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Path of Exile 2 (PoE 2)
Mercenary Ascendancies and Class Guide
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The Mercenary is a class in Path of Exile 2 (PoE 2) with multiple ammo types and can ascend into a Tactician, Witchhunter, or Gemling Legionnaire. Check out more information on the Mercenary's ascendancies, class guide, builds, skills, playstyle, and whether you should pick the Tactician, Witchhunter, or Gemling Legionnaire for the Dawn of the Hunt update!
| All Mercenary Class Guides | |
|---|---|
| Mercenary Class and Ascendancies | All Mercenary Builds |
List of Contents
Mercenary Ascendancies
The Mercenary will have three available Ascendancy classes for the Early Access. Below is a list of the confirmed ascendancy classes for the Mercenary:
| Jump to an Ascendancy! | ||
|---|---|---|
| Tactician | Witchhunter | Gemling Legionnaire |
Tactician
The Tactician commands an off-screen force, ready to rain down arrows on your location for support. You can also have an easier time pinning enemies, locking them in place based on the projectile damage you have dealt to them.
Tactician Ascendancy Overview and Skills
Witchhunter
Witchhunters can increase their defense against magic in exchange for lesser defense against physical attacks. They can also disrupt spell casters, slowing the cast interval of enemies for their survivability.
Witchhunters can have a chance to make their enemies explode, the chance percentage for this doubles against demons and undead enemies. They also have a chance to deal up to 30% of an enemy's total health as damage with their initial attack.
Witchhunter Ascendancy Overview and Skills
Gemling Legionnaire
Gemling Legionnaires can enhance their abilities by embedding gems in their flesh. Gemling Legionnaires can gain extra skill slots, increase elemental resistances, and use any gem without meeting the attribute requirement.
Gemling Legionnaire Ascendancy and Skills
Which Ascendancy Should You Pick?
Play the Tactician to Follow the Companion Meta
We highly recommend playing as the Tactician for Patch 0.2.0 to experience it as the new Ascendancy for the Mercenary Class in the Dawn of the Hunt Update.
The Tactician takes command of an off-screen army that provides and area-wide support depending on your commands, you can also lock enemies in place for a barrage of damage.
Currently, the Tactician is the strongest Mercenary ascendancy as its supporting skills synergize with the Tame Beast and companion meta.
Mercenary Class Overview
Class Summary
 The Mercenary |
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| Attribute | Dexterity/Strength | |
|---|---|---|
| Weapon | Crossbows | |
The Mercenary can utilize multiple crossbows and ammo types to deal with any situation from range. It can destroy enemy shields or armour with rapid fire, block paths will a wall of ice, or shotgun bosses to burst them down.
Dexterity and Strength Focus
The Mercenary is a Dexterity and Strength-based class, focusing on applying high AoE damage while having good versatility during combat. The Mercenary is a ranged fighter that specializes in using crossbows with multiple ammo types.
Mercenary Builds
Mercenary Leveling Build
Lightning Mercenary
 Lightning Mercenary
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 Herald of Thunder While active, killing Shocked enemies with Attack damage, will cause subsequent Attack hits to release lightning bolts which deals Attack damage to all surrounding enemies.
 Wind Dancer Grants a buff that gives you more Evasion per stage. Being Hit by a Melee Attack while you have this buff consumes all stages to damage and Knock Back enemies around you.
 Voltaic Grenade Fires a bouncing Grenade that discharges an Electrocuting Lightning blasts when its fuse expires
 Emergency Reload Instantly relaods your active Crossbow Ammunition and Empowers the loaded bolts to deal more damage.
 Shockburst Rounds Loads your Crossbow with a clip of charged bolts which releases damaging pulses upon hitting an enemy affected by a lightning ailment. Using this skill again reloads the clip.
 Galvanic Shards Loads your Crossbow with a clip of charged bolts that fragment in flight, releasing Chaining Lightning beams when they Hit enemies. Using this skill again reloads the clip.
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| Focus: Leveling, AoE, Fast Clear, Lightning | |
|
Summary: This Lightning Mercenary leveling build makes use of spamming Galvanic Shards to easily clear mobs and Shockburst Rounds against bosses with the help of Herald of Thunder. |
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Mercenary Endgame Builds
※ Search for specific builds of an ascendancy by clicking the icons below the search bar. Select the latest patch for the latest builds, but click on the earlier versions if you want to see Legacy builds!
Mercenary Skills
All Crossbow Skills
Crossbows is the default weapon for Mercenaries in PoE 2, however you can still choose any weapon to obtain any skill for your Mercenary. Listed below are Crossbow skills are associated with the Mercenary:
| Tier | Skills | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
 Fragmentation Rounds Fragmentation Rounds Loads your Crossbow with Piercing bolts that fragment in flight. Bolts that hit a frozen enemy consume the Freeze and cause an explosion of Shrapnel. Bolts that hit an Ice Crystal cause it to explode.
