KA Mercenaries

This is part of the Kunark Ascending Crafting and Housing Preview. Please refer back to that article for important disclaimers and details.

It should be noted that not only will the below features only be available once the expansion is live, but I am using the default UI for all examples and explanations. If you are using a custom UI, you will need to make sure to get the proper UI updates once the expansion goes live, or you may have issues seeing all the UI elements that you need to access.

Mercenaries ("mercs") are getting a needed boost in their abilities and survivability with the Kunark Ascending expansion. Since that boost can involve crafted items, I have decided I may as well cover the broad basics in a separate article.

Once the expansion is released, your mercenary will be a rank 1 mercenary, with 4 gear slots available in which items can be placed to boost his/her stats. By the time they reach the maximum rank, Rank 5, they will have 8 gear slots available to them. Half of those slots will be new mercenary-only accolades, which can be crafted, as well as obtained from quests and drops. The other half will be specific armor slots, which can be filled with normal adventurer armor or new merc-only armor that can be crafted, quested or dropped.

So, just how does this work, and what are the avaiable slots?

Step 1 - Summon Your Merc

This may seem like a no-brainer, but given how many times the question was asked in beta, it may not be. Anyway, in order to do anything with your merc, you need to first summon the merc in question. Once you have done so, click on the mercenary tab on your character sheet. Then click that blue icon shown in the picture above to get a look at their gear and their rank.

Step 2 - Start Their Training

Mercs start out at rank 1, and you will need to train your merc (or mercs) one at a time, to obtain higher ranks, and access to more gear slots. Merc stats do NOT increase automatically as they gain ranks. Rather, their stat increases come from whatever you place in the newly-available slots! Training unlocks slots, slots unlock the ability to wear more gear and get stats from that gear. If you look below the paperdoll in the picture above, you will see that it shows their training to be at rank 1 and says "click to start training". Go ahead and click in that rectangle containing the text, assuming you have summoned the merc that you wish to train. It will take three days for your merc to level from rank 1 to rank 2, five days from rank 2 to rank 3, seven days from rank 3 to rank 4 and 9 days from rank 4 to rank 5. There is no way to speed up this training, and your merc does not need to be kept out during that time. Just use or ignore him/her as usual during that time, but remember after the training time is up to pull them out and click on the little box again to complete their training. As soon as one rank is done, you can begin the next.

Step 3 - Gear Them Up

If you refer back to that picture above the last section, you will see some gear slots with no numbers in them, and others with numbers. The four non-numbered slots (head, shoulders and two accolade slots) are available the moment the expansion hits, as a brand new rank 1 mercenary. So far, mercs don't seem fussy about the whole plate/chain/leather/cloth thing, though that may or may not change. You'll eventually want the best possible crafted or quested gear for all those slots, but in the short run, even throwing in a "good" helmet and "good" shoulders will give your merc a decent boost while you wait on gear from the merc gear recipe book to become available. (More on that below).

To throw gear on them, be at this same merc window we've been staring at a bit via your character sheet, and drag gear from your bags into the proper merc gear slot. Boom. It is "attuned", but can be pulled off the merc, and then placed on a different merc if you so desire.

Now, let's take a look at those slots with numbers. Those indicate what rank the slot unlocks. Chest at rank 2, another accolade at rank 3, forearms at rank 4, the final accolade at rank 5. If you're an armorer, you might want to make a couple extra plate helms and pauldrons to put on the broker for launch, but I'd not mass-produce breastplates and bracers due to the merc gear recipes.

I should also note that dropping gear on your merc only changes their stats, it does not in any way change the appearance of the merc.

Step 4 - Run Amok!

Once you've thrown some gear on your merc, run amok and enjoy the new boost to his/her stats!

Below is just a visual example of filled gear slots on a rank 5 merc. Yeah, I had the screenshot, I may as well use it, even if it isn't truly necessary, eh? :P

Recipes?

The faction vendor in the Twark area of Obulus will sell a (currently tradeable) level 100 all-class recipe book called Clan Bloody Tooth Mercenary Gear. It will require 30K faction with Clan Bloody Tooth (the tradeskill faction) and 10 Sovereign of Rile (earned from expansion TS quests, including dailies and weekly). Until the entire tradeskill line is fully in place, and the faction rewards are tuned, I cannot tell you how soon after launch players will have the needed faction for these books, but hopefully I can update this with the desired information before launch.

The recipe book contains recipes for merc-only gear and accolades using common ToT materials ("Twark" gear), as well as ones that use the new Obulus rares ("Bloody Tooth" gear). Multiple set options are available so you can choose between items that are geared at tanks, casters, dps, etc.

The New Merc?

Yes, the sharp-eyed amongst you might have noticed an unfamiliar sarnak in the screenshots above. Yes, this is the new elite merc that will be available somewhere in the expansion. He is a solid ranger. And, now he has the track ability as well!

Created: 2016-10-30 02:19:33          
Last Modified By: Niami Denmother          
Last Modified on: 2016-11-17 12:17:25          

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