Also, Glacial bolt melts large enemies (90% of bosses). Add Double Barrel and Scattershot to it and watch damage, stun, and freeze make bosses easier than regular rare enemies.
Thx for the combo tip, I love that skill. Also for some reason it bounces off walls ( 1 out of 5 times ). Still have no clue what skill/armor/gem that triggers... But this is my main anti-group skill.❤
Big bosses specifically. All the shards generate inside the mob and break so it dose 100% of theoretical damage. For small bosses it get way less but some boss will actually get trapped by the walls and if your aoe is big enough you can just dps them safely behind the walls and if.
I put the normal bolt reload on my R essentially turning it like a reload in a shooter which I’m use to playing a lot of FPS games. Feels natural to reload in between kills or moments of safety before gunning down the next board of enemies. All of the other bolt types are on the other Buttons acting like an actual skill to weave in different effects and combos
I am a long time ARPG fan and always wondered why they do not have WASD gameplay available for ranged classes, and POE2 finally did it. This game feels SO GOOD on WASD movement and merc.
One thing I will add , having played only half of the classes, more than any other class mercenary feels like the one that the two weapon skill set were built to accommodate. Having one weapon with some life regen and lots of easy one button group and then have a second crossbow with a ton of single target damage for the oceans of hp pretending to be bosses.
Does anybody have any tips for why the crossbow takes a while to shoot? Its very inconsistent for mesometimes i have to press a different ammo type for it to start shootin. Im dying to the count boss because im holding down ro shoot and nothing happens
Instead of pressing the shoot button to “reload”, just press the reload button when your done with your last shot. I had same issue where after my last bolt shot, if I kept pressing the shoot button my character would be stuck on a “reload” animation everytime I press shoot. Just press reload and wait and shoot
1:45 I completely disagree. I think the reload mechanic feels SO GOOD on merc, and I like the feeling of reloading and letting my charges build up before fights. It felt like I was preparing for a fight and strategizing with my ammo, and that is exactly what is needed to make a merc feel like a merc and not just a merc themed Sorcerer like in other games.
It feels like merc is basically intended to be a ranged, melee multiclass. Theres quite a few melee bonuses pretty close to the start of their skill tree
Dude thank you for for showing how to assign souls to different weapons. Be literally never played these games before and I’m playing on ps5 and I was trying to figure out how to get my bolts to use different ammos quicky and I was just not getting it right lmao.
i can actually recommend an build where you focus on the dhrapnell shotgun with some stunn buildup multpliers you can insta stun enemys and often stun bosses the damage is also good you just need to find an weapon with high flat damage i like to combo it with some nades and an ballistas
Only just started the video so not sure if it gets covered, but I'm playing a non-merc merc... i like the ascendancy and proximity to weapon switching nodes, im going for a Robin hood style reg bow/quarterstaff build and think the witch hunter extra weapon passives or double gem slotting from either ascendancy will work well for blending two weapons. Any other non-xbow mercs just here for the ascendencies?
My lightning arrow gemling legionnaire is a blast to play. Im running xbow offhand for envenom/corrosive ripwire ballista but once i have the spirit to use them ill be looking into other minions
Wooow wait hold on a second Drybear, i think you cooked like crazy.. Double Crossbow.. why didn't i think of this? I do have 2 juiced up, one with +3 on all Projectile Abilities and a almost same strong Crossbow. I will definitely play around with this! Do you know if you can override the 1 support gem limit when you use 2 weapons? (i'll go Legionnaire anyways but still)
Yeh the standing there getting mobbed swapping between bow and then roll and then reload I would die in the middle of reloading Some bosses I would waste 2 cycles of my turn damage between swapping ammo reloading then finally bursting my shots and then doing it again
does anyone else think the chimera pet is on like 1.5 speed or something? its movements seem very twitchy.. he reminds me of overclocking in the old days and the game would run and Xspeed
Im strugling with single dmg on bosses...playing with galvanic and following ur guide, but need some help for single boss like on lab. Some tips pleeess
Make sure you have an up to date Bow and are using maximum Lightning Rods on the boss. Also roll Elemental Damage on your Crossbow, and update the levels on your gems
I wanted to like merc but it just feels so clunky. There are times when your get just doesn't shoot even with ammo. I like the idea of using ammo instead of arrows, but having to reload holds it back. I don't understand why you should waste skill points on the tree to minimize reloading time when it could just not exist.
It took me 115 hours to clear cruel with mercenary. Pretty brutal start with all of the one shot deaths. And nothing to do about it besides have perfect timing with low damage output for 10 minutes straight like a piano player. I wound up spending a significant proportion of the game rolling around dropping grenades.
