Five new Ascendancy Classes have been added in this Path of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt update, giving players more options for their builds. Mercenary has been one of the most popular classes in the game since its Early Access release, so naturally, the addition of a brand new Ascendancy to this class has been highly anticipated once it was leaked. Here, we discuss this Ascendancy and explain what its strengths are, and what builds you might see play on this Ascendancy. Let’s jump right in!
A Solid Plan
Let’s first take a look at the first skill node in Tactician dual-choice four-point branch, A Solid Plan.
First, note that it provides an 8% increase in Spirit, which is very solid for a small passive, especially considering the 50% reduction in Reserve modifiers for Persistent Buffs. Now this one is really powerful, you will be able to retain more buffs with this node, for example Combat Frenzy will only retain 15 Spirit baseline instead of 30. But you need to have gem socket links for these skills to fit.
Now one thing to mention about this node is that there are over 100 new Support Gems coming out in patch 0.2.0, so the chances of us getting new Persistent Buff Skill Gems, like Vitality and Clarity, are pretty high.
Keep in mind though, that even though they are Support Gems, something like Vitality is still a Persistent Buff that would normally retain 20 Spirit, whereas with this node it will only retain 10.
All of Herald Skills will also be marked as Persistent Buffs, and while they will most likely be severely nerfed in this patch, consider how powerful this notable node is. Especially since it allows you to retain a bunch of high-cost buffs for a very low investment.
For example, Blink will cost you 30 Spirits to keep, and Cast on Critical will be 50 Spirits instead of 100. And yes, all of these Trigger Gems count as Persistent Buffs as well. So they apply to this node as well.
Considering there are so many options for persistent and buffs, this is just a very versatile strong node that you can get with almost any build you want.
Watch How I Do It
Now there are two different notable nodes branching off from this A Solid Plan node, each with a more specific effect on the build you want to use.
For Watch How I Do It, this causes allies in front of you to gain bonus attack damage equal to 25% of your mainhand weapon damage. Now, this may have some interesting effects on Spectres that appear in this patch. I’m sure there will be some mob types who abuse these fixed damage like crazy.
I think this node is more of a party support playstyle than any other mode, that’s because if you’re playing minions you can’t drop your Spectres, Gem Levels and Spirits, so you can’t use two-handed weapons here. You can only use one-handed weapons with Sceptres for fixed damage, which would be ideal for fixed damage, but I don’t really think that would be that great.
Also, there are Totems, but since all Totems in the game currently deal fixed damage based on Gem Level, I don’t think that would be too useful either, but from a party support perspective in group play this node is fine.
Whoever Pays Best
Then we have another branch option, Whoever Pays Best. Now this can place multiple Banners, in addition to War Banner. Banners are generally a bit weak in Path of Exile 2. So hopefully this change will get them some attention in the upcoming patches, but as of now I don’t see many people picking this up.
Suppressing Fire
Let’s move on to the next four point branch, starting with Suppressing Fire. Pin is a debuff that essentially acts as a route, since projectile damage builds up Pin, which will bind the target in place, and while the target is pinned, they can’t move. Pin has a default base duration of 4 seconds.
It’s worth noting that Pin is pretty easy to build up compared to Freeze. When the target is pinned, they are also considered immobile, so you can take advantage of this, like with Leverage Support Gem, which increases critical chance by 50%. But perhaps more notable is Siege Cascade, which is a crossbow damage ability.
So, you’ll be able to use this to actually build up the pins for Suppressing Fire, and the skill itself has 50% more built-in damage to pinned enemies, so this is a nice secondary node.
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Right Where We Want Them
For the next node in Suppressing Fire branch, this makes it even more powerful, which is Right Where We Want Them. This node makes the pinned enemy unable to do anything, they can’t move, they can’t attack or cast spells, they just stand there for the entire pinning period, like a puppet.
You know, the crazy Freeze is already very powerful in POE 2, but Freeze is much harder to get compared to Pin. So this node essentially turns your Pin into a pseudo-Freeze, and when mapping, you can immobilize everything you hit with a projectile. So it’s a great option for when your character has very limited movement speed, so you can buy POE 2 Currency and make Pin easier to build. This will go up most of the time, and it’s a very good four-point branch.
Polish That Gear
Now moving on to the next four-point branch, Polish That Gear, this gives you 100% of your Armor as additional Stun Threshold, and 100% of your Evasion Rating as additional Ailment Threshold.
So how does this node generally work? Your Stun and Ailment Threshold are first based on your max life, so if your max life is 3,200, let’s say your Stun and Ailment Threshold are both 3,200, then those numbers are used to calculate whether a hit will stun you or cause an Ailment shock to you.
For example, for every 4% of Ailment Threshold, there’s a 1% chance of a Stun Threshold being struck, but Polish That Gear gives you the potential to increase those thresholds significantly. Of these, just having 5,000 Armour alone will more than double your Stun Threshold. Considering we can’t easily avoid Stun and Ailment completely in POE 2, I think this is an excellent investment, especially if Ailment becomes more dangerous in patch 0.2.0.
Stay Light, Use Cover
Now the next node off this branch is Stay Light, Use Cover, and this is where things get a little interesting. This node gives you 200% Armor Defense, and enemies have an Accuracy Penalty against you based on distance. Additionally, your maximum Evade chance against strikes is 50%, and your maximum physical damage is reduced by 50%.
What this node does for evasion is that it essentially makes monsters less accurate, which reduces the trade-off against your evasion, making a lower total Evasion Rating more effective. But the other half of this node is more interesting, because you can defend with 200% armor, which means that any hit that interacts with your armor will use twice your total armor to calculate the damage reduction it provides.
Now, armor is at the other end of the scale compared to evasion, and we hope to see buffs to this mechanic in an upcoming patch that will provide similar benefits to the other half of Evade node.
Unleash Hell!
The next node we want to mention is Unleash Hell! From the trailer we can see the actual effect of this skill, to be honest it looks terrible, but who knew it was a very interesting skill design.
As we all know, for some off-screen minions, they are not actually with you, but with this skill, you can shoot a bunch of arrows to a location, and the minions will scale their damage based on your Dexterity and Strength. So there is a bit of attribute stacking factor, but in fact without the base damage number, we really don’t know how good this skill will be.
Cannons, Ready!
The last node is Cannons, Ready! This makes your totems’ skills 30% faster, and the totems only use skills when you fire attack projectiles.
But honestly, it’s not great, because the biggest problem for us is that the totem playstyle usually allows your totems to do all the work, but this node prevents the totems from using their skills until you specifically use skills to shoot and attack projectiles.
But for single target damage, 30% skill speed increase is a lot. And this node does not specify Ballista Totem, which means that you can use Weapon Swap to summon Shockwave Totem or Ancestral Warrior Totem, and then you can switch to another set of weapons to fire attack projectiles, making them trigger damage faster than usual. So this can lead to a lot of burst damage. As I said, it’s good for boss fights, but it’s terrible for mapping.
Now in general, Tactician Ascendancy does bring some pleasant effects, especially Pin branch and Reservation node are very good, and for those who like group games, the existence of Tactician will also provide unlimited support for you! I believe we will see some pretty good bows and crossbows built on this Ascendancy in the future.