Diablo 2 Resurrected Mercenaries
A mercenary is a permanent companion you hire from a town NPC. It fights alongside you, levels with you and wears gear you give it, but it only fills three or four equipment slots and it picks its own skills. There are four to choose from, one per act except Act 4.
The Four Mercenaries
| Mercenary | Act | Hired from | Counts as | Versions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rogue Scout | 1 | Kashya, Rogue Encampment | Amazon | Fire, Cold |
| Desert Mercenary | 2 | Greiz, Lut Gholein | – | Prayer, Defiance, Blessed Aim, Thorns, Holy Freeze, Might |
| Iron Wolf | 3 | Asheara, Kurast Docks | – | Fire, Cold, Lightning |
| Barbarian | 5 | Qual-Kehk, Harrogath | Barbarian | Two-Handed, Dual Wielding |
Versions and Difficulty
Each mercenary comes in more than one version, and the version decides which skills it uses. You pick the version when you hire, and you cannot change it afterwards. Some versions are only offered in the harder difficulties.
| Mercenary | Version | Skills | Normal | Nightmare | Hell |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rogue Scout | Fire | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Cold | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Desert Mercenary | Prayer | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Defiance | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Blessed Aim | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Thorns | – | Yes | Yes | ||
| Holy Freeze | – | Yes | Yes | ||
| Might | – | Yes | Yes | ||
| Iron Wolf | Fire | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Cold | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Lightning | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Barbarian | Two-Handed | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Dual Wielding | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The Act 2 mercenary is the one this matters most for. Normal only ever offers Prayer, Defiance and Blessed Aim. Patch 2.4 opened Nightmare and Hell up to all six auras, so Might, Holy Freeze and Thorns no longer have to be hired in Nightmare specifically.
How Mercenaries Work
- A mercenary has Strength and Dexterity but no Energy or Vitality, and no mana at all. It is simply granted unlimited mana for its skills.
- A mercenary you hire starts within a level of your character and keeps pace with you afterwards. The highest level one can reach is 98.
- Since Resurrected the difficulty you hire in no longer changes a mercenary's stats. It only changes which versions are on the list.
- Reviving a mercenary costs its level squared, halved, times 15 gold, capped at 50,000 gold. The cap is reached at level 82.
- Resistances suffer the same difficulty penalty your character does, 40 in Nightmare and 100 in Hell, which is why resistance gear matters far more for a mercenary in Hell than anywhere else.
- Magic Find and Gold Find on the mercenary count toward your drops whenever the mercenary lands the killing blow.
- You can hand a mercenary a potion by dropping it on the portrait, or by holding Shift and pressing the belt slot number.
- The mercenary runewords list covers the runewords usually built for one.