Mercenary Guide

Overview
Mercenaries are NPCs for hire. When you hire or summon a mercenary it takes up a group slot and has a monetary fee. In order to hire a mercenary, you must either:
 * Own the Age of Discovery expansion (having purchased when it was a new release).
 * or


 * Own the Kunark Ascending expansion, which also allows the mercenaries to be trained and equipped with stat gear.
 * or


 * Unlock Feature: Mercenaries via the Marketplace at a cost of 1500DC.

Hiring Mercenaries
To hire a mercenary the first time you will have to meet him/her/it at the locations listed in the tables below.

When you want to hire a Merc keep in mind that some are ...
 * always at a default location
 * always at a default location, but need an item obtained in order to see them
 * spawning at several possible locations and times in a zone

You can see your hired mercenaries in your Character (persona) window by pressing C and clicking on the Mercenary Tab
 * Only one mercenary can be active at the time. Most of the mercenaries are shown as "Restricted" or locked in the persona window, which means you have to travel back to the mercenary's hire location to meet the merc to re-hire.
 * It is possible to unlock a mercenary, which allows you to summon him/her/it anywhere in Norrath for 150 DBC.

Related changes/notes to merc
 * Mercenaries don't have any initial hiring fees
 * Mercenaries don't steal experience for kills
 * Mercenaries don't take a split of the coin in a group

Gear and Training
If you have the Expansion Kunark Ascending you can equip gear on your mercenary and you can train them. In order to do this you need to get out the mercenary you want to train or equip with gear and then press the big blue square symbol next to your active mercenaries name.
 * You can then switch between the appearance gear and the stat gear/training screen with the 2 buttons on the top.

Gear

 * This is gear purely for stats and has no appearance. Some mercenaries can additionally wear appearance gear ( i.e. weapons) even without Kunark Ascending Expansion
 * Mercenaries can get a bit more dps and survive longer with better gear. The "Merc Gear" has the tag "MERC-ONLY" on them or use the accolade slot.
 * Note that mercenaries can also wear regular armor in the available slots, not just that flagged for mercs. Mercs can wear as many relics as desired.
 * Merc armor also has an effect on unlisted stats such as casting speed and recast. The effect is seen in the spell tooltips.
 * White, purple, etc. runes don't seem to work for mercs.
 * Gear slots by Merc level:
 * Head, Chest, 2 Accolades
 * Forearms
 * +1 Accolade
 * Shoulders
 * +1 Accolade
 * Hands
 * +1 Accolade
 * Legs
 * +1 Accolade
 * Feet, +1 Accolade
 * +1 Accolade every 2 levels, i.e., Level 12, 14, 16, 18, 20

Training

 * Training of a mercenary can be done passively. Take out the merc you want to train, tell him to train and call him again after X days.
 * Level 1 -> Level 2: 3 Days
 * Level 2 -> Level 3: 5 Days
 * Level 3 -> Level 4: 7 Days
 * Level 4 -> Level 5: 9 Days
 * Level 5 -> Level 6: 11 Days
 * Level 6 -> Level 7: 13 Days
 * Level 7 -> Level 8: 15 Days
 * Level 8 -> Level 9: 17 Days
 * Level 9 -> Level 10: 19 Days
 * Level 10 -> Level 11: 21 Days (* this was changed to 10days more info coming on updated numbers)
 * Level 11 -> Level 12: 23 Days
 * Level 12 -> Level 13: 25 Days
 * Level 13 -> Level 14: 27 Days
 * Level 14 -> Level 15: 29 Days
 * Level 15 -> Level 16: 31 Days
 * Level 16 -> Level 17: 33 Days
 * Level 17 -> Level 18: 35 Days
 * Level 18 -> Level 19: 37 Days
 * Level 19 -> Level 20: 39 Days


 * With the Kunark Ascending Expansion, it is possible to train a mercenary to a maximum level of 5, which takes 24 days per mercenary.
 * With the Planes of Power Expansion, it is possible to train a mercenary to a maximum level of 10, which takes 99 days per mercenary.
 * With the Chaos Descending Expansion, it is possible to train a mercenary to a maximum level of 20, which takes 399 days per mercenary.

Upkeep
The mercenary will charge you an upkeep fee every 30 minutes, this amount is increased as you level up.

For example, the level 90 upkeep fee is or  per 30 minutes or on a respawn, after the mercenary is killed, depending on if the mercenary is standard or not.

Once you dismiss the mercenary you must also pay the upkeep fee to bring them back or use the Marketplace to buy a "Hire Anywhere" unlock for the mercenary. This feature unlock is accessed from the Mercenary tab of the Character window. Open the tab and click the Hire Anywhere button (looks like a green +) next to the name of mercenaries you previously "met" out in the world and hired.

Note: Special mercenaries may require a higher salary than shown in this table.

Mechanics
There are many mercenaries to chose from. Healers and dirges have a chance of actually rezzing you! No need to guess, their icons show their archetype, and hailing them will tell you their class. Available types are Tanks, Healers, Melee DPS, Caster DPS, and Support mercenaries.

You can manage your mercenary's appearance clothing via your persona window. Add any armor you want to your mercenary to display, but remember that they will get no additional benefit from it. It's akin to equipping a mannequin; the armor will remain with you.

The suspend timer is 1 minute. If you suspend your mercenary, you'll have to wait 1 minute to use /resume to bring them back. When a mercenary dies, s/he becomes suspended. You can resume him/her from the mercenary window in your Persona window, or you can type /merc resume. Each time you resume your mercenary, you will pay the upkeep.

Right clicking on a Ranger Mercenary will allow you to use the tracking skill.

There are 3 additional options for mercs (compared to pets)
 * Follow: the mercenary will follow the selected character in the group.
 * Protect: the mercenary will attack anything that attacked the selected character as well as healing/curing that character.
 * Assist: the mercenary will attack the target that the selected character is attacking.

Examples:
 * A healer merc: follow the healer character in the group, assist "None", and protect the tank.
 * DPS merc: Follow the dps, assist the tank, protect "none".
 * Tank merc (with a solo char): follow, assist and protect the character. If you don't want to take the first hit, send the merc in before you attack the target.

Mercenary Confidence
Mercenaries have a Confidence mechanic. Mercenaries will fight for you, but the pay isn’t necessarily worth dying for! If too many (or too powerful) enemies are hitting your hired mercenary, the mercenary will cower and lose much effectiveness until the situation changes.

Tank mercenaries have a higher Confidence than non-fighter mercenaries.

Although mercenaries who have lost Confidence appear to stop all other actions and just stand there cowering, in actuality they don’t stop fighting, healing, or curing. Instead their effectiveness is reduced, with Potency being most affected.

Slash Commands

 * /merc ranged
 * /merc melee
 * /mercname
 * /merc attack
 * /merc backoff
 * /merc preserve_self
 * /merc preserve_master
 * /merc suspend
 * /merc resume (unsuspends the mercenary)
 * /cl_ignore_merc_chatter {true/false}
 * /togglemerc (Toggles the display of the Mercenary information and command UI window)

How to Obtain
If you see one mercenary hanging around, there's likely more nearby. It is possible to sneak into other cities and hire their mercenaries. Once you have hired "foreign" mercenaries, they will appear also in your alignment's Mercenary Den.

These semi-instances are located in Qeynos (Basement of Fish's Alehouse and Inn, Qeynos Harbor) and Freeport (Seafarer's Roost in East Freeport, ).

Mercenary Statistics
See the Mercenary Stat Comparisons page.

Credits
