All Crossbow (Mercenary) skills in Path of Exile 2, explained

Path of Exile 2’s Mercenary class skills answer the question “What if Rambo had a magical shotgun?” At the very least, it’s a question I’ve often asked myself. While the class officially equips a Crossbow, its attacks replicate a shotgun and an assault rifle, firing either cones of deadly magical bolts or rapid-fire chains of crossbow bolts that obliterate anything in front of them. It might feel like a tricky class to get a handle on due to several ammo-swapping abilities.

Nonetheless, it’s a fun new way to play the game, and the Mercenary comes with some amazing skills. If you want to try this cool new class in Path of Exile 2, here are all the skills it can pick up throughout the game.

All available Mercenary skills in Path of Exile 2

Mercenary skills in Path of Exile 2 primarily revolve around having certain types of ammo (Rounds). You have quite a few skills to swap between, making it so your attack will do a wide variety of damage types: Armour Piercing, Fragmentation, Permafrost, Explosive Grenade shots, and so much more. You can fight pretty much everything if you have the right ammo for the job.

Mercenary skills in Path of Exile 2 are for everyone who ever dreamed of owning a magical shotgun (Image via Grinding Gear Games)

You’ll start by finding Uncut Gem Level 1 drops, which give you the baseline abilities to learn. As you progress, you’ll find more powerful Uncut Gems, which will unlock the more powerful Mercenary skills deeper into the Path of Exile 2 campaign.

All skills unlocked with Uncut Gem Level 1

Armour Piercing Rounds: Loads your Crossbow with a clip of bolts that can be fired rapidly and Break enemy Armour. Using this skill again reloads the clip. (Tags: Ammunition, Projectile, Physical)
Fragmentation Rounds: Loads your Crossbow with Piercing bolts that fragment in flight. Bolts that hit a Frozen enemy consume the Freeze and cause an explosion of shrapnel. Bolts that hit an Ice Crystal cause it to explode. (Tags: Ammunition, Projectile, Payoff)
Permafrost Bolts: Loads your Crossbow with icy bolts that fragment in flight, damaging enemies on hit and in a small cone behind their final target. The icy coating on the bolts makes them extremely potent at Freezing enemies. (Tags: AoE, Ammunition, Projectile, Cold)
Explosive Grenade: Fire a bouncing Grenade that unleashes a devastating fiery blast when its fuse expires. (Tags: AoE, Projectile, Grenade, Fire, Duration, Detonator)

All skills unlocked with Uncut Gem Level 3

High Velocity Rounds: Loads your Crossbow with Piercing bolts that can consume Fully Broken Armour on enemies to deal extra damage. (Tags: Ammunition, Projectile, Physical, Payoff)
Incendiary Shot: Loads your Crossbow with flaming bolts that fragment in flight, damaging and Igniting enemies on hit and in a small cone behind their final target. (Tags: AoE, Ammunition, Projectile, Fire)
Flash Grenade: Fire a bouncing grenade that unleashes a Blinding, Stunning explosion when its fuse expires. This explosion can Blind both Allies and enemies. (Tags: AoE, Projectile, Grenade, Duration)

All skills unlocked with Uncut Gem Level 5

Galvanic Shards: Loads your Crossbow with a clip of charged bolts that fragment in flight, releasing Chaining Lightning beams when they Hit enemies. Using this skill again reloads the clip. (Tags: Ammunition, Projectile, Lightning, Chaining)
Ice Shards: Loads your Crossbow with a clip of icy bolts that rapidly fire at the ground, leaving a shard of ice at the impact location unless the bolt hits an enemy. The ice shards shatter when enemies step on them, dealing damage to nearby enemies. Using this skill again reloads the clip. (Tags: AoE, Ammunition, Projectile, Sustained, Cold)
Rapid Shot: Loads your Crossbow with a large clip of heavily modified bolts that cause Heat to build up on your crossbow, before unleashing a stream of flaming bolts that gain Fire Damage based on your Heat. Heat also grants bonus damage to Grenades you fire, but dissipates rapidly when not building up. Using this skill again reloads the clip. (Tags: Ammunition, Projectile, Fire)
Gas Grenade: Fire a bouncing Grenade that causes a burst of Poison gas when its fuse expires, damaging enemies and leaving behind a growing Poison cloud. Burning effects or Detonator skills will cause the cloud to explode in a fiery blast. (Tags: AoE, Projectile, Grenade, Fire, Chaos, Duration)

