if there is anything I missed, something you disagree with, combos I don't have on here (I'm sure there's quite a few), or anything else you'd like me to cover let me know in the comments :)

Special thanks to Netsa and Killermajaro for correcting me on attack speed and to Megawut for pointing out that he can attack while sprinting.

Formatting, visuals & general quality control done by Blixtmen.

Once you finish the last map you will get a message saying "Celestial portal appears".
It'll be next to a teleporter; once you go into the portal and make it to the end you will have to sacrifice yourself and any teammates with you, at the Obelisk.
This finishes the run and unlocks Mercenary.

Starting with a double jump allows you to attack air units early when Blinding Assault is down, prevent fall-damage if Whirlwind is down, and keep up with tankier targets so you can pull your combos off twice before landing.

This also works well with Wax Quail

Every third hit applies exposed. Hitting an exposed enemy consumes the mark reducing your other cooldowns by 1 second and dealing 350% more damage. This is where attack speed really comes in. Getting more exposed procs means more damage, more combos, and more air time. After your third hit your highest damage option becomes either Rising Thunder or Blinding Assault if you have Whirlwind. Against softer enemies, a Laser Sword will finish them off, but it is typically better to do one of these against tankier enemies.

A cool bit of flavor is that you can sprint and use this. If your Blinding Assault is down and you have a Wax Quail you can utilize this to charge up the three strikes before you reach your target then jump to get the third one off and cancel it. This also allows you to get two attacks in before reaching your target. If you time it right, you can always make your first attack against an enemy be the third strike.

The frame data on Laser Sword is actually shorter than the animation! As soon as you hear the woosh of an attack, the attack is finished. This means the moment you see or hear the attack you can go straight into another ability. This is really useful when combo'd with your third hit allowing you to quickly dish out a lot of damage.

Using any other ability will cancel your current hit string making it so you cannot get your exposed effect. This makes Laser Sword a very high risk vs reward skill. Being your lowest damage tool, throwing out an attack can actually be a liability if you have some other ability up instead. Make sure you can get your third attack in when you go to attack to maximize your time.

When moving towards a target you can get your first two attacks in while sprinting. This then makes it so our first attack at your target is your third strike. Wax Quail increases the range of this by allowing you to jump towards the enemy closing a lot of distance. The time on this can be tight but it is really useful in the early game before you have a lot of attack speed. Attack speed makes the timing tighter and the effective range shorter making string preparation a lot less viable late game.

Both are very good for damage and mobility. They are your bread and butter. If this is on not on cooldown, you are either doing it wrong or have Purity/2 Backup Magazines :P


While on the ground this skill sends you forward. This can cause it to miss its second hit on a single target if you are close enough to it.
You really only want to use it on-ground when closing the gap in a little more controlled manner than Blinding Assault (and shorter cooldown) or for damaging a horde of enemies.
However, when in midair it gives you a short jump and makes it so both slices hit a single target getting that big burst of damage. So if you cancel laser sword with an aerial Whirlwind you can do a burst of 530% damage.
The only downside to this skill is that it has decent end lag, meaning that you can't act out of it for a while after using it. This is a time you are vulnerable, can't move, and time you can't go into another attack marking the end of your combo.

When on the ground this gives you a brief dash. If you have no mobility items this can be very worthwhile to do to travel the map quickly. When in the air you can use it to keep you there, burn all charges of Whirlwind before you jump so that they go on cooldown while you jump. You can get pretty far with Whirlwind alone. Additionally, while on the ground, it can be used on slanted edges and ramps to launch the you vertically without consuming one of your jumps. This can be a stylish combo starter.

• Unlocked via the Mercenary: Demon of the Skies Challenge. (As Mercenary, don't touch the ground for 30 seconds.)

Rising Thunder is a bit more simple than Whirlwind when it comes to it's damage applications. You use it throwing bot you and whatever you hit in the air. Keep in mind some enemies are immune to this knock up. It does a lot of damage and has much better end lag than Whirlwind making it safer to use. It also replaces Blinding Assault as your highest damage attack after exposed pretty dramatically changing your combos.

Rising Thunder has great vertical movement. This can allow you to reach some very high places, especially with Backup Mags, without using either Blinding Assault or Eviscerate. This is especially useful again flying enemies making it so you can take them down with Laser Sword much easier without using Blinding Assault or Eviscerate opening them up to other uses.

