Odyssey’s mercenary system is not a new system by any means, but it provides another challenge to not only get great loot, but a real challenge in combat to keep your skills sharp! Whether you are a menace to Ancient Greece or not, you can always hunt down unsuspecting mercenaries to give yourself an edge.
There are a couple things to keep in mind when planning on hunting down the mercenaries of this game, here are a couple of tips for climbing the mercenary ladder in Odyssey and earn the title of Strongest!
Research!
If there is a mercenary spawned on your map, you can use the mercenary tab in your menu to look into all of the mercenaries. Typically, there will be a total of 50 different mercenaries with different strengths and weaknesses. If you try sneaking up on a mercenary who is highly resistant to assassination damage may not do as much damage. While you can still utilize stealth in other ways, like sneaky archery, that may do more damage off the bat to give you an edge!
This tab will also show you their mercenary rank. If you’re goal is to take on the higher mercenaries to get your own rank higher, hunting those lower than you won’t do much at all. Making sure you pick your targets wisely will ensure that not only are you not just fighting for the sake of fighting, but you’re meeting you’re goals at the same time.
Approach!
From your research, you can find what will be the best way to start the battle. While you could go after every mercenary in the exact same manor and probably force your way to the top, there is an easier way! Just like most everything in this game, if you can strategize around your strengths and your enemies weaknesses you’ll have so much of an easier time.
In the mercenary tab, it will show what your target’s resistances are as well as what they are weak to. In here is where you can start your planning. As I mentioned above, going after someone who is resistant to assassination damage by sneaking up and showing them how your spear can be a hidden blade may not have as big of an impact as you’d like.
But Ry! I’m doing a sneaky run through! I’m best as assassination!
I went through the same way! Does that mean you can’t do sneaky? Of course it doesn’t. It means you use your sneaky skills in another way. Hide in a bush and headshot the unsuspecting mercenary, and when they run away to get away from the onslaught, run and hide in another bush! Rinse and repeat. You could also summon a lieutenant from the Assassination skill tree as distraction to keep your sneak going.
Battle!
Normally, while mercenaries are much tougher and move slightly different than the rest of the enemies in the game, they are pretty cut and paste of themselves. Only very specific mercenaries are different, not the auto generated ones. If you have trouble with mercenaries who use spears, focus on that fighting style! The more you fight them, the more you learn their move set and the more you learn that the easier it is to predict the next steps.
Be aware of your surroundings as well. Guards will jump in to help mercenaries in certain areas and some civilians will do the same. While a battle with one tough person can be doable, if you get surrounded by 7-8 more, including archers slowly picking away at your health? That can start getting tough.
