Path Of Exile 2: Mercenary Class Guide

Path of Exile 2 has six different classes to choose from, each with their own playstyle and skills to set them apart. The Mercenary is a crossbow-wielding freelancer that will take on any job, as long as the pay is right.

Unique to the crossbow is the ability to switch between several different ammo types, giving the Mercenary a tool for every situation. Below, we'll take a look at everything you need to know about the Mercenary class, including how it plays, what skills they excel in, and what their Ascendancy Classes are.

Mercenary Class Overview

Attribute Strength/Dexterity Ascendancies Witch Hunter, Gemling Legionnaire Initial Skills Ammunition, Grenades Attribute	Strength/Dexterity
Ascendancies	Witch Hunter, Gemling Legionnaire
Initial Skills	Ammunition, Grenades

The Mercenary is a Strength and Dexterity hybrid class that uses a crossbow to keep at range from enemies. Cycling through a variety of different ammo types, the Mercenary can adapt to any situation or type of enemy on the fly. The Mercenary's crossbow ammo is what sets it apart from the ranger, at least in terms of long-range projectile users.

The Mercenary also has access to several types of Grenades, which follow a similar philosophy as ammo types. The Explosive Grenade deals fire damage, the Flash Grenade blinds enemies, the Voltaic Grenade deals lightning damage, and so on.

Overall, if you're looking to play a mobile, jack-of-all-trades, ranged damage-dealer, the Mercenary is your man.

Mercenary Ascendancy Classes

Where things really get interesting are with the Mercenary's two Ascendancy Classes, Witch Hunter and Gemling Legionnaire. These subclasses each over a completely different playstyle for the Mercenary.

If you're trying to decide which Ascendancy to choose for your Mercenary, here's what you need to know.

Witch Hunter

Notables
Weapon Master	Converts 20 Passive Skill Points to Weapon Set Skill Points.
Pitiless Killer	Grants Culling Strike. Culling Strike: Normal enemies are instantly killed when their life reaches 30%, Magic enemies are instantly killed at 20%, and Rare and Unique enemies at 5%.
Judge, Jury, and Executioner	Grants Decimating Strike. Decimating Strike: Hits against enemies at full health remove 5-30% of their life.
Witchbane	Enemies have Maximum Concentration equal to 40% of their maximum life. Each hit against an enemy breaks their Concentration. ENemies regain 10% of their Concentration per second if they haven't lost Concentration in the last 5 seconds. Concentration: enemies have less Cooldown Recovery Rate the lower their Concentration is, scaling down to 50% less Cooldown Recovery Rate while Concentration is 0%.
No Mercy	You deal 30% more damage to enemies based on their missing Concentration.
Obsessive Rituals	Grants Sorcery Ward. You have 50% less Armour and Evasion Rating. Sorcerery Ward: passively grants a barrier that takes elemental damage from hits for you until it breaks. The barrier instantly recharges a few seconds after it stops taking damage or is fully depleted.
Ceremonial Ablution	Increases the effectiveness of Sorcery Ward by 50%. Sorcery Ward recovers 50% faster.
Zealous Inquisition	Gain a 10% chance for enemies to explode on death, dealing 100% of their maximum life as physical damage. This chance is doubled against Undead and Demon enemies.

The Witch Hunter combines some powerful offensive, defensive, and utility skills to turn the Mercenary into the ultimate killing machine. Culling Strike and Decimating Strike combined represent a massive DPS increase, as you can effectively delete the first and last 30 percent of a normal enemy's health bar.

Concentration is an effect unique to the Witch Hunter. This stat reduces the Cooldown Recovery Rate of enemies, which essentially reduces the amount of actions they can take. This is especially strong against bosses, as it will mean the boss won't be able to use its strong attacks as frequently.

Plus, the No Mercy Notable increases your damage against low-Concentration enemies by up to 30.

For defensive utility, Witch Hunter gains the Sorcery Ward Barrier, which grants a recharging elemental barrier at the cost of 50 percent less Armour and Evasion Rating. Interestingly, Sorcery Ward's strength scales based on your Armour and Evasion Rating, so you'll still need to keep these stats up.

Because Sorcery Ward protects you from Elemental damage, you can instead focus on increasing your Armour and Evasion Rating rather than your Elemental resistances.

Zealous Inquisition is an amazing passive for clearing enemies, giving them a chance to explode on death. While the innate chance is fairly low, if you take a group of ten enemies, it's pretty likely that at least one of them will explode. With the increased monster density in Maps, this skill will be very helpful for clearing.

Overall, the Witch Hunter is a very strong subclass that adds quite a bit to the Mercenary's already massive toolkit. Compared to the Gemling Legionnaire, the Witch Hunter requires much less knowledge of the game and build planning, providing some free and easy damage bonuses and damage reduction with Sorcery Ward.

Gemling Legionnaire

Notables
Crystalline Potential	All Skills gain 10% Quality.
Implanted Gems	All Skills gain 1 level.
Advanced Thaumaturgy	All Skills cost 30% less. Skill Gems have 30% increased Attribute Requirements.
Integrated Efficiency	Gain 3 Gem Slots.
Gem Studded	You can use two copies of the same Support Gem in different Skills.
Thaumaturgical Infusion	1% to Max Cold Resistance per 4 Blue Support Gems equipped. 1% Max Fire Resistance per 4 Red Support Gems equipped. 1% Max Lightning Resistance per 4 Green Support Gems equipped.
Adaptive Capability	The Attribute Requirements of your Gems can be satisfied with your highest Attribute.
Enhanced Effectiveness	The inherent bonuses from Intelligence, Strength, and Dexterity are doubled.

The Gemling Legionnaire subclass provides a variety of bonuses to your Skill Gems. While maybe not as exciting as the Witch Hunter, this Ascendancy Class provides some interesting effects.

Adaptive Capability lets you satisfy the Attribute Requirements of your Gems using whichever of your Attributes is the highest. This means you can go all-in on one Attribute, most likely either Strength or Dexterity, but still retain the ability to use any type of Skill Gems.

Enhanced Effectiveness doubles the bonuses provided by these Attributes, so stacking them as high as possible is the main goal of the Gemling Legionnaire.

This strategy synergizes with the Advanced Thaumaturgy Notable, which reduces the cost of all your Skills by 30 percent, but increases their Attribute Requirements. If you increase your stats high enough, you won't need to worry about these increased requirements, and can enjoy a free 30 percent Skill cost reduction.

Gem Studded also gives a ton of build flexibility, allowing you to use the same Support Gem up to two times across each of your Skills.

Overall, the Gemling Legionnaire is a strong subclass, but requires some in-depth knowledge of the games many systems to take full advantage of. Most builds won't need to take advantage of three additional Skill Slots, and the emphasis on using all three colors of Support Gems to increase your Resistances can be restricting.

Compared to the Witch Hunter, the Gemling Legionnaire will test your ability to put together a build, so only choose this subclass if you know exactly what you're doing.

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