Mercenary

 is a playable character in Risk of Rain 2.

A highly mobile and maneuverable fighter, the Mercenary strikes swiftly and rapidly to devastate enemies, gaining both invincibility and mobility with his various attacks. Due to his skills' low cooldowns (which are further reduced by his signature debuff), his playstyle focuses on repeatedly chaining together attacks to stay on the offensive whenever possible, taking full advantage of the invulnerability afforded by his skills.

Techs

 * When using another skill during the animation for Laser Sword's third hit, its hitbox remains active during that other skill, even if Mercenary moves. This is commonly referred to as an "M1 extension," and it enables fast combos and negates the endlag of the third strike.
 * This is most valuable when combined with Mercenary's utility skills, allowing the player to Expose a long line of enemies or deal great burst damage to them. It can also be used with Eviscerate to deal more damage to the targeted enemy.
 * Whirlwind can be used on slanted edges or ramps to launch Mercenary vertically, gaining a large amount of height for looking around, reaching high areas, or using the.
 * If Mercenary ends Blinding Assault or Focused Assault inside of a flying enemy's hitbox, it will be pushed away at high speed and take colossal damage when colliding with stage geometry. This is extremely effective for dealing with flying bosses such as the and, often killing them instantly.
 * Small enemies can be shoved and slammed in a similar manner using Rising Thunder, which knocks the enemy upwards. However, this force is not enough to move medium or large enemies.
 * Blinding Assault can be canceled mid-dash by using either Whirlwind or Rising Thunder, shortening 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).
 * can apply a second Expose stack when triggered by a skill that inflicts Expose, and is currently the only method for doing so. It can also Expose other enemies caught in its explosion, although this usually is not quite as relevant without stacking multiple Behemoths, as the explosion radius is somewhat small.
 * The animation of Slicing Winds can be cancelled by using Whirlwind, Rising Thunder, Blinding Assault, or Focused Assault.

Tips

 * Strafe around enemies and try to stay behind them at all times. Few enemies can attack behind themselves, and most of them cannot keep up with the player constantly strafing.
 * Prioritize enemies that are immediate threats, but also remember to flee if things get dicey. Do not constantly rely on Mercenary's invincibility frames to completely negate damage; stay dodgy and avoid being hit altogether when possible.
 * Although Whirlwind is smoother and easier to combo with than Rising Thunder, Rising Thunder itself has higher damage output (550% compared to Whirlwind's 400%) and can be more adaptive with dodges due to its quick vertical movement.
 * Notably, only Mercenary benefits from hitting an Exposed enemy. If a non-Mercenary character or ally hits an Exposed enemy, the Exposed is not removed and the ally does not deal more damage or get cooldown reduction.
 * 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. Laser Sword also has a slight vacuum effect and can be used to stick to and strafe around larger enemies.
 * Bonus attack speed is actively detrimental for Mercenary, narrowing the window to perform Laser Sword extensions and shortening the distance that Whirlwind and Rising Thunder move him. The extra Eviscerate hits are not enough to outweigh these losses.
 * Both Whirlwind and Rising Thunder have short enough cooldowns that a single will allow them to be used continuously, allowing them to be used as a re-usable dash or to ascend upwards indefinitely. Note that without a  this will lower overall proc chances.
 * Blinding Assault's cooldown reset leaves just enough time to use Laser Sword twice or combo Whirlwind + Laser Sword before needing to dash again. There is also just enough time to use Eviscerate or Slicing Winds between Blinding Assaults, if used immediately without any delay between dashes.
 * Due to the effectiveness of Blinding Assault, and with a bit of finesse Focused Assault, the player can maintain permanent invulnerability with only their utility. With enough skill, this effectively eliminates the need to use Eviscerate, except maybe for an extra dash.
 * Some bosses have heads which act as solid platforms, which the Mercenary can stand on to fight the boss without as much danger from enemies below.
 * Slicing Winds is a very effective single-target and area-of-effect tool for Mercenary, as it has a higher general damage output than Eviscerate, as well as inflicting Expose at the end of the skill. Slicing Winds totals 1150% (800% + 350% from Expose) damage on a single target and up to 3450% total damage against 3 targets (1150%x3 targets, as it can Expose those 3 targets). By comparison, Eviscerate is only 770% total damage to a single target, and is not really able to properly hit multiple targets at once.
 * Although Eviscerate deals more damage with higher attack speed, it needs around ~30 to match Slicing Winds.
 * Eviscerate prevents the player from using other skills during its duration, while Slicing Winds does not. This means that the player can attack and use other skills while Slicing Winds is 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), it's possible to combo 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 wide hitbox to strike many enemies.
 * Mercenary is one of 2 Survivors with a 1.0 proc coefficient on every single skill, making Mercenary fairly decent at procs in any regard.
 * 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.

