Hearthstone Mercenaries Progression Guide

The easiest way to begin improving your mercenaries is for them to gain experience and level up. With each level, up to the cap of 30, mercenaries will gain increased base Attack and Health values, dramatically increasing their strength in battle and it is advised to get any mercenary you wish to use to level 30 as quickly as possible.

The most straightforward way to level a mercenary is to simply have them on your team. Any mercenaries on your team will gain experience as you particate in battle throughout bounties, even if they remain on your bench for the entire time.

For optimal leveling, you should look to do the highest-level bounties that you are capable of doing, in the shortest amount of time. Having any mercenaries in that you wish to level sat on your bench as you complete the bounty will allow you quickly progress them to level 30. To fully optimise this process, you should try to find a bounty you can comfortably complete with 3 (or fewer!) of your previously levelled mercenaries, to allow you to bring as many mercenaries as possible along to level up. Generally speaking, early bounties in normal-difficulty Winterspring are ideal for this.

Each mercenary comes with 3 basic abilities they can use and much like the mercenaries themselves, the abilities can also be levelled. Levelling abilities greatly increases their effectiveness, improving damage, healing, and other aspects of a given ability. This makes the levelling of abilities essential for being successful.

Each mercenary has their own unique coin currency that can only be used to improve that mercenary's abilities and equipment. Abilities start at level 1 and can be upgrades as high as level 5, with each level costing an increasing amount of Coins to upgrade. Generally speaking, levels 2 and 3 of and ability provide a huge upgrade over the previous level, whereas levels 4 and 5 are only marginally better than level 3. This means you should aim for at least level 3 in any ability you wish to regularly use.

Equipment is a customisable part of a mercenary's loadout that modifies one of their abilities or their general play. Equipment for mercenaries is selected when creating your team and each piece of equipment must first be unlocked and only one piece can be equipped at any one time.

Each mercenary's first piece of equipment is unlocked by simply reaching level 30, however, the remaining pieces must be unlocked by completing specific tasks for a mercenary.

Tasks are small quests specific to each mercenary and require you to do something specific with a character, such as deal damage with a set ability. Upon completion of a task you will receive some of that mercenary's coins or, for specific milestone tasks, you will unlock a piece of equipment. The second and third piece of equipment for a mercenary is usually unlocked after completing their second and seventh task respectively.

A daily task will be received for one of your mercenaries each day, similar to receiving a daily quest. However, in order to truly progress your mercenaries you should actively seek out tasks through bounties.

To gain tasks from bounties you should actively seek out the 'Mystery' node. This node can have a range of effects, one of which is the Mysterious Stranger. The Mysterious Stranger will provide a random selection of 3 of your 6 party members, allowing you to choose 1 of them to receive a task. The optimal way to acquire these mystery events is to either repeatedly complete the level 13 Normal Barrens bounty, which will nearly always have a mystery node, or by starting the level 8 Normal Barrens bounty that has a lower chance of a mystery node and simply immediately retiring and starting the bounty again if the mystery node is not present

Much like with upgrading abilities, a mercenary's equipment can be upgraded using their respective Coins. Most equipment, with a few exceptions, start at level 1 and can be upgraded to a maximum level of 4. However, unlike abilities, equipment follows a more linear progression, which makes them a lower priority to level than abilities.

Acquiry Mercenary Coins is by far the most time-consuming part of the Mercenaries game mode. While this process can significantly be sped up by purchasing and opening packs for Coins, it is entirely possible to acquire all the necessary Coins for free.

When looking to acquire Coins you should first identify which, if any, mercenary you are trying to acquire Coins for. This is due to the fact that each bounty guarantees Coins for 1 of 3 different mercenaries alongside a random assortment. As all bounties reward a similar amount of Coins you should look for the lowest level Bounty that offers Coins for your desired mercenary. This is due to lower level bounties having weaker enemies and also fewer nodes on the map.

To further boost the number of Coins you gain, you should ensure the mercenary whose Coins you desire is present on your bounties, allowing you to pick up tasks from mystery nodes to further boost your Coin gain. For this reason you should avoid farming bounties below the level 8 Normal Barrens bounty as these cannot have mystery nodes.