In PoE 3.26, we're going to have mercenaries to support us in battle. So there have been a lot of discussions about what items you should get on your mercenary to maximize your damage or like utility in general, and how to keep your merc survive in POE 3.26? In this guide, we want to present the best gear & waystone options for defensive, offensive, magic find, and budget setups for mercenaries!
PoE 3.26 Best Mercenary Build Guide
In Path of Exile 3.26. A new mechanic called Mercenaries has been introduced, fundamentally changing how players approach support companions. And if you've seen the trailer, they basically get items that we can change the gear slots on, as well as some skills. While the developers intended for these mercenaries to act as party members, using skills and fighting monsters much like Einhard, the reality is that most players are likely to use them as upgraded Animate Guardians.
A critical mechanical change: they no longer lose items if they die. So... if they die, you lose them for the remainder of that zone, but they keep all the items. Mercenaries will revive the next map, next zone. Moreover, unlike minions, they're not considered minions. So, minion investment and things like resistances and all that stuff on the passive tree, and like minion life... will not apply. This means traditional minion scaling won't make mercenaries more durable.
As a result, survivability in hard content becomes a central concern. If you do hard content, they will die. If you do tier 17 juice maps, they're going to die instantly. If you do Uber bosses, they might live, but they're probably gonna die. Therefore, the best mercenary builds will focus on maximizing defensive gear and leveraging their unique ability to equip a full set of equipment, including armor and jewelry.
How To Make Mercenaries Survive in Path of Exile 3.26?
Testing and theorycrafting reveal that mercenaries, much like Animate Guardians with zero minion investment, can be made surprisingly tanky with the right items. One successful setup included Doppelganger's Guise, which provides significant physical and chaos damage reduction and life recovery on hit. They take 40% less fizz and chaos on a max roll, and then every time they get hit, they recover 10% life over one second.
Other crucial defensive gear pieces include gloves with life regeneration and dual resistances, and a life gain on block shield for massive on-hit recovery. The importance of block and recovery can't be understated: the life gain on block combo with the new increased block prefixes on shield is such an insane recovery that this thing will never die like ever.
A recently changed unique Relic now grants corrupt blood immunity and movement speed, making it a prime mercenary pick for the endurance charge bonus and extra mitigation. For hard content, the consensus is clear: If you have something in your build that doesn't survive in hard content, it's useless... It only matters for hard content.
Best Gear for Mercenaries: Weapons, Jewelry, and More
Mercenaries can equip a wide variety of gear, opening up unprecedented support possibilities. We can run things like rings on them. We can run things like amulets on them, and that opens us up to way more support options. This allows for builds that stack auras, blasphemy setups, war cries, and other utilities.
Best Weapons for Mercenary
Kingmaker (Despot Axe) - Kingmaker is considered the most sought-after weapon: nearby allies have 30% increased item rarity, culling strike, 10 fortification, and 50% critical strike multiplier. These stats make it the gold standard for both Animate Guardians and mercenaries, albeit at a high price.
Dying Breath (Iron Staff) - Dying Breath is a strong budget choice: nearby enemies have 18% increased effect of curses on them. Nearby allies gain 18% increased damage and 18% increased effect of non-curse auras.
Sign of the Sin Eater (Tyrant's Sekhem) - Sign of the Sin Eater offers unique utility: enemies inflict elemental ailments on you instead of nearby allies, potentially making the player ailment-immune when near the mercenary.
Soulwrest (Ezomyte Staff) - Soulwrest enables regeneration: if you consumed a corpse recently, you and nearby allies regain 5% of life per second. This can be significant for sustain, especially in corpse-heavy scenarios.
Best Shields for Mercenary
Victario's Charity (Laminated Kite Shield) - 10% chance to grant power charges to nearby allies on kill and 5% chance to grant frenzy charges to nearby allies on hit.
Brinerot Flag (Trarnished Spirit Shield) - Warcries grant arcane surge to you and allies with 10% increased effect per five power up to 50%. This is especially promising for caster builds given the recent arcane surge buffs.
Best Helmets for Mercenary
Leer Cast (Festival Mask) - You and nearby allies gain 50% increased damage. Cheap and highly effective for early to mid-game.
