Best PoE 2 Mercenary Build in Early Access

If you're looking for a PoE 2 Mercenary Build that combines devastating damage, visual spectacle, and tactical flexibility, the Gas Grenade Mercenary is the perfect choice. This build revolves around the use of grenades and their powerful combinations, allowing you to wipe out hordes of enemies and efficiently handle bosses. Whether you're progressing through acts or tackling endgame content, this playstyle delivers maximum fun and effectiveness. Let’s dive in and see what makes this build one of the best for the Mercenary in PoE 2!

General Mercenary Gameplay in PoE 2

In Path of Exile 2, the Mercenary is a class for those who enjoy keeping enemies at a distance while dishing out tons of damage. This class focuses on traps, throwable weapons, and efficiently clearing hordes of enemies without putting yourself in harm's way. The Mercenary has everything in their arsenal to eliminate foes effectively: from bows and crossbows to grenades and debuffs. If this playstyle resonates with you, this class is a perfect fit.

• Witchhunter specializes in poisons and stealth. You create toxic clouds, set traps, and watch as enemies melt before your eyes. This style is perfect for those who prefer to play carefully and methodically, controlling the fight while avoiding direct confrontation. It's an ideal option if you want to be highly efficient without taking unnecessary risks.
• Gambling Legionnaire is for those who enjoy an active and unpredictable playstyle. This subclass thrives on luck: random buffs, unexpected crits, occasional health recovery, or massive damage spikes. Sure, sometimes the odds may not be in your favor, but when everything aligns, you absolutely annihilate your enemies. A great choice for those who thrive on chaos and surprises.

Ultimately, the Mercenary is a versatile class for players who enjoy active gameplay and long-range damage. Witchhunter is perfect for those who love poisoning enemies and setting traps, while Gambling Legionnaire caters to those who like playing on the edge, embracing randomness, and obliterating enemies when luck is on their side.

Gas Grenade Mercenary – OP Early Build

Let’s talk about the Path of Exile 2 Mercenary build focused on explosions and massive damage. Currently, this build can be considered the best poe 2 Mercenary build as even after grenade mechanics were nerfed in the latest patch, it has retained its relevance. With this setup, you’ll be able to blow up everything in your path effortlessly, from large packs of monsters to bosses. This build is effective for both act progression and endgame content. Now, let’s dive into the details!

Gas Grenade Mercenary Skills

As you might have guessed from the name, this build is centered around grenades, and here’s what the skills in this build are all about:

It's impossible to highlight just one specific grenade here since they all work in combination. Let’s break it down step by step. Gas Grenade and Explosive Grenade are highly effective together, complementing each other by detonating the poison cloud for massive damage right after it spreads. To enhance Gas Grenade, you’ll need three support gems: Scattershot, which provides an additional projectile, Fire Infusion, which adds fire damage, and Immolate.

For Explosive Grenade, use the following support gems: Fast Forward, Primal Armament to add elemental damage to attacks, and Fire Penetration to reduce enemy fire resistance.

The third skill is Explosive Shot, which synergizes well with Gas Grenade, triggering reactions for additional damage. To boost this skill, use two support gems: Nimble Reload and Martial Tempo, both of which speed up its cooldown.

Next, we have Oil Grenade, which enhances all your explosion and fire damage. This skill should be supported with Magnified Effect, which increases the skill's area of effect by 40%, Persistence, which boosts the duration of effects by 40%, and later, it's recommended to add Strip Away.

Flash Grenade is essential for escapes, allowing you to get out of tight spots or surrounded situations. It also provides a small stun debuff on enemies. Use the support gems Overpower and Brutality to enhance its effectiveness.

The final skill in this setup is Cluster Grenade, which should be supported with Ingenuity to speed up ability cooldowns and Payload, an important support gem that not only improves cooldown speed but also gives grenades a 50% chance to trigger twice.

We've covered the damage, but now let's talk about survival. This is where the Wind Dancer gem comes in, significantly boosting your survivability through increased evasion. Enhance this buff with Cannibalism and Clarity, which allow you to regenerate health and mana during combat while the buff is active.

Your second buff will be Attrition, which further increases your damage against rare and unique enemies. Enhance this buff with Vitality, which you can later replace with Precision for even better effectiveness.

