Mercenary Galvanic Shards Leveling Build

Build Introduction

The Load Galvanic Shards Mercenary Leveling Build delivers a smooth, high-tempo leveling experience through the campaign. It focuses on ranged precision, reload-speed scaling, and artillery support to lock enemies in place while you spray lightning-infused bolts.

You’ll begin by using Basic Bolt (no ammo loaded) for the first few levels — it’s faster and stronger than early skills like Incendiary Shot or Permafrost.

Once you unlock your first active abilities, transition into Load Armour Piercing Rounds with Explosive Grenade for Act 1, then move into Artillery Ballista and Load Galvanic Shards for Acts 2 and 3.

The build emphasizes pinning, burst damage, and synergy between reload speed and elemental conversion. It’s simple to gear, budget-friendly, and perfectly suited for fresh characters or league starters.

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Strengths and Weaknesses

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Ascendancy

Select your first Ascendancy after completing the Trial of the Sekhemas in Act 2. The trial is not difficult, so complete it within the level range of 20-30. During the early access of Path of Exile 2, the Mercenary can ascend into the Tactician, Witchhunter, or Gemling Legionnaire. You can reroll your ascendency at anytime now by rerunning a trial at the same level you’ve already completed.

Tactician

Trial 1: Suppressing Fire – 40% immobilization buildup.

Trial 2: Right Where We Want Them – Pinned enemies cannot perform actions and projectile damage builds pin. This is huge for the Tactician as this means all of your damage now pins enemies providing you with 4 seconds to blast them while they cannot move or attack you. And yes, it will even cancel bosses out of their attack animations rendering them helpless.

Witchhunter

Trial 1: Zealous Inquisition – 10% chance for enemies you kill to explode, dealing 100% of their maximum life as physical damage. This is great for leveling, but feel free to respec later if you’d rather run Decimating Strike or Sorcery Ward in endgame.
Trial 2: Pitiless Killer – Adds Culling to everything you do, removing the bottom 20% of health from normal mobs, 10% for elites, and 5% for unique bosses.

Gemling Legionnaire

Trial 1 and 2: Gemling allows you to really customize your build depending on which skills you will be using in the endgame. We advise to just use whatever is best for your build.

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General Leveling Advice

Path of Exile 2’s campaign rewards constant gear progression. Prioritize physical/elemental damage and attack speed early, then life and resistances by mid-game. The most important thing by far in the early campaign is to CHECK VENDORS FOR GOOD EARLY GEAR. Use your random gear rolls every time you reach a new act. Your crossbow is the first thing you want to upgrade upon reaching a new act. The higher you can scale the physical damage, attack speed, and +projectiles, the better off you will be. This is because every crossbow skill converts 70-100% of physical damage into its corresponding element.

I personally like full evasion gear on my Mercenary. The new deflection makes a huge difference. If you want to run armour, remember that there are movement penalties, however having armour apply to elemental damage also makes a huge difference in survivability. There really aren’t any Uniques that will help for the campaign.

Look for the following gear from vendors:

1. Crossbows with flat physical damage and added lightning/fire/cold damage.
   – + to level of projectile skills
   – # increased attack speed
2. Any amulet with + to level of projectile skills.
3. Boots with #% increased movement speed + resistances.
4. Any gear with maximum life, resistances, evasion.
5. Gloves with physical or elemental damage to attacks.

Regal Orbs or Orbs of Augmentation can be used on these items that you find as magic. If you can’t find pieces from 1 or 2, buy them off the trade site using Exalted Orbs.

Vendor bad magic or rare items you don’t need for gold, or disenchant anything besides white items with sockets if you’d like.

Try to maintain a level of 3-5 levels below the zone level you are currently in. If you get to a level 35 zone and still have a level 12 pair of boots, you need to upgrade ASAP.

Runes

Socket Runes into your gear to help bring your missing resistances to the base cap of 75%.

You can Salvage gear you would otherwise vendor that has sockets at the Salvage Bench to obtain Artificer’s Orbs to put extra sockets on your gear.

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Leveling Passive Tree

The Passive Tree below can be followed through the entire campaign. Beyond that point, you should swap to an endgame set up. If you would like to continue this build, here is the endgame version. Follow along as you level using the arrows on the left and the right of the progression slider at the top of the Passive Tree.

Skill Gems

Listed below are all Skill Gems that should be using during the leveling process. There may be slight variation depending on which Act you’re currently progressing. Notes for each Act will be listed below the Skill Gem tool.

