What is the best Path of Exile 2 Mercenary build? The Mercenary takes advantage of the new moving while attacking combat mechanic and leans into a range of powerful skills that makes this class feel more like a shooter, and less like a ranger.
If you’re looking forward to the Path of Exile 2 release date, but you’re having trouble choosing out of the 12 classes coming to the RPG game this year, you might want to consider the brand-new Mercenary. This class type uses a crossbow, and unlike the Path of Exile 2’s Ranger‘s bow, crossbows fire instantly instead of needing to be drawn back. We’ve gone through all the weapons and ammo types we’ve seen so far to create a promising Mercenary build for when Path of Exile 2 arrives.
Path of Exile 2 Mercenary overview
The Mercenary’s main weapon is the crossbow, and there are several styles of crossbows you can equip that are designed to feel like traditional guns, including sniper rifles, shotguns, and assault rifles. You’re also able to switch between two crossbows, allowing you to hold different ammo types and attachments for deadly combinations.
In a gameplay snippet showcasing the Mercenary’s explosive skill range, the aim is for the crossbow to feel like a gun and the abilities to pack a punch, focusing on large damage dealing blows and armor piercing shots.
We’ve also had a glimpse of the Mercenary’s Voltaic Grenade and Plasma Blast combination, with the grenade capable of stunning enemies in place, creating the opportunity to fire a deadly Plasma Blast using the crossbow.
Path of Exile 2 Mercenary crossbows
The Mercenary focuses on high damage shots, but has many crowd control skills, with the added benefit of equipping two crossbows to set up and execute combinations. Each crossbow responds differently depending on the ammo you use, including armor piercing ammo, incendiary ammo, and permafrost ammo.
Here are the Path of Exile 2 crossbows we know about so far and what each ammo type does:
Burst shot crossbow
- Armor piercing – Fires bursts of armor piercing ammo that penetrates large groups of enemies.
- Incendiary – Fires projectiles and when the target is hit, the stronger the ignite.
- Permafrost – Chills enemies, with the potential to freeze them.
Rapid shot crossbow
- Armor piercing – Fires rapidly to quickly break armor, best paired with the burst shot crossbow.
- Incendiary – Charge up to fire, dealing more and more damage as the crossbow heats up, adding extra fire to any grenade.
- Permafrost – Shoot the ground to create ice crystals and retreat to draw in monsters over the crystals, which explode and chill enemies.
Power shot crossbow
- Armor piercing – Once an enemy’s armor is broken, deal significant damage to a single target’s weak spot and potentially stun them.
- Incendiary – A rocket launcher that can explode grenades on the ground.
- Permafrost – Creates walls of ice that work well for crowd control. If the wall is destroyed by monsters, they explode, dealing a small amount of damage.
Path of Exile 2 Mercenary attachments
Each of the three attachments we know about can be augmented with support gems to provide extra benefits when equipped.
Here are the Path of Exile 2 attachments we know about so far:
- Explosive grenade launcher – Fires explosive grenades.
- Flash grenade – Doesn’t do much damage, but provides a huge amount of stun.
- Oil grenade launcher – Coats the ground in oil to slow enemies down
What is the best Path of Exile 2 Mercenary build?
As the Mercenary allows us to equip two different crossbows, we don’t have to be too picky about which one to go with. However, there are some lethal combinations that can be achieved by tinkering with the ammo and attachments. For example, armor piercing can be used to explode frozen enemies, and the burst shot crossbow can quickly deal with enemies stuck behind our ice walls.
How do I use the best Path of Exile 2 Mercenary build?
We love the look of the fiery chaos of the incendiary ammo, and though permafrost can be great for retreating and crowd control, this build requires us to embrace the fight and light up groups of enemies. Here’s how it works.
Equip both the Rapid Shot Crossbow and Power Shot Crossbow, the first crossbow has a large magazine size and the latter sets up high damage potential. By equipping incendiary ammo to both crossbows, we can use the power shot to drop grenades and then use the rapid fire to light them up, switching back to the power shot to add extra fire damage.
If you want to add even more fire, then the oil grenade can be set alight, but the explosive grenade or even stun grenade works well to slow enemies on the way to us. Use this time to charge up the rapid fire before releasing this deadly combo.
Now you’re caught up on the Mercenary class in Path of Exile 2, check out our guide to the Path of Exile 2 Witch class and best build and our Path of Exile 2 preview to see what we thought. And if you need something to pass the time before the early access period, we have a list of the best games like Diablo to fill that void.