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Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred marks the addition of Mercenaries to the game. Mercenaries are hirable NPCs that will assist you while playing alone, dealing damage and giving you passive boosts, depending on which Mercenary you have rolling with you. The new season also includes other new activities to complete, like the Seasonal Journey objectives. There are four total in the expansion, which is required to use the Mercenaries, each of which has unique specialties and skills for you to utilize.
How the Mercenaries work
Early into the Vessel of Hatred campaign, Raheri takes you to The Den, which is the headquarters of the Mercenaries. This unlocks Rahier for you to recruit and is also where you can start the three priority quests to recruit the other Mercenaries. As you complete activities and kill monsters with a Mercenary at your side, you earn Rapport, which will increase your Rapport Rank. The first four ranks give you skill points for that particular mercenary, while the six remaining ranks earn you loot and Pale Marks, a special currency you can spend at the Mercenary vendor in The Den. After maxing out your Rapport, you will continue to earn Pale Marks for every 25,000 Rapport earned.
As for the skill trees, each Mercenary has two branching paths, which specialize in different abilities and damage types. You will have to choose between active skills and passive skills with each point earned, but you can refund the skill points for free whenever you want, letting you experiment with different Mercenary abilities.
You also get to select two Mercenaries, one as your main Mercenary and one as your Reinforcement. The main Mercenary is with you at all times, and you gain all of the skills you have purchased in their tree. For the Reinforcement, you can select one active ability of that Mercenary to activate on a cooldown whenever you use a specific ability. Once you hire a Reinforcement, you will need to set their ability and the ability of yours you want to activate them with. If you select your ultimate ability, for example, your Reinforcement Mercenary will use their ability whenever you use your ultimate ability.
Raheir
Reheir is the first mercenary you unlock, and it happens as part of the main campaign mission in Vessel of Hatred. It occurs extremely early, basically as soon as you reach the new area, and he is available for use from that point forward. Once you unlock Raheir, you can start the side quests to unlock the other mercenaries from The Den in Nahantu.
Raheri’s skills either focus on buffing you defensively and taunting enemies, with the left side of the tree offering bonus armor passives and the right side offering resistance boosts. Raheir is a great Mercenary to use if you have focused more on increasing your own damage over increasing your armor and resistances.
Varyana
Varyana can be unlocked via the quest “Slayer’s Retribution” but in order to actually start this quest, you must first complete the Temple of Rot stronghold in the Dry Steppes. You just need to run to specific areas in the Dry Steppes and fight a bunch of barbarians. After doing so Varyana will be available to hire in The Den.
Varyana’s main ability increases your movement speed based on massacre kills, which reset after not getting a kill for seven seconds. The right side of her skill tree offers abilities that knock down enemies and stun them, leaving them open to your attacks. The left side of the skill tree offers increased attack speeds and bleed abilities. If your build would benefit from increased attack and movement speed, Varyana is the Mercenary for you.
Aldkin
Aldkin can be found in a passage in Nahantu after picking up the quest “A Nameless Mystery.” Similar to Varyana, you will need to run around a bit in Nahantu, following Aldkin before eventually meeting him. At that point, he will be available to hire in the Den.
Aldkin is a little simpler to understand, as his skill tree is split into the fire damage side and the shadow damage side. If your build focuses on either of these damage types, you could benefit from having Aldkin with you. He can also inflict vulnerable on enemies, allowing you to deal even more damage.
Subo
Subo can be found in Hawezar as part of the quest “A Feather on the Scale.” Subo has you fend off a few waves of enemies before heading to another dungeon, but once again, all you have to do is run around to different objective markers and kill enemies. After that you can find Subo in The Den if you wish to hire them.
Subo doesn’t have as clear a delineation between his skills. Across the board you can get chances for him to knock down, knock back, inflict vulnerable, and daze enemies, depending on the skills selected. His wide variety of options means he likely has something you can use, but you might not get as much of a boost compared to the other Mercenaries. That said, his attacks deal a ton of damage, so he does make a pretty good reinforcement.
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