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Act 1 Notes

Main Skills:

• Basic Bolt (No Skill Loaded) – Use this for the first few levels; it’s stronger than early ammo types.
• Load Armour Piercing Rounds – Your first major damage skill.
  • Supports: Armour Explosion, Rapid Attacks I
• Load High Velocity Rounds – Shoot when armour is broken.
  • Supports: Brutality I, Maim
• Explosive Grenade – Great for bosses and big damage.
  • Supports: Multishot I, Magnified Area I, Cooldown Recovery I
• Herald of Ash – When you get your first 30 Spirit from Freythorn. Adds fire damage and enhances overkill clear.

Gameplay Tips:
Break armor first with Load Armour Piercing Rounds, then switch to Load High Velocity Rounds once available for the 5% hit bonus on armour-broken targets. Always keep grenades handy for rares and bosses.

Skill Rotation for Bosses:

1. Empty your Explosive Grenades.
2. Shoot Load Armour Piercing Rounds until their armour breaks.
3. Switch to Load High Velocity Rounds to get big damage against fully broken armour, then repeat all steps.

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Act 2 Notes

Key Upgrades:

• Artillery Ballista
  • Supports: Overabundance I, Rapid Attacks I, Urgent Totems I
• Load Galvanic Shards – Galvanic got nerfed pretty hard. Don’t switch to this for clearing areas until you have the 70% reload speed on the tree and it “feels good.”
  • Supports: Double Barrel I, Innervate, Shock, Elemental Armament I

Gameplay Tips:
Ballistas will begin doing serious work this act. Drop them everywhere and focus on positioning.
The combination of Galvanic Shards + Ballista pins enemies while you shred them safely from range. You will want to focus on using the Act 1 rotation until Galvanic Shards damage feels ok enough to use, especially for bosses.

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Act 3 Notes

Not much changes here. Use the same rotations and improve your gear.

Once you take down Ignagduk (The Azak Bog, Act 3) you will receive 30 more Spirit. You will put on Herald of Thunder which will synergize with Load Galvanic Shards and make your clear speed pretty insane.

Continue the main questline until you reach the Temple of Chaos and complete its trial for 2 additional Ascendancy points.

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Act 4 Notes

Act 4 marks the transition into late-campaign power and prepares you for endgame mapping. By this point your Load Galvanic Shards core setup is fully online. You’ll want to add in Load Shockburst Rounds for bosses when they get shocked. The damage when you first unlock Load Shockburst Rounds is laughable… Prioritize 3 support gems slots on Load Galvanic Shards and make sure Innervate is active since this gives you huge damage while clearing. Use your first Greater and Perfect Jeweler’s Orb on Load Shockburst Rounds since you need 4-5 supports to really scale it’s damage.

• Load Shockburst Rounds – Swap to this after applying Shock for heavy burst windows.
  • Supports: Rapid Attacks II, Concentrated Area, Fresh Clip II, Lightning Attunement
  • Avoid Level 3 Rapid Attacks III for now; the damage penalty outweighs the speed gain.
• Emergency Reload – Pop this when using Load Shockburst Rounds for +25% damage.

Rotation

For Bosses and tanky rares:

1. Drop your Artillery Ballistas and then Load Galvanic Shards to shock.
2. Load Shockburst Rounds while boss is shocked.
3. Emergency Reload halfway through Load Shockburst Rounds for big damage.
4. Fire your Explosive Grenades if needed.

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Interlude 1-3 Notes

At this point you’ll cruise through these interludes. Expect to:

• Adjust Support Gem levels (many Level 3 variants change drastically).
• Re-evaluate your passive layout if needed.
• Add Wind Dancer when you get your last 40 spirit points.

Despite running with only ~8 % evasion and minimal armour during testing, the build remained durable through proper pin control and smart positioning. Once gear improves, survivability scales sharply.

From here, shift into your personal endgame tree and map farming setup.

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Campaign Buffs

During the campaign you can activate additional bonuses for your character. These are what we recommend but will also depend on your build.

• Valley of the Titans Altar (Act 2) – 30% increased charm charges gained.
• Venom Draught (Act 3) – 25% increased Stun Threshold.
• Halls of the Dead (Act 4) – 5% Fire/Cold/Lightning Resistance.
• Abandoned Prison (Act 4) – 30% increased life recovery from flasks.
• Qimah (Interlude 2) – +5% Elemental Resistances.

For more details, check the guide on Campaign Difficulties and Permanent Stat Bonuses.

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Flasks and Charms

While leveling you will find several flasks and Charms. Upgrade your flasks as you go along and if you fail to find flask upgrades check vendors to buy them with gold.

Modifiers to look for on your flasks and charms:

• Health and Mana Flasks
  • Prefix: Increased Amount Recovered
  • Suffix: # Charges gained per second
• Charm: Stone, Thawing, or Poison Resistance Charm.

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Changelog

• October 11th
  • Guide added for Patch 0.3