Hiring a Mercenary in Expansion mode will now always offer mercenaries that match your character's Level, instead of having a randomized Level difference from your character's Level.
Developer Comments: The Desert Mercenary is already popular, but we saw an opportunity to add some quality-of-life improvements by allowing players to hire all six different Aura types in Nightmare and Hell difficulty, rather than having to switch between modes. With the general improvements to “Thorns,” we wanted to improve the level scaling to make this aura mercenary type more meaningful.
Diablo 2 Resurrected “Poke Poke” achievement: Hire a Desert Mercenary.
Desert Mercenaries are a type of Mercenary in Diablo 2. Desert Mercenaries are melee-attack followers that use Spears and Javelins. They can be hired from Greiz at Lut Gholein Mercenaries are special NPCs who act as companions who team up with our hero to fight the forces of evil in Sanctuary.
This is possible as soon as you get to Lut Gholein at the very start of Act II. Find Greiz in the hub and hire one of his merceneries, which will permanently replace whatever companion you have.
| Difficulty | Type/Ability/Aura | Level Range | Equippable Items |
|---|---|---|---|
| Normal | Combat: Prayer Defense: Defiance Offense: Blessed Aim |
9-13 | Helms, Armor, Polearms, Spears |
| Nightmare | Combat/Thorns Defense: Holy Freeze Offense: Might |
44-47 | Helms, Armor, Polearms, Spears |
| Hell | Combat: Prayer Defense: Defiance Offense: Blessed Aim |
75-79 | Helms, Armor, Polearms, Spears |
It is safe to say that Greiz’s Desert Warriors of Act II have been the most popular mercenary choice over the last two decades. The main reason for that is the fact that they are able to grant six different Paladin auras, adding a ton of damage, defense, or utility for players and their parties. Besides their aura, Desert Warriors use the Amazon ability Jab, a quick triple attack.
In essence, three of the six auras see regular use in both early- and end-game play.
First off, Nightmare Act II’s Defense Holy Freeze mercenary does a great job at slowing down approaching or fleeing enemies. It also slows attack speed and deals a small amount of cold damage while adding cold damage to attacks.
Another popular choice is Nightmare Act II’s Offense mercenary. Its Might aura boosts overall physical attack damage, making it a great pick for physical damage builds like Zealadin or Frenzy Barbarian.
Last but not least, the Prayer aura provided by the Combat mercenary from Normal and Hell Act II can provide great life regeneration if you don’t get any use out of Holy Freeze or Might.
The Hirelings of Act II are available from Greiz in Lut Gholein. They are melee attackers and use spears/javelins or polearms to great effect. These mercs are the most popular hires in the game, since they come with various auras that can greatly benefit their employer.
Skills: Jab attack.
Auras: These mercs have a variety of auras. There are three types available on each difficulty level, though the auras found on Normal and Hell difficulty levels are the same.
Allowed Equipment: Armor, Helms, Spears, Polearms, Javelins (Used solely for melee weapons.) They can not equip Amazon-only javelins or spears.
The names are randomly selected each time a list of mercs for hire is generated; the names do not have any connection to their other abilities or aura types. As is the case with lots of weapons in the game, and especially with the names of NPC mercs, the Blizzard North designers worked in the names of Blizzard employees, and notable members of the Diablo II fan community. Azrael was the webmaster of Diablo2, a prominent fansite in the pre-Diablo 2 days.
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