Mercenaries of Trarthus League Mechanic Guide (PoE Sectrets of the Atlas 3.26)
Introduction
Mercenaries of Trarthus is a league mechanic in which you challenge, recruit, and equip your own Mercenary ally. This Mercenary will then join you as you play Path of Exile, killing enemies for you and granting you additional loot!
Recruiting and equipping a powerful Mercenary in a way that complements your build will help you achieve new levels of power! And then, once you’re all set up, you can focus on killing other Mercenaries for extra loot and craftable items with powerful new exclusive modifiers!
This is a Pre-Launch Guide, as the Mercenaries of Trarthus Challenge League is not yet live. This guide is based on publicly available information about Mercenaries of Trarthus through reveals, teasers, Q&A, developer comments, etc, and will continue to be updated up through – and after – league launch. As such, information in this guide may be inaccurate, or simply changed by GGG prior to launch.
Encountering Mercenaries
Each zone will contain a Trarthan Mercenary NPC. Talking with this NPC will open up a window showing you their equipped items, skills, and contents of their pockets, as well as three options you can choose from: Hire, Take Item, or Exile.
Regardless of which option you pick, you will have to fight the Mercenary. If you win, then you get the outcome of the option you picked. If you lose, the Mercenary will portal away – you do NOT get to attempt the fight a second time.
Hire Mercenary
Hiring the Mercenary costs Gold, and allows you to permanently recruit the Mercenary to fight alongside you throughout Path of Exile.
You’ll want to use this option whenever you find a strong Mercenary that you think is either an upgrade over the Mercenary you’re currently using, and/or has skills that compliment your current build well.
If you already have the maximum of three Mercenaries recruited, you will be unable to Hire new Mercenaries.
Take Item
This option allows you to select a single item the Mercenary has equipped, a Trarthan Gem, or the entire contents of their pockets. If you successfully defeat the Mercenary in combat, they will drop that item for you to take!
Mercenaries have well-rolled rare items equipped, and can have Uniques as well. Infamous Mercenaries can even have Rare items with exclusive modifiers – so check Mercenaries closely, especially early on in progression!
Exile Mercenary
This option allows you to banish the Mercenary, and block any Mercenaries with its Attribute type from appearing for the next 10 zones. Only two Attribute types can be blocked at a time.
It’s currently unclear what uses this option may have – while it can help you hunt for specific Mercenaries to recruit, it may also aid in hunting down specific Items, Uniques or Infamous modifiers.
Group Play
When playing in a party, party members may choose to participate or stay out of Mercenary encounters. For each party member that chooses to participate, the difficulty of the Mercenary encounter will be scaled up.
Party members that participate in defeating a Mercenary have a 50% chance for an additional item to drop for them, which is usually from the Mercenary’s pockets, but can also be any equipped item.
Using Mercenaries
Once recruited, you’ll be able to choose a Mercenary to accompany you throughout Path of Exile. There are no restrictions on where you can take them, and there are no wages that have to be paid. Once you have a Mercenary, they’re yours forever!
Mercenary Party Scaling
Mercenaries count as half a player for the purposes of party scaling. This means that enemies will be slightly stronger – as though you were in a party of 1.5 players. However, they will also drop more loot, once again as though you were in a party of 1.5 players. Assuming the power granted by your Mercenary offsets the difficulty increase, you’ll get additional loot simply by having a Mercenary with you!
Mercenary Death
When a Mercenary dies, it isn’t permanently gone. They will return to town, and Iin order to continue using your Mercenary you’ll have to pay a Gold fee to revive them
Mercenaries that are killed won’t return to the instance in which they died in, regardless of whether or not you revive them – you’re on your own until you get to the next zone or map!
Mercenary Archetypes
Each Mercenary has an Archetype, which influences the Mercenary’s AI behavior, Skills, Supports, Equipped Items, Uniques, and possibly more.
Details on the available Archetypes are currently unknown, but it seems likely that you’ll want to hunt down specific Archetypes – either to Hire yourself, or for specific rewards they may offer.
Mercenary Details
The Mercenary UI offers a lot of details on each Mercenary, and can be accessed by speaking to a Mercenary you encounter in a zone, or by speaking to a Mercenary you’ve recruited in Town.
Level and Attributes
Each Mercenary has both a level, and Attributes they focus on. Unlike players, Mercenaries do not gain levels, and are stuck at the level you recruit them at. The only way to get a higher-level Mercenary is to recruit a better one.
The effect of Attributes is currently unknown, but it likely impacts their equipped items, skill gems, and (hidden) passive skills.
Equipped Items
Mercenaries you encounter will have a full set of gear. If recruited, you are able to replace your Mercenary’s gear with any item you have – gearing them up just as you would gear up your own character.
Any gear you give to your Mercenary can be retrieved later. However, any gear that the Mercenary came with is overwritten – it cannot be returned to the Mercenary once replaced.
It’s currently unknown whether or not there are restrictions on Mercenaries using certain affixes or items – such as whether or not they’ll make use of granted or triggered skills from equipped items.
Equipped Skills
Mercenaries have up to six Skill Gems with linked Supports – just like players!
Unlike equipped items, equipped skills cannot be changed after recruitment – they are fixed and permanent. If you want better skills… you need to find a better Mercenary!
Gilded Supports
Very rarely you can find Mercenaries with Gilded Supports equipped. These support gems are significantly more powerful than regular supports – and it seems they may often grant bonuses to the player in addition to the Mercenary.
Stats Page
Recruited Mercenaries have a detailed Stats page you can pull up, allowing you to see detailed stats. This is important for min-maxing your Mercenaries… as well as making sure their resistances are capped!
Infamous Mercenaries
Rarely, you’ll encounter “Infamous” Mercenaries. These Mercenaries have far better items than usual. In addition, the Rare items equipped by Infamous Mercenaries can have exclusive Infamous Modifiers.
It’s possible that Infamous Mercenaries may also have other bonuses, such as better skills, Uniques, Trarthan or Gilded Supports… but that’s currently unknown.
Special Rewards
In addition to well-rolled items and a Mercenary accompanying you, there are a number of exclusive rewards you can only get from Mercenaries.
Infamous Modifiers
The Rare items from Infamous Mercenaries can have exclusive Infamous Modfiers on them. It’s likely that some of these modifiers will be extremely powerful, and these rare items will valued for crafting or Recombination. So be sure to look through every item on Infamous Mercenaries!
Trarthan Gems
Mercenaries can have Trarthan Gems equipped – these are new variants of existing skills, similar to Transfigured gems. You can select these gems as a reward for defeating a Mercenary the same as equipped items.
Exclusive Unique Items
Mercenaries can also have some new, Unique items equipped, that cannot be obtained from any other sources. Make sure to at least glance over their equipped items for anything interesting!
Conclusion
Be sure to check out the other pages of this guide, covering even more topics related to Mercenaries of Trarthus! This guide will continue to be updated in the future – if you have any feedback, or find something cool you want to share, head on over to the PoE Vault Discord, and let me know!
Good luck, and have fun farming Mercenaries of Trarthus!
