Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0: Best Mercenary Builds
31.12.2025 - 10:23:25
Game Guides , Path of Exile 2
Two of the Mercenary ascendancy classes have been doing pretty well in Path of Exile 2: The Last of the Druids. Both the Witchhunter and Tactician got some pretty substantial buffs, making any builds that use them really awesome to use, especially in the new Vaal Ruins.
However, the same cannot be said for the Gemling Legionnaire. At the time of writing, this particular ascendancy class only has a measly 0.2% usage rate, which means that it’s not popular (except for truly niche builds).
Having said that, if you are interested in playing the Mercenary Class in Patch 0.4.0, then read further. For today, I am going to talk about the best Mercenary Builds in Path of Exile 2: The Last of the Druids!
To unlock the full potential of the PoE 2 Mercenary Builds I am going to cover, you need some pretty good gear. Fortunately, we have that and more in our PoE 2 Store, which you can visit at any time!
How Mercenary Builds Work in Patch 0.4.0
To understand why the Witchhunter and Tactician have respectable numbers in the Fate of the Vaal League, you must first learn what has changed for these ascendancies in Patch 0.4.0. Let’s start with the Witchhunter because it got a bit more players than the Tactician this time around.
The Witchhunter only received a couple of buffs, albeit they’re quite significant. For one, the Sorcery Ward granted by the "Obsessive Rituals” ascendancy node now protects you from physical and chaos damage when you also take the next node called “Ceremonial Ablution.” This is actually quite good, especially since Sorcery Ward was only meant to mitigate incoming elemental damage prior to The Last of the Druids expansion for PoE 2.
In addition, Witchbane now makes enemies have Concentration equal to 30% of their maximum life (instead of 40% previously). This means that you only need to hit them several times to completely deplete their Concentration, making them suffer from 50% less cooldown recovery rate. When this happens, enemies are less likely to use their more powerful attacks, so you can say that this is a form of improving your survivability.
How about the Tactician? Unleash Hell—an ascendancy node that grants the “Supporting Fire” skill—has been buffed considerably. It got several changes, but the only things that you need to know are that Supporting Fire has its cooldown reduced, fires volleys more frequently, and the number of volleys has increased by a bit. However, these come at the cost of almost a 50% drop in attack damage. While you might think that the last part is bad, it’s actually not.
In fact, Supporting Fire is now awesome, so much so that a sizable portion of those who play the Tactician in Patch 0.4.0 are allocating the Unleash Hell node. This is simply because it’s now more reliable in clearing monsters in maps due to how the volleys are fired more consistently.
Aside from that, the “Strategic Embankments” ascendancy node now grants the following bonuses to these skills:
- Artillery Ballista: 20% Increased Skill Speed (from 40% Increased Immobilization Build-Up).
- Siege Ballista: 25% More Damage Against Immobilized Enemies (instead of 50% increased damage).
- Mortar Cannon: 25% of Damage gained as Extra Fire Damage (from 15%).
- Spell Totem: Grants a 50% Increased Critical Hit Chance.
The Spell Totem is a new addition to Path of Exile 2: The Last of the Druids. This is a meta skill that automatically casts supported spells you’ve socketed into it. Thanks to the Tactician’s Strategic Embankments ascendancy node, spells that the Spell Totem casts have a much higher chance of landing critical hits, making them even more effective!
If you are wondering why not a lot of people are choosing the Gemling Legionnaire, it is mainly because the changes to this ascendancy class only revolve around improving its charge generation (through Advanced Thaumaturgy) and increased maximum resistances (from Thaumaturgical Infusion).
PoE 2 is all about destroying enemies as quickly as possible. So buffing only the defensive aspects of an ascendancy class does not translate to more people using it; hence, the abysmally low player count of the Gemling Legionnaire.
Here is a brief rundown of all the above-mentioned changes in Patch 0.4.0:
- Witchhunter’s Sorcery Ward now protects you from physical and chaos damage (when taking the Ceremonial Ablution node).
- The requirements for depleting the enemy’s Concentration (from the Witchbane ascendancy node) have been lowered from 40% to just 30% of the monster’s maximum life.
- The Tactician’s Supporting Fire skill now fires more volleys, has reduced cooldown, and unleashes volleys more frequently (at the cost of reduced attack damage).
- Strategic Embankments improve various totem skills, including Artillery Ballista, Siege Ballista, Mortar Cannon, and now, Spell Totems.
- Gemling Legionnaire has only received defensive buffs, mainly to charge generation and maximum resistances.
Best Mercenary Builds in PoE 2: The Last of the Druids
Now comes the best part! If you are going to play the Mercenary Class in Patch 0.4.0, make sure to get the best PoE 2 items so that you can deal huge amounts of damage each time you use your skills!
