Hearthstone Mercenaries game mode releases next week, on October 12. It will be the fourth official game mode added to Hearthstone after launch and the first one that focuses mostly on PvE aspect.

In this article, we want to talk about Mercenaries themselves – the heroes you will guide through the fights, level up, gear, and so on. The game mode will launch with 51 unique Mercs, with varying rarity, roles, equipment, abilities and so on. Each one will have different gameplay implications and synergies – some of them will work better in certain bounties while others might make a great PvP line-up. While you certainly don’t need every one of them, having a healthy roster of Mercs will be a key to success.

Click here to skip the guide part and jump straight to the full list of Mercenaries!

How To Get New Mercenaries

You will get a total of 8 Mercenaries for free after finishing the tutorial. Those are: Grommash Hellscream (Legendary), Tyrande (Epic), Blademaster Samuro (Rare), Cariel Roame (Rare), Cornelius Roame (Rare), Millhouse Manastorm (Rare), Rokara (Rare), and Xyrella (Rare). They will be enough for some early bounties and so on, but sadly they don’t offer many synergies or interesting interactions. You definitely want to obtain more quickly and start leveling them up, picking your favorite combos etc.

When it comes to getting new Mercenaries, there are currently three ways:

Open them in Mercenaries Packs. The first and simplest way is just opening one in packs. Mercenaries mode gets its own, unique type of packs, but they work pretty close to how the regular Hearthstone packs do. We have a full guide on pack drop rates etc. but the basic idea is that each one of them will contain a random Merc (Rare is the lowest rarity so it’s guaranteed to be at least that, Epic and Legendaries drop rates are one in every 5 and 20 packs on average) and a selection of Mercenaries Coins. Each Merc has its own unique Coins which are used to craft and upgrade them.
Craft them with Mercenaries Coins. Packs are the most efficient way of getting new Mercs, but they are inherently random. Just like in Constructed Hearthstone, if you want to get a specific one, the best way is crafting. Unlike regular HS, though, you don’t have a single generic resource, but rather a separate currency for each Merc. As you already know, you can get Merc Coins from packs, but also from all sorts of activities like Bounties (PvE missions), Fighting Pit (PvP), as well as Task Board (Mercenaries-only Quests). Since Coins in Bounties don’t change, most of the Mercs should be farmable – as long as you get to the right encounter. Crafting Mercenaries costs 100 Coins (Rare), 300 Coins (Epic), or 500 Coins (Legendary).
Buy them with real money. Sort of. You can get Diablo, The Lich King and Sylvanas from pre-purchase bundles. But I said “sort of”, because you technically only buy the specific Merc portraits (Diamond for Lich King and Diablo, Golden for Sylvanas) – you don’t unlock the base Merc alongside. You can still play those with just the cosmetic portrait, and it offers duplicate protection (there’s a guaranteed Merc in each pack and it won’t be e.g. base Diablo if you buy Diamond version, BUT you can still open base Diablo in one of the other 4 slots in packs instead of another portrait). Since those are the only three Mercenaries offerings we ever got (because the mode is not out yet), it’s too early to tell whether Blizzard will keep offering individual Mercenaries/portraits on top of packs in their bundles. You also buy those bundles mostly for the packs and not for the Mercenary – but ultimately packs mean more Mercs, so here it is.

If your aim is to just have fun – you should easily be able to do it F2P. But if you want to have a full roster of Mercenaries, you will probably have to spend some real money on packs. How hard is it to get them, exactly? Rares are incredibly easy – every player who plays the mode for a while should have all the Rares unlocked without any problems. Epics are also pretty easy – you get them commonly in packs, opening a total of 80 packs should give you every single Epic Merc – even less if you craft a few of them – and that many packs are easily obtainable for just playing the game. The biggest bottleneck seems to be Legendaries – not only they won’t drop as often, but their Coins will also be more difficult to get and they cost more to craft. You would probably need a couple of hundreds of packs to get all of them (and craft the missing ones). Alternatively, spend A LOT of time farming – assuming all of the Legendary Merc Coins will be available through replayable Bounties (we don’t know that yet).

Leveling, Equipping & Upgrading Your Mercenaries

Keep in mind that simply unlocking all the Mercs you want is only a part of the success – unless you’ve just started, a Level 1 Mercenary with no upgrades will be pretty useless. They won’t contribute anything and will just die to any higher level bounty. That’s why you first need to do a few things:

Level up your Mercs. Mercenaries get stronger with each level – they gain extra Attack, Health, and their abilities scale accordingly. In order to level up a Merc, you need to take it into action – be it PvE or PvP. PvP is probably not a viable solution for an unequipped Level 1 Merc, so we’ll leave that. When it comes to PvE, you have two options. You can either take your low-level Mercs and tackle some starting Bounties, grinding your way through the easiest fights or “power level” them using your strongest team. The first one doesn’t require any explanation and is probably your only option when you’re just starting. But once you get a strong team of Mercs, the second one will definitely be the way to go.

