Path Of Exile Items

As Path of Exile 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas’s release date draws closer, players are increasingly looking forward to some new content that this new league will bring to the game, such as new items and mechanisms. Among them, Mercenaries of Trarthus League Mechanic is the one that players pay the most attention to.

In this league mechanism, you will be able to challenge, recruit and create mercenaries who can help you kill enemies and provide additional loot with new exclusive enhancement affixes during the exploration process. If you effectively match it with your skill gems or passive skills, you will have a super high advantage in the campaign in POE 3.26.

However, it is worth noting that since this mercenary mechanism has not yet been officially launched, this guide will give you an introduction to the operation of Mercenaries of Trarthus League Mechanic and what new game experience it may bring to you based on some information currently released by the developer and player comments.

Who Are Mercenaries?

According to the developer, each area you explore will have a Trarthan Mercenary NPC, who will show you everything in his backpack after interacting with you, such as the items equipped, skill gems, and the contents of his pockets.

Not only that, it will also provide you with a window with three options: Hire, Take Item, or Exile. No matter which one you choose, you need to fight this mercenary first, because only if you win can you gain the right to dominate it.

If you are unfortunately defeated by it, the mercenary will be teleported away, and you will not encounter this mercenary with the same gear and skill gems again in this league. So it is highly recommended that you consider your exploration needs while also considering whether your build has the ability to complete this battle.

For example, when you find that its skills are mainly based on fire elemental damage, you need to buy POE Divine Orbs to make your build’s fire resistance affix better, thereby improving your survivability in this battle and keeping the power of choice firmly in your hands. After that, you can choose from the following options.

Hire

First of all, you hiring this mercenary as a permanent combat assistant need to spend some Gold, which is one of the most important currencies for settlers in Settlers of Kalguur League.

You will encounter a variety of mercenaries while exploring POE 3.26, and once you find one with stronger combat abilities or one with skills and equipment that suit your build, you can discard the previous one and hire the next one.

This way, the mercenary will be counted as half a player, so you have a team of 1.5 players, which will make your subsequent battles more difficult, but also provide you with more loot. If you find a way to make their abilities and difficulties offset each other, you will have a helper who can help you get extra loot!

By the way, you can only hire up to three mercenaries, but you can only choose one to fight by your side, which means that you need to choose a more suitable mercenary as your most capable assistant according to different combat needs or exploration needs.

Take Item

If you find a more effective item among the items shown to you by this mercenary, then you can choose this option. After the battle, you can choose an item from its equipment, a Trarthan Gem, which is new variants of existing skills, similar to Transfigured gems, or all the items in its pockets.

On top of that, if you encounter Infamous Mercenaries, they can even provide you with rare items with exclusive attributes, which are very difficult to farm in the early stages of your POE 3.26 exploration.

Exile

Of course, not all mercenaries are worth using, so you can choose to exile them and prevent any mercenaries with the two attribute types you choose from appearing in the next 10 areas.

Although the current developers have always praised players for getting more high-quality loot from this mechanism, the appearance of this option always makes people feel very strange, and it always indicates that players are likely to encounter enemies like Rogue Exiles in POE 2.

Please note that the mercenaries you defeated but did not hire or exile will not disappear permanently, they will return to your town and be ready to challenge you again. However, if you want to fight the same mercenary again, you will need to resurrect him by paying a certain amount of gold.

About Mercenary More

As I just said, the specific information of each Mercenary will be displayed in the interface that appears when you interact with it, which may include level, attributes, all items carried, and skills, etc. You can use this to determine whether it can be used by you.

Level & Attributes

What needs to be paid attention to here is that the level of the mercenary will not change, and it will always be fixed at the level you have when you hire them. So when recruiting, try to choose stronger mercenaries instead of higher-level mercenaries.

As for attributes, since the developer has too little description of them, but based on Rogue Exiles with similar mechanisms in POE 2 and the previous league mechanism, it can be inferred that they are likely to affect its combat capabilities and the gear and gems you have captured in it.

Items

After you hire a mercenary, you can give it the gear you have invested a lot of POE currency to upgrade it to replace its original weak gear, just like you equip another self.

However, once you discard or replace a mercenary’s original gear, it will no longer be usable by this mercenary or other mercenaries, so please think carefully before making these operations.

Skill Gems

Like your character, a mercenary can have up to 6 skill gems that can be linked to support gems, and they cannot be changed after you hire them. You can only obtain more effective skill gems by recruiting stronger mercenaries.

It is worth mentioning here that a small number of mercenaries will have Gilded Supports, which is one of the most powerful support gems in the current Path of Exile 3.26 league, which can bring extremely high bonuses for you and the mercenary.

The above is a part of the specific operation method and contents of Mercenaries of Trarthus League Mechanic that appeared in the new league of POE 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas. Although this is not the first time that the developer has introduced a mercenary mechanism in the game, its addition may allow players to have a better gaming experience and create more builds possibilities. I wish you a happy game!

If you were asked to vote for the most powerful boss killer in Path of Exile, who would be the first one that comes to your mind? I think Explosive Trap Trickster will definitely be on the list! 

Honestly, this is a proven and powerful build that has been proven to be great in multiple leagues. So, if you want to get more advantages in Secrets of the Atlas league and handle boss battles with ease, this is the best starter build for you!

In this guide, we will break down the pros and cons of Explosive Trap Trickster build, leveling tips, and various suggestions for becoming an Uber boss killer.

Pros And Cons

Now, I think it is most important to understand the pros and cons of this build, or how the build feels to play.