Crown of the Tyrant (Magistrate Crown) - Grants base added damage per colored socket. A huge base damage increase in whatever skill you're going to be using.
Mask of the Tribunal (Magistrate Crown) - Offers scaling based on strength, dexterity, and intelligence, providing block, crit, or cast speed to nearby allies.
Best Body Armor for Mercenary
Garb of the Ephemeral (Savant's Robe) - The best-in-slot chest for support: nearby allies' action speed cannot be modified to below base value, and nearby enemies cannot deal critical strikes.
Kaom's Heart or Doppelganger's Guise can be used for pure survivability, depending on your build's needs.
The Saqawal's Nest (Blood Raiment, if aspect mechanics are available) - grants Avian's Might and Avian's Flight to nearby allies, boosting damage and speed.
Best Jewelry for Mercenary
Anathema (Ring) - Makes your curse limit be equal to your maximum number of power charges, enabling up to three curses from your mercenary.
Kaom's Binding (Belt) - Nearby enemies convert some of their physical damage to fire, stacking with certain ascendancies for significant mitigation.
Belt of the Deceiver - Providing an intimidating aura, making enemies take increased attack damage.
Perquil's Toe (Gold Amulet) - Nearby allies' damage with hits is lucky, great for builds with wide damage ranges.
Sharper's Seed (Agate Amulet) - Nearby allies gain 4% of life regeneration per second, and they also gain 80% increased mana regeneration rate.
Eternal Damnation and The Untouched Soul (Amulets) - Both offer substantial elemental and chaos mitigation if their conditions are met.
Other Notable Options
Xoph's Heart (Amulet): Makes nearby enemies be covered in ash making them slower and making them take 20% increased fire damage.
Polaric Devastation (Ring): Provides covered in ash (fire) or covered in frost (cold) based on slot and mercenary's abilities.
Call of the Void (Ring): Makes it so all of the mercenary's damage can chill and makes enemies that are chilled by the mercenary shatter when dying.
Winterweave (Ring): All the damage that they take from hits will chill them, further reducing incoming damage.
Obliteration (Wand): Enemies you kill have a chance to explode for 25% of their maximum life as chaos damage, especially good for clear speed when paired with Gravebind.
PoE 3.26 Best Mercenary Builds - Gear Sets
Here, we want to share our four merc builds for defensive, offensive, magic find, and budget setups:
Best Tank Gear Set for Merenary
We honestly believe that it will be harder for your mercenary to survive like Uber content in the game, like Tier 17 content, or, for example, Uber bosses. So with such a setup, we believe that adding some items to make sure that your merc is going to survive is pretty important. Otherwise, you're going to lose it, and you will need to follow the whole map without your merc.
Tanking Weapon / Shield Slots
Sign of the Sin Eater: Helps protect the player by causing enemies to inflict elemental ailments on you instead of your mercenary. It's useful for avoiding chill, shock, and similar effects.
Killa Lava Blaster: Offers a 35% chance for elemental resistances to count as being 90% against hits, chance to avoid ailments, and block chance.
Alternative Shield: A shaper-influenced shield with life recovery on block and added block chance is also viable, though more expensive.
Tanking Helmet Slot
Wul's Vision: Grants 10% increased max life and regenerates a percentage of life per second if no equipped items are corrupted. This greatly boosts survivability.
Tanking Body Armour Slot
Doppelganger Guise: Reduces physical and chaos damage while sane and regenerates life when hit.
Gruthkul’s Pelt: Offers high life regeneration and maximum life, though it disables spells. Compatibility with mercenaries is uncertain but potentially strong.
Tanking Gloves
Asenath’s Gentle Touch: Causes enemies killed near cursed corpses to explode and applies Temporal Chains and Blind. Great for crowd control and survivability.
Tanking Boots
Ralakesh’s Impatience: Grants maximum endurance charges, which are otherwise difficult to obtain for mercenaries. Strongly recommended.
Tanking Jewellery
Amulet – Shaper’s Seed: Regenerates 4% of life per second, stacking well with other regen sources like Wul's Vision and Doppelganger Guise.
Ring – Call of the Void: Allows all damage to chill, slowing enemies even more when combined with Temporal Chains.
