Galvanic Shards Mercenary Leveling Build

Build Introduction

The Galvanic Shards Mercenary Leveling Build is one of the strongest, smoothest, and safest league starters for Path of Exile 2. It delivers fast early-game clear, exceptional boss burst, and a reliable playstyle built around pinning enemies while detonating massive elemental damage.

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 Shot or Permafrost Bolts.

Once you unlock your first active abilities, transition into Armour Piercing Rounds with Explosive Grenade for Act 1. As soon as Galvanic Shards becomes available at the end of Act 1, swap immediately; its chaining and range give you effortless clear progression. In Act 2, you will use Artillery Ballista for more damage and pin.

The real power spike arrives in Act 3, when you pick up Stormblast Bolts from your first Level 9 skill gem drop. With supports like Concentrated Area and Lightning Attunement, Stormblast Bolts let you instantly delete bosses by pinning them with Artillery Ballista, firing your bolts, and detonating with a grenade. Rare monsters and story bosses evaporate in a single burst.

They added an anti-burst mechanic for a few seconds when a boss spawns. Because of this new mechanic, we now need to wait 4-5 seconds before detonating our Stormblast Bolts. You can still detonate them immediately if you want, pin the boss and give yourself a free 4 seconds to place more and detonate again. Completely up to you on how you want to play it.

To boost both speed and damage, you’ll recruit a Haste Aura Boar Companion: Boar in Act 3, then quickly grab the nodes on the skill tree that will give you an increased 77% damage with an ally — a huge boost with zero gear dependency.

Throughout the campaign, you’ll maintain strong clear with Galvanic Shards, use Stormblast Bolts for elite and boss bursts, and unlock Mortar Cannon later for even stronger detonations. The build requires no uniques, no crafting, and no currency to function.

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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.
• Armour Piercing Rounds – Your first major damage skill.
  • Supports: Armour Explosion, Rapid Attacks I
• 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.
• Galvanic Shards – As soon as Galvanic becomes available near the end of Act 1, switch immediately — it becomes your main clearing skill.
  • Supports: Double Barrel I, Innervate

Gameplay Tips:
Break armor first with Armour Piercing Rounds, then switch to High Velocity Rounds once available for the 5% hit bonus on armour-broken targets. Use Explosive Grenade on tough rares and bosses — it hits extremely hard early on. The moment Galvanic Shards unlocks at the end of Act 1, start using it for clearing. If you’ve found a second Spirit gem, swap Herald of Ash for Herald of Thunder when you equip Galvanic Shards — Herald of Thunder scales your lightning clear far better.

Skill Rotation for Bosses:

1. Empty your Explosive Grenades.
2. Shoot Armour Piercing Rounds until their armour breaks.
3. Switch to 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
• Galvanic Shards
  • Supports: Double Barrel I, Innervate, Elemental Armament I

Gameplay Tips:
Artillery Ballista will begin doing serious work this act. Drop them everywhere and focus on positioning.
The combination of Galvanic Shards + Artillery Ballista pins enemies while you shred them safely from range. You will want to focus on using the Act 1 rotation on bosses.

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Act 3 Notes

Act 3 is where this leveling build takes off. As soon as you enter the first Act 3 zone, your first Level 9 Skill Gem will drop — this is when you immediately swap your bossing setup to:

• Stormblast Bolts
  • Supports: Concentrated Area, Lightning Attunement

Stormblast Bolts is your boss killer from this point forward. It outclasses everything else you’ve used so far.

Explosive Grenade Setup Update:

• Put Short Fuse I on Support Slot 3 of your Grenade.

This guarantees fast detonations so your Stormblast Bolts explode immediately.

Skill Rotation for Bosses:

1. If the boss has a delayed spawn, begin firing Stormblast Bolts directly on the spawn point to stack charges early (Max 30 Bolts which is 2 full clips).
2. Place both Artillery Ballista totems right before the boss appears. They will instantly pin the boss on first contact.
3. Keep shooting Stormblast Bolts until you see the boss become immobilized (pinned).
4. Throw your Explosive Grenade. This will detonate all fired Stormblast Bolts at once.
5. Most Act 3 bosses will be one-shot with this rotation, even on a fresh league start.

Once You Unlock Mortar Cannon (Level ~41 in Sun Temple), replace Artillery Ballista for bossing with Mortar Cannon, but keep Artillery Ballista for mapping. Mortar Cannon fires the Explosive Grenade for you, automatically detonating all your pre-placed Stormblast Bolts. This allows you to Stand still and spam Stormblast Bolts while Mortar Cannon auto-detonates everything.

Once you unlock Emergency Reload, the rotation gains another burst layer. Do NOT use Emergency Reload before preloading your Stormblast Bolts — doing so will overwrite the buff since once you hit 30 bolts in the ground it starts to overwrite them if you keep firing. Use it right after you place your Mortar Cannon and just before the boss spawns. This ensures the next 5 Stormblast Bolts fired have the massive damage bonus.

Final Bossing Rotation With Emergency Reload:

1. Preload 15+ Stormblast Bolts at the boss spawn point.
2. Drop Mortar Cannon totems.
3. Pop Emergency Reload.
4. Fire 5 boosted Stormblast Bolts directly on the bosses spawn point.
5. Mortar Cannon automatically detonates everything.
6. Boss is instantly erased.

Once you take down Ignagduk (The Azak Bog, Act 3) you will receive 30 more Spirit, which lets you finally activate your Companion. Head to the Infested Barrens (Act 3) and look for the small Boar + Antlion Rare Monster camp near a checkpoint. Kill the Antlion, leave the Boar alive, reset to nearest checkpoint (via pause menu), and repeat until you find one with Haste Aura — that’s the only mod you need on it for leveling. Haste Aura gives you +20% Skill Speed and +10% Movement Speed, which is a huge boost to both damage and overall flow of the build. Use Tame Beast to place the capture glyph under the Boar, kill it, and you’ll secure your companion. After capturing the Boar, enable him in the skill menu.

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 your final power spike before entering the interludes. By this point, your Stormblast Bolts setup is nearly complete — add Elemental Armament II as your third support and Lightning Penetration as your fourth to greatly boost bossing damage. Artillery Ballista and Galvanic Shards continues handling clears and crowd control. Give Rapid Attacks II to Artillery Ballista here to help it lock enemies down faster while you prepare your burst damage. If you can squeeze in an extra Spirit roll on gear, re-enable Herald of Ash for noticeably smoother mapping. Upgrade Herald of Thunder with Elemental Focus as its third support, and slot Cannibalism I into Herald of Ash if you’re running both and can afford the spirit.

Rotation

For Bosses and tanky rares:

1. Preload 15+ Stormblast Bolts at the boss spawn point.
2. Drop Mortar Cannon totems.
3. Pop Emergency Reload.
4. Fire five boosted Stormblast Bolts directly on the bosses spawn point.
5. Mortar Cannon automatically detonates everything.
6. Boss is instantly erased.

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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 for a solid mix of damage and survivability.

Despite running with only ~18 % 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
• November 29th
  • Changed from Shockburst to Stormblast
• December 11th
  • Updated for 0.4