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 Armour Piercing Rounds Armour Piercing Rounds Load your Crossbow with a clip of bolts that can be fired rapidly and Break enemy Armour. Using this skill again reloads the clip.
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 Glacial Cascade Glacial Cascade Sweep your Quarterstaff upwards, releasing an icy fissure which deals damage in a series of bursts culminating in a large spike. Frozen enemies hit by the final spike are dealt heavy damage but the Freeze is Consumed. Ice Crystals hit by the final spike explode.
|
 Permafrost Bolts Permafrost Bolts Loads your Crossbow with icy bolts that fragment in flight, damaging enemies on hit and in a small cone behind their final target. The icy coating on the bolts make them extremely potent at Freezing enemies.
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| 3 |
 High Velocity Rounds High Velocity Rounds Loads your Crossbow with Piercing bolts that can consume Fully Broken Armour on enemies to deal extra damage.
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 Incendiary Shot Incendiary Shot Loads your Crossbow with flaming bolts that fragment in flight, damaging and igniting enemies on hit and in a small cone behind their final target.
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 Flash Grenade Flash Grenade Fires a bouncing Grenade that unleashes a Blinding, Stunning explosion when its fuse expires. This explosion can Blind both Allies and Enemies.
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| 5 |
 Rapid Shot Rapid Shot Loads your Crossbow with a large clip of heavily modified that cause Heat build up on your crossbow, before unleashing a stream of flaming bolts that gain Fire damage based on your Heat. Heat also grants bonus damage to Grenades you fire, but dissipates rapidly when not building up. Using this skill again reloads the clip.
|
 Ice Shards Ice Shards Loads your Crossbow with a clip of icy bolts that rapidly fire at the ground, leaving a shard of ice at the impact location unless the bolt hits an enemy. The ice shards shatter when enemies step on them, dealing damage to nearby enemies. Using this skill again reloads the clip.
|
Galvanic Shards Galvanic Shards Loads your Crossbow with a clip of charged bolts that fragment in flight, releasing Chaining Lightning beams when they Hit enemies. Using this skill again reloads the clip.
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 Gas Grenade Gas Grenade Fires a bouncing Grenade that causes a burst of Poison gas when its fuse expires, damaging enemies and leaving behind a growing Poison cloud. Burning effects or Detonator skills will cause the cloud to explode in a fiery blast.
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| 7 |
 Ripwire Ballista Ripwire Ballista Deploys a Balista Totem that fires Pinning bolts which Maim enemies.
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 Explosive Shot Explosive Shot Loads your Crossbow with flaming bolts that explode on impact. The explosion will cause any Grenades in its area of effect to also explode.
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 Glacial Bolt Glacial Bolt Loads your Crossbow with icy bolts that create two walls of Ice Crystals at the end of their flight.
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Voltaic Grenade Voltaic Grenade Fires a bouncing Grenade that discharges an Electrocuting Lightning blasts when its fuse expires
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| 9 |
 Artillery Ballista Artillery Ballista Deploys a Ballista Totem that fires bolts skyward, to explode a short time after landing.
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 Stormblast Bolts Stormblast Bolts Loads your crossbow with charged bolts that land around the target location and explode if hit by a Detonator skill. Using this skill again reloads the clip.
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 Oil Grenade Oil Grenade Fires a bouncing Grenade that bursts in a spray of Oil when the fuse expires or when it impacts an Enemy, dealing minimal damage but covering the ground and nearby enemies in Oil. Oil created this way can be Ignited by Detonator Skills or Ignited Ground.
|
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| 11 |
 Hailstorm Rounds Hailstorm Rounds Passively generates bolts of ice at a frequency equal to reload time, up to a cap. Activate to Load accumulated bolts into your crossbow. All loaded bolts are fired at once, causing them to rain down over the target area.
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Shockburst Rounds Shockburst Rounds Loads your Crossbow with a clip of charged bolts which releases damaging pulses upon hitting an enemy affected by a lightning ailment. Using this skill again reloads the clip.
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Emergency Reload Emergency Reload Instantly relaods your active Crossbow Ammunition and Empowers the loaded bolts to deal more damage.
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| 13 |
 Siege Cascade Siege Cascade Loads your Crossbow with enemy-seeking payloads which are fired into the air, dropping a bolt near every enemy in the target area. These bolts lodge in the ground and explode after a short delay .
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 Plasma Blast Plasma Blast Loads your Crossbow with unstable that require a lengthy charging period to fire but deal devastating damage, Pierce through enemies, and explode upon hitting terrain.
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 Cluster Grenade Cluster Grenade Fires a bouncing Grenade That explodes when it's fuse expires, throwing out a nova of mini Grenades that explode when they come to a stop.