But it's not just the loading of ammo, but how you need to change it, then use a different button that's an issue. Consider this basic setup... Standard class/weapon Left = main attack Right = alt/special In a standard rotation you could be like: LM, LM, LM, RM That triggers 4 abilities for 4 presses. The issue with mercenary IMO is that same sequence requires 3 buttons and looks like: LM, LM, LM, Load B, LM, Load A So that's then 6 buttons for 4 abilities. Not to mention that becomes confusing in that you are using the same left mouse click for multiple abilities. Which maybe isn't an issue for someone who has only ever played Merc with crossbow, but no other skills in PoE 2 or 1 work like that. It's extremely counter intiutiive. IMO they REALLY need an option to have it set up as standard, where you press the ability button it triggers the ability. I'd love to have 3 different kind of ammunitions, but it's just way too confusing to me (after 250 hrs in PoE 1 and 30 among different char in PoE 2).
It's definitely a new mechanic and took some getting use to. But now that I'm use to it, I quite enjoy it because it feels like playing an FPS but from a 3rd person ARPG perspective and I'm having a blast.
they just need to shorten the reload animation all .. together at the earlier lvls... maybe having heavier crossbows at later lvls needing longer reload ... or having light crossbows and heavy crossbows
Granted I only got my mercenary up to level 4 or 5, but the whole load, reload, switch ammo thing is overly involved and unnecessarily unintuitive. Yes, I am sure that if I wanted to play in an uncomfortable and not fun manner just to “get used to it”, that would happen eventually. But I don’t really feel like grinding it out and feeling like I don’t want to play that style of control just to hope to not mind it so much when I can just play more “standard” classes instead. It’s a shame because Merc was my first choice and if all the characters had this mechanic, I wouldn’t have played much at all. Edit: I did "force myself" to play more on the merc tonight. I set reload to the right mouse button. Starting off easy with the default attack buffed by a chance to poison gem and one that makes the poison deplete armor. Grabbed the grenade skill and I off to a pretty good start.
Everyone talked about how good this character feels then I made one. It's dog shit, having to clock a skill to go into a stance of sorts then fire that way until you switch to another feels so bad.
"Dual crossbows" does NOT mean switching between two different 2h crossbows. Good grief. The number of YT channel pretending to be experts on a game that practically just came out...
Galvanic: th-cam.com/video/wCN42bJn1ZU/w-d-xo.html
Grenadier: th-cam.com/video/i37Uadjbyd8/w-d-xo.html
Railgun: th-cam.com/video/eJ8qhGhfl00/w-d-xo.html
00:00 Introduction
00:09 PoE2 Drops
00:27 Mercenary Class
00:59 Leveling Builds
01:27 Class Fantasy
02:55 Build Diversity
04:10 The Crossbow
05:43 Crossbow Shot
06:14 Early Skills
07:23 Tips & Tricks
11:43 Dual Crossbows
Reloading with Xbox Elite controller feels so good. Using right trigger to fire and paddle buttons to switch ammo.
Also, Glacial bolt melts large enemies (90% of bosses). Add Double Barrel and Scattershot to it and watch damage, stun, and freeze make bosses easier than regular rare enemies.
You are a goddman hero sir!
What gems do you recommend for it?
Thx for the combo tip, I love that skill. Also for some reason it bounces off walls ( 1 out of 5 times ). Still have no clue what skill/armor/gem that triggers... But this is my main anti-group skill.❤
Big bosses specifically. All the shards generate inside the mob and break so it dose 100% of theoretical damage. For small bosses it get way less but some boss will actually get trapped by the walls and if your aoe is big enough you can just dps them safely behind the walls and if.
@@Phonafied I started with Double Barrel and Scatter Shot.
I put the normal bolt reload on my R essentially turning it like a reload in a shooter which I’m use to playing a lot of FPS games. Feels natural to reload in between kills or moments of safety before gunning down the next board of enemies. All of the other bolt types are on the other Buttons acting like an actual skill to weave in different effects and combos
Same here my friend
@ yay nice to know
I am a long time ARPG fan and always wondered why they do not have WASD gameplay available for ranged classes, and POE2 finally did it. This game feels SO GOOD on WASD movement and merc.
Merc feels great. What d3 coulda shoulda woulda been
Yea gives it the same smooth feeling as Minecraft Legends.
Is merc better on wasd im using mouse and it feels a bit rough.
@@pixelBB397 absolutely. Same with Ranger (which is my new main). I will never go back to clicker style again.
