Everything You Need To Know To Build The Perfect Party In ‘Hearthstone Mercenaries’

Blizzard already found runaway success with its deckbuilding game Hearthstone and its battle royale mode, Battlegrounds. And now the card game has scored a brand-new mode called Mercenaries that combines roguelike and RPG elements with iconic Hearthstone and World of Warcraft characters.

In Mercenaries, you assemble a team of six mercs to hunt down bounties, which consist of a series of smaller battles and a powerful boss. Your mercs gain experience after each successful battle and you’ll earn valuable treasure by defeating the boss – but, in true roguelike form, if your party is knocked out before then, you’re sent back to the village to start over.

The RPG inspirations become obvious in the village. It’s a base builder combined with a party manager where you can level up your mercenaries, collect task rewards, buy items, and more.

Success in Mercenaries depends on building the right team, and there’s a lot to consider when you’re putting your party together. If you want a bit of help getting started, we’ve got you covered. Here’s everything you need to know about building a party in Hearthstone Mercenaries.

Mercenaries have different roles

Mercenaries are divided into three roles – red protectors, green fighters, and blue casters. Fighters, like Sylvanas Windrunner and Illidan Stormrage, are your party’s main damage dealers. Their attacks hit harder, affect more enemies, and have a chance to deal critical damage. When fully upgraded, Blademaster Samuro, can deal 10 damage to each enemy with one “Whirling Blade” attack.

Casters, like Jaina Proudmoore and Anduin Wrynn, wield magic to deal damage and buff allies’ attacks. They do less damage on their own but they can make another merc’s ability even more powerful or mark an enemy for extra damage. Some casters, like the famed warlock Gul’Dan, can draw the life from an opponent and restore that amount of health to their allies.

Finally, protectors like Grommash Hellscream and The Lich King specialise in defence. They have lots of health and abilities that heal themselves or their allies – like Cariel Roame’s “Seal of Light”, which heals an ally and gives them extra strength on their next attack. Some protectors can also draw an enemy’s attention to give their allies a chance to recover or set up for another attack.

Each role has its own strengths and weaknesses, but fighters also do double damage to casters, and casters do double damage to protectors, who deal double damage to fighters. Your team should have a good mix of each role – otherwise you’ll struggle when you’re facing different kinds of enemies.

Pick mercenaries who work well together

Each mercenary has a unique set of abilities. Some abilities, like King Krush’s “Apex Predator” attack, are powerful on their own, but most are more effective when they’re paired with at least one other merc or ability.

Like, Millhouse Manastorm and Jaina Proudmoore, two casters who can do massive damage – if they can survive a few rounds first. Pair them with a protector like Cariel Roame to draw attention and give them time to charge up.

 

Or Diablo’s “Apocalypse” ability, which debuffs an enemy to ensure they take double damage  from your other mercs that turn. Use it early in the turn to maximise the damage the rest of your party deals.

Of course, you could just build a party of Orcs, whose abilities tend to stack for every other orc you control. Rokara, for instance, repeats her attack based on the total number of Orcs in your party.

To begin with, each merc only has their standard attack ability, but you unlock new abilities by completing bounties and levelling up back in the village.

Unlock new mercenaries

You’ll have eight mercenaries when you complete the tutorial, but that’s more than enough to build a party and start hunting bounties. There are 51 mercenaries available in the game already, with more to come, and you should start collecting them as soon as possible if you want to experiment with new builds.

New mercenaries can be unlocked as rewards for completing bounties or bought for coins that you earn by playing. These coins are also how you upgrade equipment and abilities, though, so you’ll sometimes have to decide if making a merc stronger or adding a new merc will make your party stronger.

Just like the base game, Mercenaries is easy to learn and hard to master – but you’ll have a hell of a lot of fun along the way. There are lots of ways to build strong parties, and half the fun of Mercenaries is experimenting with different combinations of characters until you find a playstyle you like. The other half is tearing through bounties with that party and watching it grow more powerful with every win.

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Hearthstone Mercenaries is out now and free to play. Download it and start building your mercenary party here.

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All images courtesy of Blizzard