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All Mercenary Persistent Skills
The Mercenary has 8 Persistent skills each of which grant passive buffs that are extremely helpful to any build.
| Tier | Skills | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 |
 Herald of Ash Herald of Ash While active, enemies you sufficiently Overkill with attacks will cause an explosion that ignites nearby enemies based on the Overkill damage dealt.
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Herald of Thunder Herald of Thunder While active, killing Shocked enemies with Attack damage, will cause subsequent Attack hits to release lightning bolts which deals Attack damage to all surrounding enemies.
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 War Banner War Banner While active, killing enemies with attacks or standing near a Unique enemy generates Valour. using this skill consumes Valour to place an inspiring Banner with an Aura that grants you and nearby allies Attack damage and accuracy while Banner lasts. The Banner cannot gain Valour while placed, and you cannot place a Banner while you already have a Banner placed.
|
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| 8 |
 Shard Scavenger Shard Scavenger While Active, consuming Freeze, Shock, Ignite, or Fully Broken Armour on an enemy reloads your Crossbow. This can only occur once every few seconds.
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 Overwhelming Presence Overwhelming Presence While active, enemies in your Presence are easier to Stun and inflict Elemental Ailments upon.
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 Defiance Banner Defiance Banner While active, killing enemies with attacks or standing near a Unique enemy generates valour. Using this skill consumes its Valour to place an inspiring Banner with an Aura that grants you and your nearby allies Armour, Evasion, and Movement speed while the banner lasts. The Banner cannot gain Valour while placed, and you cannot place a Banner while you already have a Banner placed.
|
|||||||||
| 14 |
 Attrition Attrition While active, causes you to deal more Hit damage to Rare and Unique enemies the longer you've been fighting them, and gain Culling Strike against them once you've been fighting them for long enough.
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 Dread Banner Dread Banner While active, killing enemies with Attacks or standing near a Unique enemy generates Valour. using this skill consumes its Valour to place an Inspiring Banner with an Aura that grants you and nearby allies Stun Threshold, Elemental Ailment Threshold, and Flask charges while the Banner lasts. The Banner cannot gain Valour while placed, and you cannot place a Banner while you already have a banner placed.
|
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Recommended Skills
| Skill | Effect |
|---|---|
 Explosive Grenade
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Fires a bouncing Grenade that unleashes a devastating fiery blast when its fuse expires. |
|
Gas Grenade
|
Fires a bouncing Grenade that causes a burst of Poison gas when its fuse expires, damaging enemies and leaving behind a growing Poison cloud. Burning effects or Detonator skills will cause the cloud to explode in a fiery blast. |
|
Galvanic Shards
|
Loads your Crossbow with a clip of charged bolts that fragment in flight, releasing Chaining Lightning beams when they Hit enemies. Using this skill again reloads the clip. |
The best Crossbow skill for Mercenary is the Galvanic Shards as it is extremely useful for mobbing and boss fights. This is capable of procing various effects multiple times depending on your build as it fires 6 fragments per shot and can chain to other enemies.
Most Mercenary builds also use the Gas Grenade + Explosive Grenade combo as it deals a huge amount of damage from both the Explosive Grenade and Gas Cloud explosion.
How to Play Mercenary
| Useful Tips for Mercenary |
|---|
|
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Change Ammo with Skills
Unlike most classes, the Mercenary utilizes Crossbow skills that can change the ammo type of your default Crossbow Shot and fire different kinds of shots depending on what you have loaded. Keep in mind that using a crossbow skill will only change your default attack so in order for you to fire your loaded skills, you have to use the default attack itself.
Requires Reloading
Majority of Mercenary Crossbow skills fires Bolts that have a limited amount of ammo. Once you have used up all the Bolts, you will hear a clicking sound that makes your character stop firing and fully reloads the clip.
Keep in mind that your Reload Time depends on your equipped Crossbow but can be adjusted on other skills using Support Gems.
Grenades Have No Reload
On the other hand, Grenades do not use Bolts but instead have charges that automatically refresh on cooldown. Firing a grenade uses one charge and immediately puts that charge on cooldown without having to reload anything.
Make sure to time your Grenades in advance as all of them have a Fuse Duration that only explodes once the duration is up.
Uses Fire, Cold, Lightning, and Poison Elements
Mercenaries have access to Fire, Cold, Lightning, and Poison skills from their Crossbows. This includes elements for different ammo types as well such as Grenades, Shotguns, and Rifle type ammunitions.
Unique to the crossbow, the Gas Clouds from Gas Grenade can explode once triggered by either Detonators, Flamewall, and Ignited enemies.
Path of Exile 2 (PoE 2) Related Guides
List of New Classes
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
List of Early Access Classes
| Class | Ascendancy Classes |
|---|---|
| Mercenary |
|
List of Upcoming Classes
| Druid | Templar |
| Shadow | Duelist |
| Marauder | - |
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Mercenary Ascendancies and Class Guide
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