Version History

 * PS4 & Xbox One Patch
 * Bug Fixes
 * Solved an issue where the Mercenary utility skill would not apply the  debuff.
 * PC Patch v1.1.1.2
 * Bug Fixes
 * Fixed the tracking for the challenge
 * Anniversary Update
 * Major Content
 * A dded New Skill Variant:
 * . Dash forward, dealing 700% damage and enemies after 1 second.
 * Added New Class Challenge:
 * Added New Lore Entry: Mercenary
 * Gameplay Changes
 * 🌧 Now has a lingering 0.2s invincibility to help chain together Blinding Assaults in high-latency online games
 * 🌧 Now has a lingering 0.2s invincibility to help chain together Blinding Assaults in high-latency online games
 * PC Patch v1.0.1.1 (Build ID No.5440050)
 * Bug Fixes
 * Fix Mercenary’s duration scaling from attack speed
 * Fix Mercenary’s having missing iframes on startup
 * Reduce Mercenary’s hitpause duration to 0.1 from 0.15 to match pre-1.0 hitpause values
 * Fix Merc mechanic not awarding cooldown reduction to non-host players over the network
 * Early Access Content Update 5
 * Gameplay Changes
 * Developer Notes: The Mercenary was always supposed to be the highest skill-cap survivor. However, in actual gameplay he became very flow-charty, using abilities directly off cooldown while holding down M1. The intent for all these changes is to allow skill expression, dynamic cooldowns, and higher risk vs reward in fight with the new ‘Exposed’ debuff. The hope is that the character will be stronger for advanced players, but weaker for new players.
 * Base Health: 140 (+42 per level) ⇒ 110 (+33 per level)
 * Base Regeneration: 2.5 health / second ⇒ 1 health / second
 * NEW Debuff:
 * Striking an Exposed target reduces all cooldowns by 1 second and deals an additional +350% base damage
 * Third Strike Damage: 300% ⇒ 130%
 * Third hit now applies ‘Exposed’ debuff
 * The second and third hit of the combo can no longer be started in the middle of other attacks
 * Ground Speed Multiplier: 6 ⇒ 8
 * Cooldown: 7s ⇒ 8s
 * Can now be canceled mid-attack by both Whirlwind and Rising Thunder
 * Last hit now applies ‘Exposed’ debuff
 * Quality of Life
 * Reduced brightness of some Mercenary effects to they are less white and have more color
 * Last hit now applies ‘Exposed’ debuff
 * Quality of Life
 * Reduced brightness of some Mercenary effects to they are less white and have more color
 * Reduced brightness of some Mercenary effects to they are less white and have more color
 * Early Access Artifacts Content Update
 * Gameplay Changes
 * Cooldown: 7.0s ⇒ 6.0s
 * Developer Notes: Cooldowns aren’t displayed anywhere in character select, and are generally a lame way to balance similar Skill Variants
 * Sound & Music
 * Fix Mercenary not playing SFX for anyone but the client playing as Mercenary and not applying forward self-force when playing as a non-host client
 * Fix Mercenary not playing SFX for anyone but the client playing as Mercenary and not applying forward self-force when playing as a non-host client
 * Early Access Hidden Realms Content Update
 * Bug Fixes
 * Fix Merc sound not playing over the network
 * Early Access 'Skills 2.0' Content Update
 * Major Content and Changes
 * Added New Skill Variant:
 * Unleash a slicing uppercut, dealing 450% damage and sending you airborne.
 * Added New Skill Variant:
 * Fire a wind of blades that attack up to 3 enemies for 8x100% damage.
 * Added New Skin:
 * Added New Class Challenge:
 * Added New Class Challenge:
 * Added New Class Challenge:
 * Gameplay Changes
 * Add 2 new skill variants
 * Add 1 new skin
 * Early Access Patch (Build ID No.3961583)
 * Bug Fixes
 * Fix Mercenary's sometimes having double cooldowns
 * Hitting Immune characters or attacks no longer applies on-hit effects
 * This is especially important for Mercenary, who was previously recieving debuffs like and  while Immune
 * Early Access Scorched Acres Content Update
 * Gameplay Changes
 * ☂ Add true during  and.
 * ☂ Add lingering invincibility for 0.6s after ends.
 * ☂ deducts 1 from stock when timed out rather than resetting it all to 0.
 * ☂ Add “Safe Movement” during and  to reduce the chance of clipping through geometry
 * Early Access Patch (Build ID No.3731106)
 * Gameplay Changes
 * Extend timeout duration to recast from 2s to 3s
 * *Small QoL. Allows Merc to be able to cast his other abilities between recasts of Blinding Assault without losing his recasts.*
 * Bug Fixes
 * [Community Found] Fix being able to take major fall damage during dashing attacks. **This is actually a significant portion of blazing deaths - you dash in, get set to 1, and then get ticked for that last point of health.**
 * Early Access Patch (Build ID No.3703355)
 * Bug Fixes
 * The Mercenary is now properly targeted by enemies after he uses a non-primary skill.

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."
 * Unlike other epilogues revised in the Anniversary Update, Mercenary's original epilogue was not a reiteration of his epilogue from the first Risk of Rain, which was instead "..and so he left, never to become human again."
 * Prior to Build ID #3731106, Eviscerating directly into the ground when airborne would inflict heavy fall damage.
 * Prior to the 1.0 Update, Expose did not exist for Mercenary, and as such Slicing Winds would not inflict Expose at the end of its duration. This meant its single-target total damage was 800% and multi-target total damage was 2400%.