense hybrid

Retcon is the most complex and experimental Reclaimer in Rogue Core. Her entire toolkit revolves around her ability to rewind time, which lets her take risks that no other class can survive by simply reversing the consequences. She is not a beginner class, but she is one of the most rewarding Reclaimers to master.

Retcon Abilities

Rewind Time: When activated, Retcon marks her current position, health, armor, and ammo values as a checkpoint. For the next 20 seconds, she can fight, spend resources, and take damage freely. When the timer ends, or when she manually activates the ability again, she returns to the checkpoint with her original health, armor, and ammo values restored, as if nothing happened.

The key to playing Retcon well is timing. You use Rewind Time before pushing a difficult room, let yourself take damage and spend ammo, then rewind back to full health and resources. The ability carries a 75-second cooldown, so every use matters. Wasting it on a low-threat situation means going without it when you need it most.

Rage (Class Skill): Retcon builds Rage as she takes damage. Once the bar fills, she activates the ability to gain 100% increased damage and 30% increased Pickaxe Speed for 12 seconds. Combining Rage with Rewind Time creates a powerful damage window: activate Rewind Time, let yourself get hit to build Rage, activate Rage for the burst window, then rewind back to full health once the damage is dealt.

Contingency Plan (Passive Class Skill): When the last surviving dwarf on the team falls, Retcon automatically revives herself with full health and armor. This ability works only once per mission. It is the ultimate safety net and gives the team a second chance to pull out of a wipe scenario.

Who Should Play Retcon?

Retcon is not the right pick for beginners. Understanding when to use Rewind Time requires game sense and foresight that only comes from experience with Rogue Core’s mechanics. However, experienced players who invest time into learning her will find one of the highest skill ceilings in the game.

If you enjoy high-risk, high-reward gameplay and want a class that can single-handedly turn a lost fight around, Retcon delivers that experience better than anyone else in the roster.

How Phase Suits and Upgrades Change Your Reclaimer

Your Reclaimer choice at the start of a mission sets your baseline role, but it does not lock you into that role for the entire run. Phase Suits, Reclaimer weapons, and Expenite upgrades all shift how you play as you push deeper into the dig site.

Before a run, you select a Phase Suit that comes with its own Active Ability and a Reclaimer weapon. As you collect gear from caches and earn Expenite along the way, those upgrades can push your class in a completely different direction. A defensive Guardian can turn into a frontline damage dealer. A supportive Spotter can scale into the highest-damage character in the party.

This means every Reclaimer has two identities: the starting identity that defines your base role, and the build identity that your run creates. This roguelite flexibility is one of Rogue Core’s biggest strengths over the original Deep Rock Galactic, and it gives every class far more depth than its initial toolkit suggests.

Which Reclaimer Should You Pick First?

Best pick for beginners: Guardian

Guardian gives you the most forgiving entry point into Rogue Core. His survival tools are strong, his team value is immediately obvious, and his role is easy to understand from the first minute. You will survive your mistakes, protect your team, and learn how swarms work without getting punished too hard.

Second pick after learning the basics: Slicer

Once you understand how rooms flow and how enemy timing works, Slicer is the next logical step. His aggressive playstyle opens up a faster and more satisfying way to clear rooms, and his ability to save a run through raw fighting ability is hard to overstate.

Strong co-op picks: Spotter and Falconer

Both of these Reclaimers shine brightest in coordinated parties. Spotter’s Crit Darts and Falconer’s Thunder Rod stack together into one of the deadliest damage combinations in the game. If you enjoy a support-focused playstyle and prefer contributing through utility rather than raw damage, either of these two will suit you well.

Advanced pick: Retcon

Retcon rewards experience and planning. Save her for when you understand the game’s rhythm well enough to predict when Rewind Time will save a run rather than waste its cooldown. Play Now!

All Deep Rock Galactic Rogue Core Classes (Reclaimers) Explained