Mercenary Guide


 * See the Mercenaries page for a list of available mercenaries and the basic info on obtaining them.

Overview
Mercenaries (a.k.a "mercs") are NPCs for hire. When you hire or summon a mercenary it takes up a group slot and you must "pay" them with in-game currency (gold, plat etc.) every 30 minutes they aid you. In order to hire a mercenary meet at least one of the following conditions:
 * Own the Age of Discovery expansion (having purchased when it was a new release).
 * Own the Kunark Ascending expansion, which also allows the mercenaries to be trained and equipped with stat gear.
 * Unlock Feature: Mercenaries via the Marketplace at a cost of 1500DC.

Picking a Mercenary
New or returning players often ask which mercenary is "the best". The short answer is that depends on several factors, like your character's abilities, the intended use, and your play style. For example, a lower level shadowknight working on solo quests will have very different needs than a max-level fury joining guild mates for a difficult dungeon.

Stop by the Tips, Tricks, Faq and New Player Discussion official forum for suggestions, but understand it may also come down to personal preference in the end. It can help to start by hiring some of the easy-to obtain mercenaries (covered later) to get a feel for how they operate first.

Mercenaries have been added to the game since they were introduced. They have been given as a perk for buying specific game expansions, made available in-game and through the Marketplace in "seasons". There are many options to chose from and may ways to obtain them which is explained below.

Paying Upkeep
Before jumping into how to find and hire mercenaries, understand that they have a nominal in-game currency to maintain while they are active, and to rehire. The cost suspends if you dismiss them and if a player is inactive for a period of time, the mercenary must be rehired.
 * See the official update notes for the above changes.

Typical upkeep is shown in the table. Some special mercenaries may have a higher upkeep or this mechanic may change.

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.

The option to "hire anywhere" after you've located the hard-to-find mercenaries that roam will save you from traveling to hire them again later.

Hiring Mercenaries
To hire a mercenary the first time you will have to meet him/her/it at the locations listed on the Mercenaries page. When you want to hire a Merc keep in mind that some are: Because there are so many ways to obtain various types of mercenaries, see the Obtain section near the end of this article. If you are looking for more detailed location information and less explanation, see the Mercenaries page.
 * Only one mercenary can be active at the time.
 * always at a default location
 * always at a default location, but need an item obtained in order to see them
 * spawn at several possible locations and times in a zone

Seeing Stats and Rehire
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.
 * On occasion, yu will see the "Restricted" flag but can still
 * 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 your mercenary. To do this you need to summon the mercenary you want to train. If the mercenary is already summoned, 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 also wear appearance gear (e.g. weapons) even without Kunark Ascending Expansion. Gear slots by Merc level:
 * 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.
 * Mercenary 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.
 * 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 enough time has passed. The days listed in the table indicate the time it takes for each level gain.
 * 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.

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.

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.

Tips for Specific Mechanics
Right clicking on a Ranger Mercenary will allow you to use the tracking skill.

You can give your mercenary commands using their ability. 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
There are essential three ways to obtain mercenaries.
 * By happening upon one standing around. If you see one mercenary hanging around, there's likely more nearby.
 * By looting a contract for an enemy, most often in difficult dungeons or raid zones
 * By purchasing contracts from the Marketplace and visiting Rogues Gallery

Tips for Obtaining
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, ).

Orignal Mercenaries
The original mercenaries are the easiest to obtain and maintain.

Elite Mercenaries
Elite mercenaries are rare and more powerful. The elite mercenaries roam the world until hired, after which that mercenary will despawn for a while from the world, so there will be gaps between players being able to find them.

Elite mercenaries are more expensive than normal mercenaries. They cost upkeep every 30 minutes (at level 90-95). All their spells are mastered, and they do not return to start locations like the rest of the normal mercenaries when dismissed.

The re-summon timer for elite mercenaries used to be 5 minutes, but this was changed to 1 minute with the December 17, 2013 patch.

Reported locations for the various elite mercenaries below will be found on their individual pages.

Unlockable Mercenaries
These mercenaries can be unlocked by finding their contract as a drop in certain zones/expansions.

Skyshrine
The Ancient Mercenaries have bonuses when used within Skyshrine. To hire an Ancient Mercenary, you must be able to go to Skyshrine: The Forbidden City of Dracur via the portal in Skyshrine at (10,000 Claws of Veeshan faction required).

Note: In order to speak/hire them it requires you to have completed To Speak as a Dragon quest.

In order to get the key that will unlock the mercenaries, you need to defeat Dozekar in the quest Revelations in the Temple. This is the final quest in a series that begins in Skyshrine: The City of Dracur. Speak to  to begin the quest. After you kill Dozekar, turn in your quest to receive the key. Return to the starting zone in Skyshrine and use the portal to Skyshrine: The Forbidden City of Dracur (-29.59, -0.41, -7.17). In one of three zones there you will find and be able to unlock your mercenary.

Ancient Mercenaries cost upkeep every 30 minutes (at level 90).

Live Event Mercenaries
These Mercenaries are only available for initial hire during the respective Live Events. For example, you can hire Gigglegibber Thief only during Bristlebane Day or Tik-Tank Mk III only during Tinkerfest. See the Mercenaries page for a list of mercs available during events.

Mercenary Statistics
See the Mercenary Stat Comparisons page.

Credits
