How THE FUNK do I progress the Mercenary ladder?

[The A.W.G.]

70 hours in, hundreds of quests completed, level 51, and I still have to understand how the Mercenary Rank thing work. I didn't really consider it much, but I noticed that I'm stuck at Rank 5 since forever. So, I followed a Rank 4 Mercenary and killed him so I cuould move to the next rank... but no, now he is behind me and I'm still Rank 5. I don't know if I explained this correctly so this is what happened:

- I was Rank 5, position 2. Mercenary was Rank 4, position 5.
- I followed and killed him, thinking I would take his place in Rank 4
- No. He is now Rank 5, position 3 and I am STILL Rank 5, position 2.

I tried to read something on IGN and some thread here also, but I didn't really understand. Please explain to me as I was a 5th grader from special ed.

[Whirl]

Kill mercs above you in the tiers. You can track them down if you know who they are, or incite them by doing bad things to learn locations.

You only move up one rank per mercenary - killing a merc in Tier 4 won't get you into tier 4 unless you're at the top of Tier 5.

[Wings]

when you killed the one above your rank, you should have gone from position 2 to position 1.
Basically:
when you kill a mercenary, anyone below your rank is worthless to getting up in tiers.
When you kill someone above, no matter how far above, you will only move "1 slot" forward, on your current rank.
when you reach a new rank, you start at the bottom of the rank, needing to kill 4 people to the right from you on the list, to move up in position.

[The A.W.G.]

Originally posted by Wings:

when you killed the one above your rank, you should have gone from position 2 to position 1.

Now that I think about it, maybe I indeed moved from P3 to P2. OK. It was simpler than I though.
Thank you!

[BuonGiorno]

An easy way to get a high bounty is kill leaders while someone is watching. Even better if you do it in Elis, cause it breaks the Olympic Truce

[The A.W.G.]

Another doubt. Now that I know how to move throught the mercenaries list, I just follow one of the mercenaries above me while there's no bounty on me. They don't attack me even if they see me. I attack them from behind and kill them in one or two hits. Bam, one position earned in the rank.
But this sounds wrong. Too easy. Am I doing "it" wrong?
I killed like 7 mercenaries in a row in less than 45 minutes...

[Sisohiv]

Originally posted by AWG:

Another doubt. Now that I know how to move throught the mercenaries list, I just follow one of the mercenaries above me while there's no bounty on me. They don't attack me even if they see me. I attack them from behind and kill them in one or two hits. Bam, one position earned in the rank.
But this sounds wrong. Too easy. Am I doing "it" wrong?
I killed like 7 mercenaries in a row in less than 45 minutes...

This does work, just be careful of guards and other mercenaries as they will gang up on you if they see it, even if you don't get a bounty like other kills.

[Tiudyr645🧉]

Originally posted by AWG:

Another doubt. Now that I know how to move throught the mercenaries list, I just follow one of the mercenaries above me while there's no bounty on me. They don't attack me even if they see me. I attack them from behind and kill them in one or two hits. Bam, one position earned in the rank.
But this sounds wrong. Too easy. Am I doing "it" wrong?
I killed like 7 mercenaries in a row in less than 45 minutes...

It's not wrong, you're just taking advantage of your stealth approach. I kill most of my mercenaries with that technique since I can´t fight them hand to hand without being killed in 2 blows.

[MrsSgtStriker]

Sometimes I'll kill higher ranking mercenaries by climbing up on a building and lobbing fire bombs at them over and over, then fire arrows or alternating the two. I did that a lot in Origins with the higher ranking Phylakes.

[MrsSgtStriker]

Oh wait.....do I have fire bombs in Odyssey? I'm playing Origins again while waiting for the next DLC and I forget...duh. Anyway...lob whatever ya got at them. lol.

[BuonGiorno]

Originally posted by MrsSgtStriker:

Sometimes I'll kill higher ranking mercenaries by climbing up on a building and lobbing fire bombs at them over and over, then fire arrows or alternating the two. I did that a lot in Origins with the higher ranking Phylakes.

This is even funnier to do with torches, I took out the lvl 50 cultist mercenary at like lvl 30 like that

[MrsSgtStriker]

Originally posted by 🆂🅰🅸🅽🆃 Gamingston:

Originally posted by MrsSgtStriker:

Sometimes I'll kill higher ranking mercenaries by climbing up on a building and lobbing fire bombs at them over and over, then fire arrows or alternating the two. I did that a lot in Origins with the higher ranking Phylakes.

This is even funnier to do with torches, I took out the lvl 50 cultist mercenary at like lvl 30 like that

Dying!! I love it when they start screaming like little girls.

[The A.W.G.]

Originally posted by MrsSgtStriker:

Sometimes I'll kill higher ranking mercenaries by climbing up on a building and lobbing fire bombs at them

There are fire bombs in Odyssey?

[BuonGiorno]

Originally posted by AWG:

Originally posted by MrsSgtStriker:

Sometimes I'll kill higher ranking mercenaries by climbing up on a building and lobbing fire bombs at them

There are fire bombs in Odyssey?

No don't think so, but there's explosive arrows

[MrsSgtStriker]

Originally posted by AWG:

Originally posted by MrsSgtStriker:

Sometimes I'll kill higher ranking mercenaries by climbing up on a building and lobbing fire bombs at them

There are fire bombs in Odyssey?

Don't I wish! I really miss them in Odyssey. SO handy to make your enemies dance and squeal. I'm also re-playing Origins so you wouldn't believe the game mechanics that get confused going back and forth between the two games.

[The A.W.G.]

Originally posted by MrsSgtStriker:

Originally posted by AWG:

There are fire bombs in Odyssey?

Don't I wish! I really miss them in Odyssey.

There are fire bombs in Origins? I have a memory block. I remember fire arrows and fire weapons but not fire bombs.