The mercenaries are a hotly debated featureadded inDiablo 4’sVessel of Hatredexpansion. While an early bug meant that mercenary skill trees weren’t appearing for some players, that’s now beenironed out. With access to these trees, players have found plenty of reasons to bring alongDiablo 4’s new support characters.
To unlock mercenaries, players need to fight through theVessel of Hatredcampaign until they gain access to the mercenary den. Then, the player can hire a mercenary to set as a primary. That mercenary will follow and support the player with active skills, passives and perks while they’re soloing.
Players can also hire a secondary mercenary, and these work a little differently. Players assign one of the mercenary’s active skills to be triggered when certain conditions are met. For example, when the player triggers an active skill themselves. This happens both insolo and co-op play. There are four mercenaries in total, and each holds benefits for different play styles.
Mage Of Shadow And Flame
Perk
Blasphemous Fire:Aldkin sometimes transforms into a powerful demon form, but curses the player for the form’s duration. Curses depend on Aldkin’s skill tree, Curse of Darkness or Curse of Flames.
Flame Skills
Flame Passives
Aldkin’s Field of Languish can be used to good effect for survivability, but he’s not as good at it as Raheir. Some players may prefer to use him as a secondary mercenary to avoid the curse mechanic. Wave of Flames can also help damage-over-time builds to squeeze out a littlemore damage for solo leveling.
The Drunken Rogue
Seeker:Subo highlights nearby enemies and resources. He also marks enemies, granting extra resource generation on hits.
Molotov Skills
Molotov Passives
Subo’s Wire Tap skill tree is a good choice for players who want some extra CC or to compliment their own. Players who want to add someextra damage over timemight consider Subo over Aldkin as a primary mercenary, since his perk doesn’t have a downside.
Berserker Grandma
Massacre:The player and Varyana both stack “Massacre” on kills, granting bonus movement speed when stack thresholds are reached at 10, 25, 50 and 100 stacks.
Shockwave Skills
Shockwave Passives
Varyana is a strong choice for a primary mercenary for any melee-focused player. The extra attack speed plus her DPS alone make her an excellent choice for solo players, but is especially effective if melee DPS is the build focus.
The Iron Shield
Valiance:When the player takes 15% max life in damage in one hit, Raheir cancels the damage and knocks down nearby enemies, and grants unstoppable, on a cooldown.
Ground Slam Skills
Ground Slam Passives
Raheir is probably the best all-round mercenary, and can compliment the survivability of any class or build. Going down his Shield Charge skill tree and taking the Bastion skill and Valiance buffs can belifesavers in the endgame, and his taunt abilities might tempt some glass cannon ranged builds, too.