@ thank you I switch it’s 100000 times better
One thing I will add , having played only half of the classes, more than any other class mercenary feels like the one that the two weapon skill set were built to accommodate. Having one weapon with some life regen and lots of easy one button group and then have a second crossbow with a ton of single target damage for the oceans of hp pretending to be bosses.
Incendiary shot is super fun. It's basically dragons breath shotgun so if you like that use it.
Does anybody have any tips for why the crossbow takes a while to shoot? Its very inconsistent for mesometimes i have to press a different ammo type for it to start shootin. Im dying to the count boss because im holding down ro shoot and nothing happens
Roll timer stops ur reload then u try to shoot and it doesn’t always register
Instead of pressing the shoot button to “reload”, just press the reload button when your done with your last shot. I had same issue where after my last bolt shot, if I kept pressing the shoot button my character would be stuck on a “reload” animation everytime I press shoot. Just press reload and wait and shoot
1:45 I completely disagree. I think the reload mechanic feels SO GOOD on merc, and I like the feeling of reloading and letting my charges build up before fights. It felt like I was preparing for a fight and strategizing with my ammo, and that is exactly what is needed to make a merc feel like a merc and not just a merc themed Sorcerer like in other games.
The sounds are SO good, too. Even if they don't sound like a Crossbow :P
@@DrybearGamers The sound design in general is so good in this game. The abilities on all classes sound so impactful and violent
It feels like merc is basically intended to be a ranged, melee multiclass. Theres quite a few melee bonuses pretty close to the start of their skill tree
That’s because the alt class of that region of the passive tree is melee focused. I believe it’s called the duelist.
wait, u can equip 2 crossbows??? I went through the entire campaign with 1. I thought something felt off.
i played permafrost+fragmentation for the beginning but it fell off. running galvanic shards rn plus basic bolt
It's so fun but Perma+Frag falls off so hard, they really should buff it
The reload speed really annoyed me in early game but boy am I glad we can switch back and forth like that!
Explosive shot is very good too. Especially with gas grenades
omg thank you for explaining how to use multiple cross bows, thought there was a bug
Dude thank you for for showing how to assign souls to different weapons. Be literally never played these games before and I’m playing on ps5 and I was trying to figure out how to get my bolts to use different ammos quicky and I was just not getting it right lmao.
i can actually recommend an build where you focus on the dhrapnell shotgun with some stunn buildup multpliers you can insta stun enemys and often stun bosses the damage is also good you just need to find an weapon with high flat damage i like to combo it with some nades and an ballistas
Reloading gives me so much immersion!
Im using a bow as my 2nd weapon for the backflip 😎
@DrybearGamers Are the any Skills or Support Gems on the Mercenary currently that allow to spend Frenzy Power or Endurance Charges?
Drybear your vids are top tier 🫡
Thank you!
Only just started the video so not sure if it gets covered, but I'm playing a non-merc merc... i like the ascendancy and proximity to weapon switching nodes, im going for a Robin hood style reg bow/quarterstaff build and think the witch hunter extra weapon passives or double gem slotting from either ascendancy will work well for blending two weapons.
Any other non-xbow mercs just here for the ascendencies?
My lightning arrow gemling legionnaire is a blast to play. Im running xbow offhand for envenom/corrosive ripwire ballista but once i have the spirit to use them ill be looking into other minions
The need to reload is the most annoying part in playing the mercenary build which could have been the best character if it was'nt needed 😢
Wooow wait hold on a second Drybear, i think you cooked like crazy..
Double Crossbow.. why didn't i think of this?
I do have 2 juiced up, one with +3 on all Projectile Abilities and a almost same strong Crossbow.
I will definitely play around with this!
Do you know if you can override the 1 support gem limit when you use 2 weapons?
(i'll go Legionnaire anyways but still)
Probably because you shouldn't have to do that to 'fix' a mechanic that isn't great.
Me, I'll stay with hammer for the armor break move.
Never thought about double crossbows lol
Yeh the standing there getting mobbed swapping between bow and then roll and then reload
I would die in the middle of reloading
Some bosses I would waste 2 cycles of my turn damage between swapping ammo reloading then finally bursting my shots and then doing it again
Awesome video thanks man
You bet!
I’m having trouble getting the portal. I have everything else, but it doesn’t show up on my Twitch game drops under poe . Can you help me out?
Portal drops start later tonight, you're all set for now!
Wasn't there supposed to be crossbow attachments? What happened to that?
Cut and moved to gems
@SpottedHares damn fr? I was really looking forward to that
No bows?
I'd really like to see an ammo count somewhere for the merc.
