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PoE 2 Guide

PoE 2 Mercenary - Overview, Skills, and Ascendancies

Classes
Updated on Sep 9, 2026
Sep 9, 2026

Mercenary Overview

The Mercenary is a class with the STR / DEX attribute. This makes them start at the same location as the Duelist class from PoE 1, with proximity to the Strength and Dexterity portions of the skill tree. (Bottom Middle)

The weapon specialty of the Mercenary is the Crossbow, providing ammunition, grenade and ballista totem options to access a variety of elemental and physical-based setups. The Crossbow also has a unique mechanic with ammunition requiring reloading.

Mercenary Skill Gems

Tier 1

  • Fragmentation Rounds
  • Armour Piercing Rounds
  • Permafrost Bolts
  • Explosive Grenade

Tier 3

  • High Velocity Rounds
  • Incendiary Shot
  • Flash Grenade

Tier 5

  • Rapid Shot
  • Ice Shards
  • Galvanic Shards
  • Gas Grenade

Tier 7

  • Artillery Ballista
  • Explosive Shot
  • Glacial Bolt
  • Voltaic Grenade

Tier 9

  • Siege Ballista
  • Stormblast Bolts
  • Oil Grenade

Tier 11

  • Hailstorm Rounds
  • Shockburst Rounds
  • Emergency Reload
  • Mortar Cannon

Tier 13

  • Siege Cascade
  • Plasma Blast
  • Cluster Grenade

Spirit Gems

Tier 4

  • Herald of Thunder
  • Attrition
  • War Banner

Tier 8

  • Shard Scavenger
  • Overwhelming Presence
  • Defiance Banner

Tier 14

  • Charge Regulation
  • Dread Banner

Mercenary Ascendancy Classes

Witch Hunter

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The Witch Hunter has a variety of passives that give you offense, defense, and utility. You can Cull enemies, burst bosses with your first hit, delay enemy spellcasting cooldowns, and even obtain a full second passive tree setup for your weapon swap!

Gemling Legionnaire

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The Gemling Legionnaire is all about Skill Gems. You can obtain exclusive Skill Gem Quality bonuses, enabling build scaling options that no other class can access. This ascendancy can also specialise into Attributes and obtain special bonuses from their socketed Support Gems.

Tactician

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The Tactician is a battlefield strategist with masteries over totems, banners, persistent buffs and the Pin debuff. You can specialise into Supporting Fire minions that deal Damage for you, or assist your allies by providing them Damage from your equipped weapon.