When you start a Bounty, you get to pick a team of six Mercs, but only three of them actively participate in combat at the time (only getting replaced when they die). However, when you beat an encounter, every Merc in your team gains XP – including the ones on the bench who didn’t contribute. So the goal here is to take your three strongest Mercs, add 1-3 lower level ones you want to “boost” to your team, and then go on some higher level Bounty. Well, probably something a little bit easier, since you have a handicap in a form of still useless Mercs. This way your low level Mercs will catch up to speed very quickly.

When you level up your Merc, you unlock their abilities – first one is available from the get-go, second one unlocks at Level 5 and the third one unlocks at Level 15.

Gear Up! Each Mercenary has three equipment pieces unique to them – you can’t trade them between Mercs. Those items directly boost given Merc’s strength – increasing the power of their abilities, adding extra passive effects, and so on. You can only have a single item equipped at the time, but you should still unlock all three in case the PvP meta changes or you need to juggle between them for different encounters.

Equipment is unlocked by doing Tasks related to a given Mercenary (they are a sort of Mercenaries-only Quests that ask you to do some activities related to the mode). Each Mercenary will offer multiple tasks in total (I know that there are at least 7, but I will update it once I learn the actual number when the mode launches) – finishing them will give you different rewards such as Mercenaries Packs, Coins and – exactly – equipment related to that Merc. After you complete all the Tasks, you should have everything unlocked. Good news is that you would probably want to finish those Tasks anyway, since they give you some nice rewards.

Upgrade your Mercs. And finally, once you level up and equip your Merc, it’s time to upgrade them. Each Merc has three skills and three equipment pieces, all starting at Rank 1. Abilities can be upgraded all the way to Rank 5 and equipment to Rank 4 (Note: some equipment pieces have a static effect/level and can’t be upgraded). As you can probably guess at this point, increasing their rank makes them more powerful. To upgrade them, you have to use Mercenaries Coins (remember – each Merc comes with their unique Coins that you can only use on their upgrades). We’ve recently learned how much Coins you have to spend on upgraded – we have full numbers and some calculations in a separate article.

Luckily, Coins are the most basic reward – you get them from Packs, as well as all sorts of activities like Bounties, Fighting Pit, or Tasks. Since the pool of rewards for Bounties is static and you know what you might loot from the final boss chest in a given Bounty, you actually CAN farm Coins for a specific Merc. For example, if you want to upgrade your starting Tyrande, you just need to find a Bounty that offers Tyrande Coins and keep playing it over and over again (they are repeatable without any limits).

One final piece of advice is that since you can use all three abilities in combat, but only a single piece of equipment, you should first focus on upgrading all abilities (assuming you use them – if you find yourself skipping a certain ability then you can ignore it at first) and a single piece of equipment. After you’re done with those, you can use the rest of your Coins to max out your Merc.

Full List of Mercenaries

The images below were all created by CampfireStone – you can find them on Instagram and Patreon. They showcase Mercenaries on Level 1, mostly with basic portraits. Images are based on pre-release data, they might look slightly different when the mode launches.

After the mode is released, we’ll update this post – we’ll update any wrong data, add scaling of the abilities/equipment, all available portraits, as well as a short guide for each Mercenary. Currently, the list of Mercenaries should mostly serve theorycrafting purposes.

Casters

Anduin Wrynn (Legendary)
Gul’dan (Legendary)
Jaina Proudmoore (Legendary)
Uther (Legendary)
Antonidas (Epic)
Baron Geddon (Epic)
Brightwing (Epic)
Natalie Seline (Epic)
Prophet Velen (Epic)
Vol’jin (Epic)
Blink Fox (Rare)
Bru’kan (Rare)
Guff Runetotem (Rare)
Millhouse Manastorm (Rare)
Morgl the Oracle (Rare)
Tamsin Roame (Rare)
Varden Dawngrasp (Rare)
Xyrella (Rare)

Fighters

Diablo (Legendary)
Illidan Stormrage (Legendary)
Rexxar (Legendary)
Sylvanas Windrunner (Legendary)
King Krush (Epic)
Mutanus (Epic)
Saurfang (Epic)
Tirion Fordring (Epic)
Tyrande (Epic)
War Master Voone (Epic)
Blademaster Samuro (Rare)
Lady Anacondra (Rare)
Old Murk-Eye (Rare)
Rathorian (Rare)
Rokara (Rare)
Scabbs Cutterbutter (Rare)
Tavish Stormpike (Rare)