Directly hitting an airborne enemy with Rising Thunder launches them crazy high into the air. This makes it very strong at buying time against hordes of wisps.

These two are fairly similar in usage but have some fair differences between each other.

• They both have the same proc coefficient but WW strikes twice making it scale better than RT despite RT having higher damage at a base, though this means RT does more damage at the start of the game.
  
• WW is much more versatile and deals with groups better while RT excels at clearing a single target and maximizing exposed.
  
• Due to RT acting as a strong aerial gap closer it opens up more options with your other abilities when fighting air. Though this can backfire if you accidentally send your target into the stratosphere.
  
• RT is easier to use while WW has a higher skill ceiling and more applications

Both options are very strong with Backup Magazine. Just 1 Mag opens up new combos and dramatically improves your mobility, more mags make more possibilities.

Attack speed reduces the animation time by quite a bit allowing you to act out of them faster. This makes combos with Whirlwind easier and just improves Rising Thunder's strengths over Whirlwind.

This skill can be used for damage, running away, and reaching high areas.

It is important to know that this attack has NO end lag. What this means is that you can use any attack/skill instantly after you reach your destination. This allows you to do your Laser Sword Whirlwind cancel right after Blinding Assault doing a 730% burst. This is actually crazy.

Sometimes you just have to run. A single dash alone can get you pretty far, but try to hit an enemy on your way out and 2 is even better. Keep in mind that even while running, getting a Whirlwind or Blinding Assault cancel is worth it because it can potentially kill, reducing the damage you take while running.

If there is an area you just can't reach Blinding Assault has got you covered. Just double jump and dash up to it. If you can hit something along the way you can get even farther. Look at enemies and footstools to leap off of! This can also be used in conjunction with Eviscerate and Whirlwind to go crazy far.

This item does not behave the way you would expect. It's additional charges grants you additional dashes when you hit enemies. They also are recharging WHILE IN USE. Meaning that it (without Purity or Bandolier) actually gives you 6-9 dashes per use of Blinding Assault.

In actuality, what this does is make you dash & then do 7 attacks in 1.3 seconds. This also has no end lag giving it the same applications as Blinding Assault. It also has the same dash range as Blinding Assault making it easy to learn. If the first target the ability targets dies it will seek the nearest enemy in range and do the remainder of it's attacks on them and will repeat this process until there are no more attacks.

Something important to remember is that in this time you cannot be attacked during the duration AND for .6 seconds after for almost 2 seconds of invulnerability. This makes it a great defensive option, so when fighting bosses you may want to save it to dodge their big attacks.

You CAN use another charge of Blinding Assault after eviscerate but you only have a small window to do it.

Perhaps the best thing about Eviscerate is that it buys time for cooldowns. Unless you have to use it to stay alive, you should only use it while Whirlwind and Blinding Assault are on cooldown.

Using Laser Sword cancels the attack so make sure you let go during Eviscerate.

• Unlocked via the Mercenary: Ethereal Challenge. (As Mercenary, complete a Prismatic Trial without falling below 100% health.)

This thing does a LOT of damage. You fire an infinite range (though slow moving) projectile that once it collides with an entity or terrain will attack the nearest 3 enemies for a total of 800% damage (potential 2400% damage if it hits all 3 targets excluding synergy with Ukulele, Brilliant Behemoth, and other on-hit items.) On top of this damage it applies exposed to all enemies opening up even more damage and introducing new combos. One of it's big combo's is if you hit 3 people with Slicing Wins and can Blinding Assault all 3 of them, you will get big damage and reset all your cooldowns y 3 seconds.

EV is the better option for mobility and defense, while Slicing Winds is SIGNIFICANTLY better when it comes to damage. I personally think EV is far more reliable due to the fact that you are a melee character and mobility/defense is what keeps you alive. Damage doesn't matter if you are dead. But if you can survive without EV, your scaling will be nutty with SW.

• SW hits more targets than EV
  
• EV provides i-frames and a dash
  
• SW can be hard to hit the further the target although EV can hit enemies you didn't mean to when you try to use it as a dash
  
• EV gives your cooldowns 1.3 seconds to recharge while SW has exposed instantly reducing them by 1.