Gas Grenade Mercenary Passives Tree

Now we’ve reached the passive skill tree. Here’s how to start your progression:

Volatile Catalyst will provide greater AoE for your skills while reducing cooldown recovery speed. By the time you unlock this, you'll likely have access to most of the grenades that will carry you through the rest of the game.

After that, we move down to the Grenadier node, increasing grenade damage along the way.

Here, you have two development paths depending on your preferred playstyle. If you enjoy playing with Cluster Grenade, go for the left node. If you prefer Explosive Grenade, take the right node.

After that, you need to backtrack a bit and invest in Overwhelm and Colossal Weapon to boost your damage and add some survivability.

Next, head to the right and move through Finishing Blows to Stars Aligned. This significantly increases your damage against enemies with low health, which in PoE 2 is considered to be 35%. This is especially useful against bosses, as they tend to deal massive damage once their health drops to this threshold.

Once again, backtrack and invest points into survivability by progressing through Hard to Kill, Battle-hardened, and finally Feel no Pain. This will improve your ability to survive in combat by reducing damage taken, increasing evasion, and providing solid health recovery through flasks.

With this survivability setup, you’ll be able to withstand damage in most battles and avoid dying within seconds. While it may not match the Best PoE 2 Warrior Build in Early Access in tankiness, it holds its own in terms of damage.

So, here’s what to focus on next: on the right side, take nodes like Repeating Explosives for a 15% chance to trigger grenades twice and Sand in the Eyes, which boosts attack speed. On the left, aim for key nodes like Authority, which increases AoE and cooldown recovery speed. Smoke Inhalation and Incendiary further enhance your fire damage output.

The finishing touches will be Giant Slayer, which significantly boosts your damage against rare enemies, and Multitasking, which speeds up all your ability cooldowns and increases the duration of negative effects on enemies.

Gas Grenade Mercenary Ascendancy

In this build, we go through the Witchhunter subclass. In this tree, it's essential to take Culling Strike, which helps you clear levels at incredible speed by instantly killing enemies with low health. This is complemented by Decimating Strike, which allows you to deal 5% to 30% of an enemy's maximum health as damage before applying the main hit, making it extremely effective against enemies with full health.

Gas Grenade Mercenary Items

The main focus of this build is on weapons. Make sure not to skip magical Bombards up until level 33. Regular Bombards are especially valuable, as they can be upgraded into rare items.

Focus on selecting weapons with elemental damage, preferably a combination of fire and another element, and prioritize those with enhanced physical damage.

As for other gear, focus on your strengths: evasion and dexterity. Maintain other stats only as needed to support your gems. And don’t forget about elemental resistances—keep them as high as possible.

How to play Gas Grenade Mercenary in PoE 2 Early Access

So, what gameplay can you expect from the PoE 2 Mercenary Build, and how do you maximize your abilities? For clearing maps, simply use Gas Grenade followed by Explosive Grenade. This combination leaves no chance for enemies to survive. Occasionally, throw in a Flash Grenade if you're getting swarmed or need to stun a boss heavily.

As for bosses, there’s a specific combo that leaves them with almost no chance. Start by throwing an Oil Grenade on the boss, followed immediately by Explosive Grenade and Cluster Grenade. Thanks to the damage-enhancing gems, this combination deals an incredible amount of damage. Finish off by spamming Gas Grenade, which deals poison damage and detonates for additional explosive damage. This combo is somewhat reminiscent of the Best PoE 2 Sorceress Build in Early Access, but in my opinion, it's far more visually striking and satisfying.

Conclusion

The Gas Grenade Mercenary is one of the strongest PoE2 Mercenary builds, focused on explosions, poison, and fire. With a combination of grenades like Gas Grenade, Explosive Grenade, and Cluster Grenade, you can efficiently clear maps and perform exceptionally well against bosses.

The build’s strengths lie in its high damage output, excellent survivability through evasion and buffs, and flexibility in gear selection. It shines at all stages of the game and, most importantly, is very beginner-friendly. PoE 2 offers the freedom to develop your characters however you like, so you can customize this build to suit your preferences and make it even stronger. We hope you create the best Path of Exile 2 Mercenary build and enjoy the game to its fullest!