Protectors

Alexstrasza (Legendary)
Garrosh Hellscream (Legendary)
Grommash Hellscream (Legendary)
Lord Jaraxxus (Legendary)
Malfurion Stormrage (Legendary)
Ragnaros (Legendary)
The Lich King (Legendary)
Thrall (Legendary)
Cairne Bloodhoof (Epic)
Gruul (Epic)
King Mukla (Epic)
Mannoroth (Epic)
Varian Wrynn (Epic)
Cariel Roame (Rare)
Cornelius Roame (Rare)
Kurtrus Ashfallen (Rare)

Role: Protector

Rarity: Rare

Type: Night Elf (Alliance)

9 Comments

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June 10, 2022 at 8:16 pm

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Itch
October 17, 2021 at 8:56 pm

Is there anywhere that I can see all the mercs with their abilities and equipment in spreadsheet form. Been googling for a while.

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BastionKid
October 7, 2021 at 8:21 am

where is VALEERA?

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- Stonekeep - Site Admin
  October 7, 2021 at 9:57 am
  
  From what I’ve heard, a few more Mercs will be added in bigger patches (like new Heroes in Battlegrounds), so we’ll probably see Valeera and others later.
  
  But to be honest, it’s a bit weird to have Valeera as the center point of the Mercenaries key artwork and not have her in game, haha.
  
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  - BastionKid
    October 7, 2021 at 11:40 am
    
    she is the only HS heroe that wont be in the game from the start
    thank u blizzard from Rogue lovers -_-
    
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Thriss
October 6, 2021 at 7:19 am

I’m really looking forward to see how balanced will this be. It actually doesn’t seem to me that the legendary Mercenaries are OP… actually in case of Gul’dan I don’t get his Fel bolt ability – why is it plain deal 4 damage at speed 10? Compared to other mercs, this looks like actually the worst ability, right? Maybe legendaries will also scale better?

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- Stonekeep - Site Admin
  October 7, 2021 at 9:56 am
  
  Legendaries definitely aren’t more powerful than lower rarities. There are some great Mercs at every rarity. In fact, some Rares seem to be some of the best Mercs in the game (in theory, things might change in practice).
  
  I don’t think that game being “P2W” because you need to have a team full of Legendaries will be a problem.
  
  And yes, Gul’dans Felbolt is HORRIBLE, but that’s probably on purpose. It’s because it’s not meant to be strong by itself, but to “power up” Rain of Destruction (which gets strongest for every Fel spell you cast).
  
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  - 2asandab
    October 15, 2021 at 2:41 pm
    
    Jax/kurtus/Rath can all combo fel spells with ROD as finisher.
    
    Jax can actually combo his own fel abilities and you can ring Guldan four times with ROD. I think? I don’t have Jax, so untested.
    
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Njuns
October 5, 2021 at 11:31 am

Thanks a lot for this article ! I’m quite surprised Blizzard still didn’t update their website yet with all abilities etc… Anyway, will definitely go for a shadow comp for launch, can’t wait !

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Click here to skip the guide part and jump straight to the full list of Mercenaries!

How To Get New Mercenaries

Leveling, Equipping & Upgrading Your Mercenaries

Full List of Mercenaries

Table of Contents

Casters

Anduin Wrynn

Gul’dan

Jaina Proudmoore

Uther

Antonidas

Baron Geddon

Brightwing

Natalie Seline

Prophet Velen

Vol’jin

Blink Fox

Bru’kan

Guff Runetotem

Millhouse Manastorm

Morgl the Oracle

Tamsin Roame

Varden Dawngrasp

Xyrella

Fighters

Diablo

Illidan Stormrage

Rexxar

Sylvanas Windrunner

King Krush

Mutanus

Saurfang

Tirion Fordring

Tyrande

War Master Voone

Blademaster Samuro

Lady Anacondra

Old Murk-Eye

Rathorian

Rokara

Scabbs Cutterbutter

Tavish Stormpike

Protectors

Alexstrasza

Garrosh Hellscream

Grommash Hellscream

Lord Jaraxxus

Malfurion Stormrage

Ragnaros

The Lich King

Thrall

Cairne Bloodhoof

Gruul

King Mukla

Mannoroth

Varian Wrynn

Cariel Roame

Cornelius Roame

Kurtrus Ashfallen

Stonekeep

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