Overview
The Mercenary is Albion's light tank, a dual wielding, damage dealing tank that generally focuses on damage pressure. Unlike an Armsman, whose primary responsibility is typically guarding, peeling, and controlling space, the Mercenary is fundamentally a more offensively-minded class. It has a place as a secondary peeler, but Mercenary shines in a damage-uptime role. Mercenary is a good choice for players that like offensive melee classes who need to be active and constantly making decisions.
Group Playstyle
In 8v8, the Mercenary's primary job is simple: apply pressure, create disruption, and convert crowd control advantages into kills. While Mercenaries have the tools to peel when necessary, they are first and foremost an offensive melee class whose greatest contribution is sustained pressure on enemy support and casters. A Mercenary should constantly ask himself “Am I more valuable hitting someone right now, or stopping someone from hitting my teammates?" The answer depends heavily on your group composition.
Early Fight Decision Making
The opening moments of a fight are often where Mercenaries make their most important decision. After crowd control lands and both groups begin moving:
- Quickly assess your backline.
- Identify whether enemy tanks are over-committing aggressively.
- Determine whether your group has sufficient peel/control already.
- Avoid becoming overextended and risk being cut off from your healers
If your support is relatively safe, push forward and contribute damage.
If your support is immediately under pressure and no one is handling it, peel first and then transition back to offense as soon as stability is restored.
The best Mercenaries don't blindly tunnel targets. They understand that every fight presents a different balance between offense and defense.
To Peel, or not to Peel?
In an Alb hybrid or caster setup, the equation changes significantly. Hybrid and caster groups often have fewer dedicated defensive tanks, which means the Mercenary becomes more of a hybrid DPS/peeler. Typically, Mercs will use their 29 Dual Wield style “Flank” to peel from the side. In these groups you must constantly evaluate:
- Is an enemy tank currently threatening our support?
- Is our caster or healer being interrupted?
- Can I stop an enemy train long enough for our casters to win the fight?
Sometimes the best offensive play is actually a defensive one. A well-timed peel that allows your Sorcerer to land a mezz or your Cleric to recover can be worth far more than a few seconds of damage on an enemy target.
A traditional Alb tanker consists of 3 melees (usually a peeler + 2 mercs, or a peeler + 1 merc & 1 reaver), a Minstrel, a Sorcerer, a Theurgist, and 2 support classes. In these setups, the Merc’s group already has classes better suited for defensive duties. In this setup, a Merc’s value is staying offensive, assisting the melee train target quickly, applying maximum damage uptime, forcing enemy healers and support to react, and creating kill pressure before the enemy.
Damage Uptime is King
A great Mercenary isn't measured by raw damage alone. They're measured by whether they applied the right pressure at the right time. This concept of damage uptime is what separates good light tanks from mediocre ones.
In general, the more time you spend dealing damage uptime:
- Enemy support is playing reactively instead of proactively
- The more attention you will cause from enemy peel tanks, opening up other classes in your group that may have otherwise been neutralized or interrupted
- The more likely it is that a Theurgist, Minstrel, or Sorcerer can provide long-range rupts/control/pet spam/interrupts to open valuable kill windows
The strongest Mercenaries are constantly reading the battlefield and shifting between targets adaptively in real time. You need to constantly be asking yourself: “do I have a realistic chance to kill this target?” and “is the enemy guard tank just guarding against all of my attacks?” and “if the guard tank is coming to me to peel me, should I move?” Understanding this delicate dance of damage uptime is what can permit you to be great.
Group Spec Options:
Mercenary character builder:
https://blackthorn-daoc.com/class/Mercenary
50 Dual Wield, 42 Shield, 39 Weapon, 13 Parry
- Most common spec
- Gives you best dual wield damage, your main source of killing
- 42 Shield spec is mandatory for group spec since it gives you Slam
- Weapon usually depends on race: Highlanders should go Slash or Crush, Saracen and Inconnu should go Thrust, and Britons can choose any line. You can choose an Avalonian if you want something entirely different.
44 Dual Wield, 44 Thrust, 42 Shield, 18 Parry
- Solid off-meta spec
- Still very respectable Dual Wield damage but you lose the 50 DW style Dual Shadows (front bleed)
- Gives you access to the level 44 Thrust style “Wyvernfang” which is an extremely useful 27 second follow-up snare. Some defensive-minded peel tanks prefer this spec because you can execute the 27 second snare very quickly with capped swing speed 1h thrust weapon.
- Gives you more flexibility to choose between snaring with your Thrust long-snare, or snaring with Flank (lvl 29 side dual wield style). Mercs do not get a backsnare, making the long-snare even more theoretically valuable if you will be peeling semi-often.
Group Realm Ability Builds:
- First priority: Determination, Purge, Long Wind
Unlike damage dealers, whose effectiveness may simply be reduced by crowd control, a Mercenary’s value often drops to nearly zero when he is mezzed, rooted, or stunned.
- Second priority: Prevent Flight, Charge
Prevent Flight is not a flashy realm ability. It won't appear on a damage parse. But over the course of hundreds of fights, it generates countless extra swings, extra interrupts, and extra kill opportunities by snaring opponents that turn their back to you. On a class without a backsnare, this is invaluable.
Charge is a gap closer that -while not being hugely impactful- can make a life or death difference in a chasing or fleeing moment.
- Third priority: Passives (e.g., Mastery of Pain) and other Actives
Solo Playstyle
On a classic server, Mercenaries are arguably one of the strongest solo classes in the game, and many veteran players would place them at or near the very top of the list. This comes down to a perfect toolkit of: offensive potential, defensive ability, and Dirty Tricks.
Dual Wield provides excellent sustained pressure, and unlike many heavy tanks, Mercs can generate a tremendous number of swings over the course of a fight. Once they establish momentum, they are capable of overwhelming opponents through sheer offensive output.
A Mercenary can spec 42 Shield and gain Slam, the famous anytime 9-second stun. Many DAoC veterans consider Slam one of the strongest styles in the game because it requires no positional setup and immediately creates a huge advantage. Many mercs will simply kill you inside of the 9 second slam window before you can react.
But the real reason Mercenaries are feared in solo combat is Dirty Tricks. Dirty Tricks increases the fumble rate of your opponent. This can completely alter the course of a fight, and enemy melee opponents are often left frustrated by their inability to land attacks on Mercs.
PvE/Leveling
Mercenary is Albion’s primary sustained melee damage dealer in PvE groups. While tanks like the Paladin and Armsman control aggro and stabilize pulls, the Mercenary exists for one purpose: do damage.
Your Core Role: Off-Tank DPS Engine
In most leveling groups, the tank structure looks like this:
- Main tank: Armsman or Paladin
- Off-tank / DPS: YOU (Mercenary) or Reaver
Your job is not to control aggro, it’s to ride just below it and output maximum damage at all times. If the tank is doing their job and taunting repeatedly, you should never be the one holding primary aggro, but you should always be swinging and able to inflict damage.