New Mercenary System - Skills, Skill Trees, Reinforcements and Opportunity Mechanic
The mercenaries in Vessel of Hatred are “a group of ordinary people with extraordinary skills” that can join you in your fights.
Each of these mercenaries have their own unique Skill Trees and Abilities that can be used in combat. Their abilities are made up of a variety of choices, with a broad mix of utility and damage-based skills to fit your playstyle.
“How to Unlock the Mercenaries”
Mercenaries can be unlocked during the Main Quest in Vessel of Hatred Expansion in Diablo 4.
There are 4 unique mercenaries that can be unlocked:
Raheir the Shieldbearer – defensive type. First merc to be unlocked.
Rahier uses his Shield to block and protect you from incoming attacks. He can also be used attack enemies.
Subo the Bounty Hunter – ranged type archer. Good for backlane ranged attacks and support.
Subo uses his Archery Skills to attack from ranged distance raining down volleys of arrows. One of Subo’s main Skill marks targets for you to kill after which gives reduced Ability cooldowns.
Varyana the Berserker Crone – a melee berserker good for closed range.
Varyana uses an arsenal of melee weapons same as Barbarian. One of Varyana’s main mechanics is her Massacre meter that can be filled for extra stats and buffs by defeating nearby enemies.
Aldkin the Cursed Child – a shapeshifter magic user that can transform himself.
A half-child, half-demon creature: Aldkin has the ability to undergo Metamorphosis, shapeshifting him into a powerful Demon to fight by your side.
With this new Mercenary System, Diablo 4 seems to be adding yet another layer of in-depth mechanics to the game. This if they don’t turn out to be totally useless.
Enlisting and Hiring Mercenaries
Mercenaries can be used in 2 specific ways.
First one — you can hire them as a party member. This way, you will get acccess to their skills and get to build them as you wish while leveling them up.
Second one, which is the most interesting — one mercenary can be used as “reinforcement”, and this means, you can set them up to spawn and trigger their special ability in different scenarios, for example, when you are under ground control.
This can be very useful for hardcore players and not only.
If you play solo, you can use both, the only difference is that the mercenary that is doing the reinforcement won't be available to hire.
Hiring Mercenaries
You can hire any of your unlocked Mercenaries. Hired Mercenaries become your main companion, and when playing solo they will join your party to use their skills to help in combat.
Mercenary Reinforcement
Select another unlocked Mercenary within the Mercenary Den to be your combat Reinforcement.
Reinforcements will spawn during combat to perform a skills. Each Mercenary has their own abilities that you can build within the Mercenary Skill Tree.
You can set this in-game action to trigger. This new Mechanic is called: Opportunity. For example, Reinforcements can have their Opportunity set to activate when you are hit by a Control Impairing Effect.
Note that you will need to have a different Hired Mercenary than the one who is currently your Reinforcement. Once you have unlocked another Mercenary outside of Raheir, you’ll be able to equip someone in both slots.
Follow the new Questline to unlock all 4 Mercenaries.
Check out some of the Mercenary Skills and Abilities below:
Earning Rapport
Earn trust with Mercenaries knows as Rapport to upgrade each Mercenary, earning skill points to unlock more of their abilities, caches, and increasing your ability to barter.
Earn Rapport with different Mercenaries by using them as Reinforcements or Hired hands in battle. Mercenary-related events will appear through Sanctuary to earn bonus Rapport with your loyal companion. Each Mercenary has 10 Levels of Rapport to earn, and repeating the last level will earn you additional Pale Marks.
Pale Marks
Coins earned through Rapport, granting you the ability to purchase items within The Den.
Bartering & Vendors
Pale Marks can be used in the Den to trade for a wide variety of items. Rank up each Mercenary to expand the potential offerings available within the Den.
The Mercenary System comes with brand new custom Cosmetic Transmogs that can be found.
At Vessel of Hatred launch, we will also be introducing various updates across the entire game to improve and re-work core systems that have been around since launch. Empower your favorite Classes with new Skills, added Paragon Boards, and Legendary Glyphs. Explore new Dungeon types, added activities and rewards from the Tree of Whispers, and more.
This sums up today’s Patch Notes. I hope you found this helpful. I was MisterMen and I thank you for reading!
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