Attack speed increases the frequency of which you attack; increasing the amount of attacks made during the same duration.

People seem to be really scared of fighting air-units with a melee character. And when you say it out loud it makes sense. However, it's actually really easy!
Blinding Assault alone one shots wisps. So if you hit as many as you can with each individual dash you actually clear them better than most any other character.

Also, it's important to remember that Whirlwind keeps you in the air. If you manage your cooldowns well you can stay in the air for a very long time (forever once you get a Backup Magazine).
The same combos that work on ground-enemies work on air. Just let yourself fall a little bit before you use your next Blinding Assault.
You also have a double jump, allowing you to manage more air time. Once you get good at managing your cooldowns, fighting flying enemies actually becomes really fun!

You want to save Eviscerate for their big burst attacks. You can dodge it with a single button press. You can also use a charge of Blinding Assault to get out of the way if Eviscerate is down. If you are in multiplayer you actually have the best trash clear out of all the other survivors so you can be a bigger benefit by killing the little guys and ignoring the boss. Sort of, if you can hit a ton of trash mobs AND the boss there is no reason not to.

This fight sounds intimidating but it is personally my favorite. It becomes super easy once you realize... you can stand on its head. That's right if you get on top of the Vagrant it is solid land. You use your Blinding Assault to reach it then make sure that after your third dash you land on it's head and fight like normal.

You know how I said you are invulnerable during your dash? It comes in handy here. When he's using his black hole and sucking up all the trash you just jump in and combo inside of him. You have so much AoE that him putting all the adds in once clumped ball makes the fight SUPER easy.

Another scary looking fight that you should handle with ease! You can dash through it taking no damage and spacing your Whirlwinds makes it so you don't have to worry about getting hit. I find that I take less damage in fights with Magma Worms than any other boss.

WIP. This section is going to take a while to complete. Every combination of abilities creates wildly different combos, not to mention how much Backup Mag opens up new possibilities. They additionally changed how combos work with the Mercenary rework so all old combos are now obsolete. I'm likely to work on other guides before I get to this section because of the amount of work it's going to take.

The old guide was outdated and had a lot of bad information. I am not going to be covering every item like I did before but am rather only going to talk about items that particularly synergize or behave oddly with the survivor.

Backup Magazine
I'm sure you are sick of me singing this thing's praises this whole guide, but here's a recap. More charges = more mobility, more mobility = staying alive longer. More charges = more combos, more combos = win.

Hardlight Afterburner
This thing will legitimately keep you in air forever, this is especially important if you have Whirlwind because Blinding Assault is your best option for exposed.

Visions of Heresy
ONLY CONSIDER THIS IF YOU HAVE SLICING WINDS. This item will completely change your play style to a mobile ranger, playing similarly to Huntress.

Rose Buckler
As a survivor with an Agile attack, Rose buckler increases your durability over a virtually infinite amount of time.


Focus Crystal
As a melee survivor this item directly increases your damage.




Energy Drink and Goat's Hoof
Speed is always fun and can increase the effective range of your engages but on Merc can make things unwieldy. Too much speed and your combos go out the door. Adjust your playstyle accordingly if you can't resist the need for speed.





Soldier Syringe, War Banner, Berzerker's Pauldron, War Horn, and Predatory Instincts
You scale insanely hard with attack speed thanks to exposing your enemies more and increased hits on your special. However it can make using Blinding Assault and Whirlwind harder to use as it increases their range.

Wax Quail
Being the only survior that can use Wax Quail twice per jump makes it automagically a good pick on Merc, twin it with the fact that it extends the range of your String Preparation, an early Wax Quail can carry you so far.

Head Stompers
A sudden drop with big burst of damage is really fun and opens up new combos. Additionally it comes with some icing on the cake in that you gain super jumps opening up more options against enemies in the air.

Just like we talked about the combos throughout the guide then grouped them, we are going to cover how to go the farthest possible distance without hitting any enemies assuming you have no items. This one is more fun than anything else but can be useful for speed runs.

Sprint->Jump 1->Whirlwind->Blinding Assault->Eviscerate->Jump 2-> Whirlwind. Just make sure you fall for like a half second to get maximum distance; don't do this string like a combo. If you are falling after this you may have time for one or two more Whirlwinds.

Unlock this skin by defeating the game
with Mercenary on Monsoon difficulty.

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