Hero Siege Mercenary - Where to Hire and How They Work

Mercenaries are a second character you gear and spec, not a passive summon. That is the thing most worth knowing: they have their own skill trees, and points spent there work much like your own.

Where do you hire a mercenary?

From Gar Nor, standing next to the training dummies.

How do mercenaries work?

Three rules cover most of it:

• They take gear. Helmets, weapons, armor and shields — the same slots you would expect, so spare drops have a use rather than being vendor fodder.
• They have skill trees. You choose where to invest points, as you do with your own character.
• Only one can be active at a time. You can hire different types, but you are picking one to bring, not building a party.

That last rule is the one that shapes decisions: mercenary choice is a loadout slot, so it should complement what your build lacks rather than duplicate what it already does well.

What can mercenaries actually do?

Their documented abilities split into active and passive effects:

Type	Effect
Active	Charges the closest enemy, stunning and damaging everything around it
Passive	Each attack stacks rage; at full stacks, releases an AoE that damages and breaks enemy armor
Active	Fires a powerful piercing shot that stuns on impact
Active	Launches a barrage of heat-seeking missiles
Passive	Each attack stacks; at full stacks, fires a projectile that explodes on collision
Active	Drops a large bomb on the nearest enemy, scattering arrows on impact

The armor break passive is the standout for group value — it changes what your own damage does rather than just adding to it.

Which mercenary should you pick?

Match the gap in your build rather than the biggest number:

• Running a fragile caster? The charge-and-stun active buys you spacing.
• Struggling on single targets? The piercing shot and heat-seeking missiles add damage that does not depend on your positioning.
• Fighting armored enemies? The rage-stacking armor break is the one that multiplies your own output.

A note on the source for this page

The wiki documenting these mercenaries describes three hireable types “as of Season 17”, while every official source says Season 10 is current. That numbering does not match, and the same wiki carries navigation entries for seasons well beyond 10.

The mechanics above — Gar Nor, the gear slots, the skill trees, the one-at-a-time rule — are consistent and specific enough to be useful. Treat the count of mercenary types as unconfirmed.

When gearing a companion, compare the collected weapons, armor, helmets and shields by slot. Your own setup can then be checked against the reviewed build catalog so the mercenary fills a real gap instead of duplicating it.

Next step

Check what your build struggles with before hiring — the armor-break passive is worth more to a physical build than another source of raw damage.