First of all, this is a Trap build, so if you don’t like Trap builds, you will probably not like this one either. However, I recommend everyone try Explosive Trap at least once before playing in a league, get a simple setup in a standard league and try it out, maybe you will find something interesting in it?

So, what are the advantages of this build? Honestly, it scales extremely well on a budget. Explosive Trap is a unique skill that has multiple scaling vectors that can be improved without a lot of investment in POE Currency. Therefore, it can deal a lot of damage earlier than almost any other similar skill.

The skill also scales to billions of DPS if you want to destroy pinnacle bosses in the endgame, so it has the potential to deal critical hits to bosses.

And because it is a Trickster, this build has a lot of flexibility, you can play a tank version, or a glass cannon, or something in between, depending on what style you like.

There are disadvantages, however, this build is at best a usable mapper, and while it will not hinder your progress, it is not suitable for dedicated mapping strategies like Legions.

Frankly, there are many better full screen clearing builds than this one, and choosing it is simply trading mapping for a very powerful bossing utility.

Nerfs And Buffs From 3.26

Now let’s take a look at what POE 3.26 update has affected, starting with the nerfs.

Polymath There’s not much to say, it’s the only one that has an impact, and it’s pretty mild. We lost 7%-9% damage, depending on how you use your Passive Masteries. But overall, this is still super playable and has the potential to be an S-tier Boss Killer.

The second nerf that affects us is the reduction in Evasion and Energy Shield provided by Escape Artist. Since this is a Hybrid build, the effect is somewhat weakened, and we lose about 120 Energy Shields. But it’s not a big deal.

That’s all the nerfs, but it’s important to note that there are some pending patch notes that have not yet been released that may bring additional changes.

For buffs, the developers have actually revealed some subsequent caster-related skill buffs. So ideally we’d get a buff along the way.

Also, a big boost to the evasion roll for Kintsugi, a unique chest piece that was very popular at the start of the league. It now evades around 2800 instead of 2300 previously.

Other than that, everything else about this build remains the same.

Mercenaries

Now, let’s take a look at what’s new with Mercenaries in this league. Honestly, the potential power they can offer looks pretty huge, they’re like a gold-funded Animate Guardian that you can equip and leverage for team play.

Firstly, this is a bossing build, bringing a mercenary into an area means 50% more health on mobs and bosses, so be careful when actually using them. Make sure your mercenary can carry his loadout.

Secondly, and I think most excitingly, in order for mercenaries to be more valuable with 50% more life, they may need to hold their own when mapping, which means you should probably set up a mercenary to help with the weakness of this build, which is map clearing.

There are some ideas being floated right now: equip a Gravebind and an Explode Chest, and your mercenaries can just watch bombs go off.

It’s hard to tell how awesome this would be without AoE investment at this point, but you can get some area damage with gear. There are a lot of general damage tools like Curse on Hit, Reduce Damage with Enfeeble, or adding an effect like Frostbite on top of Elemental Weakness to increase damage.

If you’re having trouble getting a reliable source of Brittle early in the game or in SSF, you can also equip your mercenaries with Brittle Boosts and get defense with Kaom’s Binding and Sign of the Sin Eater.

How To Optimize The Build?

Now, as you progress through the map, make sure you’re regularly upgrading your weapons and getting a better base for your gear. Remember, the damage boosts from upgrading your weapons are probably the key to making the campaign feel the smoothest.

You can also increase the throwing rate of your traps. However, I would caution you against using flat damage, as the added damage of Explosive Trap isn’t particularly amazing, it scales with AoE, overlaps, and gem levels.

However, as you progress, you’ll gain links on Explosive Trap, and you’ll find that casting the trap is very mana-intensive. So, you have to manage the mana cost of the trap properly based on how many links you have, and make sure you use the right gems at the right time.

Unique Items

This build has basically no mandatory items, but there are a few unique items that can make your upgrade in Red Maps very smooth.

They are Wyrmsign, a pair of gloves that give you 5-links for free, and Nycta’s Lantern, which grants you Battlemage. It is a modifier that allows the player character to gain additional spell damage equivalent to the damage of the main-hand weapon, which is very powerful, especially in the early maps.

The price of these items is not too high, a few dozen Chaos Orbs are enough, and it is completely affordable in the early stages of the league.

Damage Scaling

Next, let’s talk about some other stats that are important for damage.

By far the most important is the gem level, both on the weapon and the amulet, which are key to increasing damage.

Also, you need to make sure you have a level 21 Explosive Trap Transfigured Gem. If you’ve been in the league for more than a day or two, you can most likely get one on the trade market for a lower price. Also, make sure you have a high-quality gem.

Other stats that help you deal damage include: spell damage, critical strike, multi-spell critical strike chance. One of my favorites is double damage or double damage when focused, which allows us to easily kill enemies with one shot!

Map Farming Priority

Now, when we get to the late red map, what should we prioritize farming with Explosive Trap Trickster build to get the most benefit?

Personally, I would recommend that you can farm Betrayal and Expedition first, and then Invitations.

After farming these maps, you can still get the same number of boss fragments. Then farm Invitations, and if you don’t like the mods it drops, you can also use a trumpet, then snowball your money and invest in your character, so that your boss battle budget can easily reach a medium level.

As you start to challenge more and more difficult Invitations, you will eventually encounter Pinnacle Boss. Don’t worry, 40 million DPS is enough to beat all bosses!

The above is all about Explosive Trap Trickster league starter build. Are you ready to re-enter Path of Exile? I hope this crazy single-target killer will give you a better experience in your new league journey! Good luck!