Path Of Exile Mercenary

The Secrets of the Atlas expansion in Path of Exile introduces a compelling new feature: Mercenaries. These Mercenaries are powerful NPC companions that players can encounter, duel, and recruit to fight alongside them throughout the campaign and endgame Atlas, adding a fresh strategic layer to gameplay Poe 1 Divine Orb.

What Are Mercenaries?
Mercenaries appear as optional boss fights scattered across zones in the Mercenaries of Trarthus league. Each Mercenary is equipped with unique weapons, armor, skills, and sometimes currency items. When you defeat a Mercenary in combat, you have three choices: hire them as a companion for gold, take one of their equipped items as loot, or exile them to prevent Mercenaries of that attribute type from appearing for a set number of encounters.

Hiring Mercenaries allows you to bring them along as a permanent companion who uses their own abilities and provides buffs that complement your build. You can have one active Mercenary and store up to two more in reserve, enabling strategic swapping depending on the situation.

Mercenary Renown and Infamous Mercenaries
Defeating Mercenaries increases your Renown rank, which caps at three. Higher Renown increases the chance of encountering "infamous" Mercenaries, who come with better gear, skills, and exclusive league modifiers on their rare items. This system encourages active engagement with Mercenaries to access top-tier rewards.

Gear and Builds
Mercenaries scale significantly with the gear you equip them. Unlike standard minions, Mercenaries benefit from weapon and jewelry stats such as increased aura effects, curse effectiveness, and defensive buffs. Popular weapon choices include:
1. Dying Breath (Staff): Enhances curse effects and aura radius, ideal for aura or curse support Mercenaries.
2. Kingmaker (Two-Handed Axe): Provides culling strike, fortify, and crit multipliers for offensive builds.
3. Obliteration (Wand): Causes enemies to explode on death, great for map clearing.
4. The Dark Seer (Staff): Offers defensive utility and spell enhancements.
5. Al Dhih (Sword): Synergizes with warcry skills and chaos explosions.

Choosing the right gear tailors your Mercenary’s role—whether tank, buffer, debuffer, or damage dealer—making them a versatile asset in combat.

Mechanics and Tips
If your Mercenary dies, you can revive them for gold, but only in an area where they haven’t previously died. Mercenaries do not auto-respawn if revived in the same instance they fell, so moving to a new area is necessary. In group play, multiple players can participate in Mercenary fights, scaling difficulty but granting additional loot chances buy PoE Currency.