How do I make a starter build for a mercenary ?

[Blind Man]

I'm currently level 9 mercenary and I just click whatever works but I seem to believe I am not doing much if not of any damage to mobs. For nodes i have crap like explosive shot and armour piercing shot etc the basics.. I just need help re-specing and such idk how to link my character or i would

[SomewhatSolo]

引用自 Cyclops：

I'm currently level 9 mercenary and I just click whatever works but I seem to believe I am not doing much if not of any damage to mobs. For nodes i have crap like explosive shot and armour piercing shot etc the basics.. I just need help re-specing and such idk how to link my character or i would

Check this guys videos, very beginner friendly, no tweaking, he uses what he finds while he plays. Learned a lot from him.

https://www.youtube.com/@P4wnyhof/videos

[Zenogias]

引用自 Cyclops：

I'm currently level 9 mercenary and I just click whatever works but I seem to believe I am not doing much if not of any damage to mobs. For nodes i have crap like explosive shot and armour piercing shot etc the basics.. I just need help re-specing and such idk how to link my character or i would

Mercenary just requires two things.
1.Attack damage,Projectile damage,Increased damage when ...... any afflictions would do.
2.Attack speed, My current build attack speed is at 0.33 but I say 0.35-0.38 would be ok but the faster the better.

A crossbow with high damage on physical ,Let's say you need at least 100% increased of physical damage.

The second options that you should consider are
1.Attack speed.

2.Critical chance.

I did say you focus on attack speed first ,critical chance is too hard to build and it took so many passive skills to make it works.

If your crossbow does not have critical chance suffix mod with at least 2.5% you better say goodbye to critical.
Attack speed is much more easier to build.Actually with good attack speed you don't even need Increase physical damage so much,let's say that around 65-74% increased physical damage is fine.even so you need at least 10-12% increased attack speed on the crossbow.

The rest option depends on your build If you are using a skill that fire more than 10 projectiles in a single fire,you might need a node on the upper left from ranger.

Like forking,piercing,chain.
If you want to build a basic one to help you farm I recommend using Galvanic shot or Frost bolt.

Combo it with a herald skills depends on your main skill if your skill is cold base use Herald of ice ,if it's lighting base use Herald of Thunder.

Don't touch Herald of fire unless you are using ignite for your build.

Another thing you need to think about is your ascendancy class.

[DirtyMick]

Explosive grenades wreck the early game. Just gotta get good at shooting them by your feet, and then dodging into them, so that by the time they go off, the mobs are on top of the grenades. Like you gotta lead them into the grenades. Scattershot+fast forward on grenades works wonders for campaign. But yeah, my boss damage fell off hard around the end of act2, so you gotta do more than just that around then. I hear throwing gas grenades and then exploding the gas works well, but I kinda stopped playing my merc while I wait for my friend to get to act3.