Mercenary

Mercenary is a playable character in Risk of Rain 2.

Tips

 * Whirlwind can be used on slanted edges / ramps that you can walk up to launch the player vertically.
 * Whirlwind when used on the ground dashes you forward, when used in the air it acts like a double jump. Use it in the air to stay airborne, but use it on the ground to be evasive as it covers more distance faster.
 * There is a short delay before attacking again after the third hit in the Laser Sword combo. Activating Whirlwind immediately after the hit connects can cancel this delay.
 * When fighting bosses, Mercenary can stay safely in the air above their heads for a very long time by chaining together Whirlwind->Eviscerate->Whirlwind along with Laser Sword attacks and double jumps. The Laser Sword alone also has a slight vacuum effect and can be used to stick to and strafe around larger enemies.
 * Your Blinding Assault cooldown reset leaves just enough time to use Laser Sword twice or combo Whirlwind + Laser Sword before you need to dash again. You have just enough time to Eviscerate or use Slicing Winds between Blinding Assaults, if you do it immediately without any delay between dashes.
 * Your longest distance jump combo is Sprint-Jump-Whirlwind-Blinding Assault-Eviscerate-Double Jump-Whirlwind.[Verify]
 * Prior to Build ID #3731106, Eviscerating directly into the ground when airborne would cause you to take heavy fall damage.
 * Some bosses have heads which act as solid platforms, which the Mercenary can stand on to resume attacking the boss without as much danger from the swarm of enemies below.
 * boost applies for Mercenary's first two jumps, whereas other survivors can only receive the boost on their first jump, even with the
 * Using your Primary attack on enemies such as the while airborne also noticeably reduces your rate of descent.
 * With the right positioning, Blinding Assault can be used to position Mercenary inside of an enemy's hitbox. For flying enemies, this can be exploited, pushing them away at high speed. Enemies that are pushed will take huge damage when hitting a wall, which is very effective for dealing with flying bosses such as and.
 * Blinding Assault can be canceled mid-dash by either Whirlwind or Rising Thunder in order to shorten the length of the dash. This is useful primarily to avoid overshooting or in order to precisely end a dash for, say, a slam (the tip above).
 * Hitting enemies with either Whirlwind or Rising Thunder directly after the third strike of Laser Sword will apply Exposed (it will not apply Exposed if that same third strike already applied Exposed to that monster). This can be more difficult with Rising Thunder due to the cast time of the ability.
 * The two above tips can be combined in this order: Laser Sword (third hit)-Blinding Assault-Whirlwind or Laser Sword (third hit)-Blinding Assault-Rising Thunder in order to apply Exposed after using your dash.
 * Slicing Winds is a very effective single target and AoE tool for Merc, as it has a higher general DPS and damage output than Eviscerate, as well as having an proc at the end of the skill. Slicing Winds totals 1150% (800% + 350% from ) damage on a single target and up to 3450% total damage against 3 targets (1150%x3 targets, as it can  those 3 targets). For reference, Eviscerate is only 770% total damage to a single target, and isn't really able to properly hit multiple targets at once.
 * Although it is true that Eviscerate scales with attack speed, it needs around ~30 s in order to match Slicing Winds if we were to compare the two at their max damage.
 * Due to the effectiveness of Blinding Assault, and with a bit of finesse Focused Assault, one can maintain permanent iframes with only either utility, essentially nullifying the use of Eviscerate, except maybe for an extra dash.
 * Eviscerate will lock you into an animation while Slicing Winds will not. This means that you are able to attack and use other skills while you already have Slicing Winds active, and with a or other method of reducing cooldowns (such as a  or getting enough cooldown reduction that the cooldown finishes before the skill ends), you can even spam Slicing Winds into itself.
 * Although Slicing Winds is a ranged attack, its projectile is a bit slow, so it's most effectively used at melee or close range. Make use of its large AoE hitbox.
 * can apply a second stack when hitting an enemy with an attack that would normally apply, and is currently the only method for doing so. It can also apply   in its AoE, although this usually isn't quite as relevant unless you stack multiple s.
 * Mercenary is often considered to be one of the hardest characters to learn, next to, and thus requires patience and time to learn. Do not get frustrated if you fail.

Trivia

 * Mercenary was one of the playable characters in the first Risk of Rain.
 * Prior to the Anniversary Update, Mercenary's ending phrase was "..and so he left, with terrible power in shaking hands.".
 * Prior to the 1.0 Update, did not exist for Mercenary, and as such Slicing Winds would not apply  at the end of its duration. This meant its single-target total damage was 800% and multi-target total damage was 2400%.
 * Mercenary is considered to be one of the hardest characters to learn, alongside.