Anyway, without further ado, here are the best Mercenary Builds in Path of Exile 2: The Last of the Druids:
Explosive Shot Tactician
Do you want to see a screen full of explosions? If so, the Explosive Shot Tactician is a build that you should try in Path of Exile 2: The Last of the Druids!
The premise of the build is simple: You fire Explosive Grenades at the enemy, and then manually detonate them using Explosive Shot.
Whenever you encounter huge packs of enemies, drop a couple of Mortar Cannons. These cannons will fire the Explosive Grenades for you (at a much faster rate), allowing you to completely destroy enemies with multiple explosions happening all at once!
Because of the Tactician’s ability to pin enemies down quickly (due to “Suppressing Fire” and “Right Where We Want Them”), you can get great benefits from using the newly buffed Sine Aequo. These gloves make enemies take 20% more damage, which is multiplicative with your other “increased damage” modifiers. In short, you deal a lot of damage with the Sine Aequo equipped!
When it comes to support gems, I highly recommend that you invest in Ratha’s Assault and Arjun’s Medal. The former loads several bolts into Explosive Shot and grants increased attack speed as well. The latter, on the other hand, alleviates the need for manual reloading, so long as you’re able to kill monsters with Explosive Shot.
If you want to play the Explosive Shot Tactician, here is the ideal gem setup for the most important skills:
- Explosive Shot
- Multishot II
- Ratha’s Assault
- Arjun’s Medal
- Magnified Area II
- Nova Projectiles I
- Explosive Grenade
- Multishot II
- Elemental Armament II
- Payload
- Rigwald’s Ferocity
- Rakiata’s Flow
- Mortar Cannon
- Explosive Grenade
- Elemental Armament II
- Multishot I
- Urgent Totems III
- Payload
- Eternal Rage
- Precision I / Precision II
- Berserk
- Vitality II
- Dialla’s Desire
Permafrost Witchhunter
The idea of making enemies unable to move while you completely obliterate them with well-placed crossbow skills is quite enticing, which is why the Permafrost Witchhunter is definitely something that you must try out!
The key to this build is the combination of Permafrost Bolts and Fragmentation Rounds. Permafrost Bolts is responsible for freezing enemies, while the Fragmentation Rounds ensure that you deal insane amounts of damage to frozen enemies.
So, how is the Permafrost Witchhunter played? Well, you first tap Permafrost Bolts two or three times until the target is frozen. After that, fire an Oil Grenade to apply exposure and lower the enemy’s elemental resistance. With the enemy still frozen, quickly switch to Fragmentation Rounds and fire away!
Depending on how quickly you can use all three skills, you can hit the enemy one or two times with Fragmentation Rounds for massive amounts of damage. Fortunately, Oil Grenade can be automated using Mortar Cannon, so if you are able to fit the Mortar Cannon into your gem setup, then things will be more streamlined from that point onward.
The Sine Aequo returns here, mainly to help you freeze enemies with Permafrost Bolts. If you want, you can also buy Hyrri’s Ire to increase the freeze duration on enemies, giving you ample time to fire more Fragmentation Rounds.
If you want to play the Permafrost Witchhunter build in Path of Exile 2: The Last of the Druids, here are the gems that you need:
- Permafrost Bolts
- Cold Attunement
- Ice Bite II
- Ricochet II
- Projectile Acceleration III
- Rakiata’s Flow
- Fragmentation Rounds
- Elemental Armament II
- Close Combat II
- Cold Attunement
- Exploit Weakness
- Rigwald’s Ferocity
- Oil Grenade
- Multishot II
- Magnified Area II
- Potent Exposure
- Short Fuse II
- Persistent Ground III
- Mortar Cannon
- Oil Grenade
- Prolonged Duration II
- Persistent Ground III
- Potent Exposure
Stormblast Tactician
The theme of each Mercenary build so far revolves around elemental skills, and this next one is no different. With so many ways to scale elemental damage in PoE 2 Patch 0.4.0, it makes perfect sense to lean fully into them.
The Stormblast Tactician is an excellent mapper and, with the right setup, can take down bosses quickly and consistently.
To start, set your crossbow to Stormblast Bolts and pre-load them in an area where the boss is expected to appear. Once the boss becomes damageable, immediately use Explosive Shot to detonate the Stormblast Bolts. This triggers a chain of explosions that deal massive damage.
There are two main ways to automate the detonation process. You can either use Mirage Archer linked to Explosive Shot or use Mortar Cannon with Explosive Grenade.
Mirage Archer allows you to socket one additional support gem compared to Mortar Cannon. However, Mortar Cannon remains active on the battlefield for a longer duration. Both options are viable, so the choice depends on personal preference.
For mapping, this build relies on Galvanic Shards. Early on, pairing it with Lightning Attunement, Fork, and Shock makes campaign progression smooth and efficient.