It's displayed on the ability itself
FFS...I never noticed it until you pointed it out.
does anyone else think the chimera pet is on like 1.5 speed or something? its movements seem very twitchy.. he reminds me of overclocking in the old days and the game would run and Xspeed
Im strugling with single dmg on bosses...playing with galvanic and following ur guide, but need some help for single boss like on lab. Some tips pleeess
Make sure you have an up to date Bow and are using maximum Lightning Rods on the boss. Also roll Elemental Damage on your Crossbow, and update the levels on your gems
Very useful
Please Monk next.
I wanted to like merc but it just feels so clunky. There are times when your get just doesn't shoot even with ammo. I like the idea of using ammo instead of arrows, but having to reload holds it back. I don't understand why you should waste skill points on the tree to minimize reloading time when it could just not exist.
Trying to Lvl like this has been a slog :(
I’ve beat the campaign with basic bolt fyi
It took me 115 hours to clear cruel with mercenary. Pretty brutal start with all of the one shot deaths. And nothing to do about it besides have perfect timing with low damage output for 10 minutes straight like a piano player. I wound up spending a significant proportion of the game rolling around dropping grenades.
But it's not just the loading of ammo, but how you need to change it, then use a different button that's an issue. Consider this basic setup...
Standard class/weapon
Left = main attack
Right = alt/special
In a standard rotation you could be like: LM, LM, LM, RM
That triggers 4 abilities for 4 presses.
The issue with mercenary IMO is that same sequence requires 3 buttons and looks like: LM, LM, LM, Load B, LM, Load A
So that's then 6 buttons for 4 abilities.
Not to mention that becomes confusing in that you are using the same left mouse click for multiple abilities. Which maybe isn't an issue for someone who has only ever played Merc with crossbow, but no other skills in PoE 2 or 1 work like that. It's extremely counter intiutiive.
IMO they REALLY need an option to have it set up as standard, where you press the ability button it triggers the ability. I'd love to have 3 different kind of ammunitions, but it's just way too confusing to me (after 250 hrs in PoE 1 and 30 among different char in PoE 2).
Having an option would be great. It took some getting used to for me
It's definitely a new mechanic and took some getting use to. But now that I'm use to it, I quite enjoy it because it feels like playing an FPS but from a 3rd person ARPG perspective and I'm having a blast.
It makes total sense for a merc to have more than one crossbow...im an idiot.
Wait until you realize one for bolts and one for nades, and use weapon passive skill points accordingly
My crossbow sends an extra grenade :))))
Put in a lot of hours not thinking how to utilize two xBows. Now my life is changed! Thanks
they just need to shorten the reload animation all .. together at the earlier lvls... maybe having heavier crossbows at later lvls needing longer reload ... or having light crossbows and heavy crossbows
I haven't seen much monk content...
Granted I only got my mercenary up to level 4 or 5, but the whole load, reload, switch ammo thing is overly involved and unnecessarily unintuitive. Yes, I am sure that if I wanted to play in an uncomfortable and not fun manner just to “get used to it”, that would happen eventually. But I don’t really feel like grinding it out and feeling like I don’t want to play that style of control just to hope to not mind it so much when I can just play more “standard” classes instead. It’s a shame because Merc was my first choice and if all the characters had this mechanic, I wouldn’t have played much at all.
Edit: I did "force myself" to play more on the merc tonight. I set reload to the right mouse button. Starting off easy with the default attack buffed by a chance to poison gem and one that makes the poison deplete armor. Grabbed the grenade skill and I off to a pretty good start.
I miss the old 'he.e.e.e.y it's drybear'.... just saying
Yeah im not playing a character where the basic attack is the best skill until like level 20
I like Merc but it makes no sense that a crossbow sounds and function like a gun… why not just make the weapon a gun in the first place.
Buddy it's a world of demons and magic who cares
Everyone talked about how good this character feels then I made one. It's dog shit, having to clock a skill to go into a stance of sorts then fire that way until you switch to another feels so bad.
Im level 9 and thinking of starting a new character. All early gems suck ass. No damage. No fun. At all
New update broke my current mercenary, I literally do up to 20 damage against enemies 😂
"Dual crossbows" does NOT mean switching between two different 2h crossbows. Good grief. The number of YT channel pretending to be experts on a game that practically just came out...
Dual wielding Crossbows isn't a thing in PoE2 atm, though I wish it was
its useless to do 2 crossbow since u can one shot everything in maps and bosses are ez to kill with lightning build
No one talkin about rapid shot huh? Good maybe It wont be nerfed for a while
I love Rapid Shot with Grenades, personally
I tried theory crafting a rapid shot build, make it like a gatling gun... but i can't think of one that works well 😭
To me the mercenary sucks. Unless they change the reload BS and the auto aiming on controller.
Terrible advice in my genuine opinion