Second Ring: A rare ring with high resistances, ideally on a Vermillion base for added life.
Belt – Pyre: Converts 25% of nearby enemies' physical damage to fire. Adds armor and mitigates physical damage when paired with the Doppelganger Guise.
Best DPS Set (Bonus Damage to You) for Mercenary
Weapons
Kingmaker: Offers massive bonuses if your mercenary can equip it. Highly recommended.
Dark Seer: Provides global blind chance and malediction, enhancing both offense and defense.
Helmet
Crown of the Tyrant: Reduces nearby enemy resistances and grants additional damage based on socket color. Extremely powerful for elemental builds.
Armour
Doppelganger Guise: Still effective even in DPS builds due to its survivability.
Gruthkul’s Pelt: An alternative if spell disabling isn’t an issue.
Gloves
Rare Gloves: Look for implicits like exposure and attack speed. Pairing with Crown of the Tyrant can achieve -25% resistances.
Boots
Legacy of Fury: Scorches nearby enemies, reducing their resistances further. Perfect synergy with other resistance-reducing gear.
Jewellery
Amulet – Perquil’s Toe: Best in slot for lightning damage; decent for other elements too. Common drop, so expected to be affordable.
Ring – Call of the Void: Not purely offensive but reduces enemy damage through chill.
Second Ring: Ideally provides Aspect of the Spider and resistances to help cap mercenary defenses.
Belt – Kaom’s Binding or Rare Belt: Kaom’s offers survivability; rare belts can provide Intimidate implicit and other bonuses.
Best Magic Find Set for Mercenary
Gravebind (Hydroscale Gauntlets): Causes enemies killed near the mercenary to count as being killed by you, improving MF effectiveness.
Magic Find Gear: Equip as much rarity gear as possible (amulet, rings, etc.).
Survivability Core: Combine with defensive items like Doppelganger Guise or Ralakesh’s Impatience to ensure the mercenary can stay alive while aiding MF.
Best Cheap Mercenary Gear Set
This section predicts the most affordable items early in the league that still provide solid performance:
Sign of the Sin Eater: Always inexpensive and offers strong utility.
Killa Lava Blaster: Basic but effective defensive shield likely to remain cheap.
Wul's Vision: Excellent value for life regeneration, expected to be low-cost.
Gruthkul’s Pelt: Less popular, hence more affordable.
Rare Gloves: Easy to craft with Exarch/Eater implicits.
Ralakesh’s Impatience: Might be cheap due to nerfs and lower popularity.
Shaper’s Seed: May not be immediately available but should drop in price quickly.
Kikazaru + Rare Ring: Kikazaru for curse resistance and a rare for resistances makes a strong budget combo.
Pyre Shock Belt: Offers evasion, life, and physical-to-fire conversion at a low cost.
PoE 3.26 Build Strategies and Considerations
Survivability First: The consensus is that the secret to all these is just to have a core defensive package that can actually live the content and then use like three to five of these things that are OP just standalone.
Avoid Over-Stacking Utility: We think most people are going to make the mistake of going all in on utility and not actually get any defense, so it can live in hard content.
Synergize with Build: The mercenary's gear should complement your main character, whether by boosting auras, applying curses, or providing defensive utility.
Experiment and Adapt: We don't know exactly what their baseline tankiness is, so we'll have to see. We are pretty confident this is the best way to build them.
Mercenaries in Path of Exile 3.26 are poised to become a staple of powerful builds, offering unprecedented flexibility and utility through customized gear setups. The best mercenary builds will prioritize survivability through defensive items like Doppelganger's Guise and life gain on block shields, while leveraging powerful support gear such as Kingmaker, Garb of the Ephemeral, and Perquil's Toe for massive offensive and defensive bonuses.
With so many possibilities for weapons, armor, and jewelry, the true potential of mercenaries will only be revealed as players experiment throughout the league. One thing we do know is the mercenaries are going to be hella fun, and they're going to be a source of grief for GGG for some time because seriously once they put them in, it's going to be very hard to take them out.
Stay tuned for more updates as the league unfolds, and remember: synergy, survivability, and smart gear choices are the keys to building the best mercenary in PoE 3.26!
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