Path of Exile 2 early access is expected to be officially launched in December, with all players eagerly waiting. If you have been following POE, you will know that the launch time of POE 2 early access has been postponed many times. Although this has inevitably disappointed fans of the game, the delay also means that the game developers are striving to be more perfect. Therefore, you can be sure that Path of Exile 2 will not disappoint you.
As a player, when you play Path of Exile series, you usually need to choose a starting class for your game character in order to start your POE journey. It is reported that there will be multiple classes for you to choose in Path of Exile 2. You can visit POECurrency.com to find some relevant information to understand the performance of some of them on POE 3.25 for reference.
However, in the face of so many classes, we will focus on introducing you to Mercenary class this time. This is a powerful class that can fire piercing, incendiary, or permafrost rounds, and combine them with different crossbows and attachments to create the ultimate combination. It is definitely worth trying.
Mercenary Overview
As one of the main classes in Path of Exile 2, Mercenary will utilize the new mobile attack combat mechanic and rely on a series of powerful skills to fight. This series of characteristics will make you feel that this is a class that is somewhat similar to a shooter.
The main weapon of Mercenary in the game is the crossbow. You can obtain and equip several crossbows designed like traditional firearms, including sniper rifles, shotguns, and assault rifles through POE 2 Currency before the battle begins. You can also switch between the two crossbows, allowing you to carry different types of ammunition and attachments, which can not only create a deadly weapon combination but also enrich your Mercenary game style.
If you have watched the game clips showing the range of Mercenary’s explosive skills, you will find that the crossbow used by this class actually feels more like a gun and has a powerful impact, focusing on blows and armor-piercing shots that cause huge damage. And unlike Ranger bow in POE 2, the crossbow can be fired immediately without having to pull back.
Mercenary Crossbows
In Path of Exile 2, mercenaries will still focus on high-damage shooting, but also have many crowd control skills, and are equipped with two crossbows to set up and execute combos as an added benefit.
The specific reaction effect of each crossbow usually depends on the type of ammunition you get, mainly including armor piercing, incendiary and permafrost. At present, the specific effects of crossbows in POE 2 and the three types of ammunition we know about are as follows:
1. Burst Shot Crossbow
- Armor piercing: Penetrates large groups of enemies by firing bursts of armor-piercing shells to form mass killing.
- Incendiary: Can fire projectiles. When the target is hit, the intensity of the ignition will increase.
- Permafrost: Makes enemies cold and has a certain chance to freeze them.
2. Rapid Shot Crossbow
- Armor piercing: Quickly destroys enemy armor by shooting rapidly.
- Incendiary: Charged shot. As the crossbow heats up, it deals more damage and adds extra firepower to any grenade.
- Permafrost: Shoot the ground and it creates ice crystals, which you can then draw enemies to by retreating, which explode to freeze them.
3. Power Shot Crossbow
- Armor piercing: Once an enemy’s armor is broken, it can deal heavy damage to a single target’s weak spot and possibly stun them.
- Incendiary: Rocket launcher that detonates grenades on the ground, creating a large area of damage.
- Permafrost: Creates ice walls, great for crowd control. If the walls are destroyed by enemies, they explode, dealing with a small amount of damage.
Mercenary Crossbow Attachments
In Path of Exile games, attachments provide you with some combat benefits, and you can also enhance them with support gems to make them provide you with additional benefits when the attachment is equipped. This is also possible in POE 2. For Mercenary class, there are three main attachments:
- Explosive grenade launcher: Fires explosive grenades to deal explosive damage to enemies, with a very impressive damage value.
- Flash grenade: More than other attachments, it focuses on causing a lot of stun effects on enemies, weakening their attack power.
- Oil grenade launcher: Applies oil to the ground to slow down enemies, giving you more time to counterattack.
Of course, the bonus effect of the attachment may not be enough for you to deal with some overly powerful enemies as a Mercenary. At this time, you can choose to utilize POE 2 Boosting to speed up your character’s upgrade speed and reach the ideal level as soon as possible to defeat powerful bosses.
The Best Crossbow Build For POE 2 Mercenary
For any class in any MMO game, builds are one of the most effective tools to improve combat efficiency. Based on our current understanding of POE 2 Mercenary, its most suitable build in Path of Exile 2 may be a crossbow build built around incendiary bombs.
While the permafrost is great for retreating and crowd control, the incendiary has a flaming chaos look in combat, setting a group of enemies on fire for a large area of damage. Specifically, you can equip both Rapid Shot crossbow and Power Shot crossbow in combat, and equip them with incendiary. Rapid Shot crossbow has a large magazine capacity, while Power Shot crossbow has high damage potential.
We recommend that you trade POE 2 Currency for enough grenades ahead of time so that after you equip the incendiary on both crossbows, you can use Power Shot to throw a lot of grenades for a lot of explosion damage. Don’t forget to use Rapid Shot to ignite them and then switch back to Power Shot for additional fire damage.
If you want to add more firepower to this build, you can also ignite the oil grenade. However, the fact is that the explosive grenade and even the stun grenade are very good at slowing down the enemy’s attack speed, so you can use this time to charge up your Rapid Shot before unleashing a deadly combo of Incendiary.
After this introduction, I believe you have a clearer understanding of how to play Mercenary class with a crossbow in POE 2. I hope you will have a pleasant gaming experience after Path of Exile 2 is officially launched!