At level 65, switch to Ratha’s Assault and Arjun’s Medal to remove the need for manual reloading while mapping. Adding Mobility further improves map clear speed.
Elemental damage scaling is one of the build’s main strengths in Path of Exile 2: The Last of the Druids. Painter’s Servant is an easy pick for increased elemental damage. In addition, you can get the Headhunter to gain rare monster modifiers while clearing maps.
If you want to try the Stormblast Tactician, use the following skills and support gems:
- Stormblast Bolts
- Concentrated Area
- Elemental Armament II
- Close Combat II
- Rigwald’s Ferocity
- Rakiata’s Flow
- Note: Set this skill in Weapon Set 2 to gain more damage from Rigwald’s Ferocity
- Galvanic Shards
- Fork
- Elemental Armament II
- Lightning Attunement
- Ratha’s Assault
- Arjun’s Medal
- Note: Lightning Attunement can be replaced with Bhatair’s Vengeance if Painter’s Servant is equipped
- Mirage Archer
- Explosive Shot
- Cooldown Recovery II
- Magnified Area II
- Prolonged Duration II
- Stun II
- Mortar Cannon
- Explosive Grenade
- Multishot II
- Payload
- Urgent Totems III
- Short Fuse I
Galvanic Shards Witchhunter
Of course, an article that highlights the best Mercenary Builds in Patch 0.4.0 will not be complete without the Galvanic Shards Witchhunter. This build has become a lot smoother to use thanks to the change that was made to Arjun’s Medal in The Last of the Druids expansion.
For those who do not know, Arjun’s Medal is a lineage support gem that previously only gave you a 35% chance for all of the bolts in your crossbow to be reloaded upon a killing blow. That measly 35% chance has now been upped to 100% in Patch 0.4.0, which means that your crossbow is reloaded in every kill shot! As a result, investing in an Arjun’s Medal is a must!
Shockburst Rounds also return; this time with Rakiata’s Flow. The said lineage support gem inverts monster elemental resistances, so those with a considerably high fire resistance, for example, will be a cinch for the Shockburst Rounds that have Rakiata’s Flow!
Although you can fit the Stormblast Bolts on this build (by preloading the bolts before the boss battle begins), I think that Frost Bomb is better. Switching to different crossbow bolts in PoE 2 is already a chore, so limiting the types of bolts that you use to just two can help make the build’s playstyle easier to master.
On top of that, the explosions that come from Frost Bomb apply elemental exposure at an increasing magnitude, up to a maximum of 60%. So, imagine the elemental resistance inversion done by Rakiata’s Flow with the elemental exposure provided by Frost Bomb. That’s a really powerful combination!
By default, monster elemental resistance cannot drop to below zero. That all changes when you have Leopold’s Applause. These unique gloves can reduce the elemental resistance of monsters that you hit down to a minimum of -50 (that’s negative 50).
Do you want to utilize the Witchhunter’s Sorcery Ward as an added layer of protection? If so, you should definitely buy The Brass Dome. This armor has been massively buffed in Patch 0.4.0. On a perfect roll, you can get 4,000 armor just by wearing a single item!
All in all, the Galvanic Shards Witchhunter is still incredible in Path of Exile 2: The Last of the Druids. Whether you just want to destroy monsters in T16 maps or complete the Vaal Ruins to face Atziri, this build can handle them without any problems!
FAQ
What is the Best Mercenary Build in PoE 2 Patch 0.4.0?
The best builds for the Mercenary Class in the Fate of the Vaal League are the Stormblast Tactician or the Galvanic Shards Witchhunter. Which one you choose depends on the ascendancy nodes that you want to use.
If you want to pin enemies down constantly, making them unable to move, the Stormblast Tactician is a definite choice. If you just want a simple build that uses a skill akin to an assault rifle, then go for the Galvanic Shards Witchhunter.
Which Mercenary Build is Best for Leveling?
I would say the Galvanic Shards Witchhunter. Allocate “Zealous Inquisition” to make enemies explode while using your primary skills.
Are Mercenary Builds Viable for Endgame Content?
Absolutely! Crossbows and crossbow skills have been buffed since the last expansion up to this patch. I highly recommend that you try these builds out!
PoE 2 Best Mercenary Builds in Patch 0.4.0: Conclusion
The crossbow-wielding Mercenary has been buffed quite substantially since the early days of the game. In Path of Exile 2: The Last of the Druids, this class has gotten a lot better!
Arjun’s Medal easily improves your mapping experience by not needing to reload manually. You just point, shoot, and kill enemies, and your weapon should be reloaded instantly!
The buffs to the Witchhunter and Tactician are incredible, making either of them a solid choice for your PoE 2 ascendancy class. Among the builds mentioned here, which one do you like the most? Let us know in the comments!
For more updated PoE 2 guides, head to our RPGStash Blog.