All skills unlocked by Uncut Gem Level 7

Explosive Shot: Loads your Crossbow with flaming bolts that explode on impact. The explosion will cause any Grenades in its area of effect to also explode. (Tags: AoE, Ammunition, Projectile, Fire, Detonator)
Glacial Bolt: Loads your Crossbow with icy bolts that create two walls of Ice Crystals at the end of their flight. (Tags: AoE, Ammunition, Projectile, Cold, Duration)
Ripwire Ballista: Deploys a Ballista Totem that fires Pinning bolts which Maim Enemies. (Tags: Totem, Projectile, Duration)
Voltaic Grenade: Fire a bouncing grenade that discharges an Electrocuting Lightning blast when its fuse expires. (Tags: AoE, Projectile, Grenade, Lightning, Duration)

All skills unlocked by Uncut Gem Level 9

Artillery Ballista: Deploys a Ballista Totem that fires bolts skyward, to explode a short time after landing. (Tags: Totem, AoE, Projectile, Fire, Duration)
Stormblast Bolts: Loads your Crossbow with charged bolts that land around the target location and explode if hit by a Detonator Skill. Using this skill again reloads the clip. (Tags: AoE, Ammunition, Projectile, Lightning, Duration)
Oil Grenade: Fire a bouncing grenade that bursts in a spray of Oil when the fuse expires or when it impacts an Enemy, dealing minimal damage but covering the ground and nearby enemies in Oil. Oil created this way can be Ignited by Detonator Skills or Ignited Ground. (Tags: AoE, Projectile, Grenade, Fire, Duration)

All skills unlocked by Uncut Gem Level 11

Emergency Reload: Instantly reloads your active Crossbow Ammunition and Empowers the loaded bolts to deal more damage. (Tags: Duration)
Hailstorm Rounds: Passively generates bolts of ice at a frequency equal to reload time, up to a cap. Activate to Load the accumulated bolts into your Crossbow. All loaded bolts are fired at once, causing them to rain down over the target area.
Shockburst Rounds: Loads your Crossbow with a clip of charged bolts which release damaging pulses upon Hitting an enemy affected by a Lightning Ailment. Using this skill again reloads the clip. (AoE, Ammunition, Projectile, Lightning, Payoff)

All skills unlocked by Uncut Gem Level 13

Plasma Blast: Loads your Crossbow with unstable bolts that require a lengthy charging period to fire but deal devastating damage, pierce through enemies, and explode upon hitting terrain. (Tags: AoE, Ammunition, Projectile, Lightning, Channelling)
Siege Cascade: Loads your Crossbow with enemy-seeking payloads which are fired into the air, dropping a bolt near every enemy in the target area. These bolts lodge in the ground and explode after a short delay. (Tags: AoE, Ammunition, Projectile, Sustained, Fire, Payoff)
Cluster Grenade: Fire a bouncing Grenade that explodes when its fuse expires, throwing out a nova of mini Grenades that explode when they come to a stop. (Tags: AoE, Projectile, Grenade, Fire, Duration)

The higher-end skills definitely are worth having in your Path of Exile 2 skill set (Image via Grinding Gear Games)

Path of Exile 2 allows you to upgrade your skills as you progress, using Uncut Skill Gems. You need a skill gem of at least one level higher — so if you have an Uncut Skill Gem Level 2, you can use that to level up a Level 1 skill. A Level 3 gem will let you upgrade a Level 1 or 2 skill, and so on. This allows you to power up your various Mercenary skills in Path of Exile 2, improving their overall functionality.

While Mercenary skills in Path of Exile 2 don’t have an extra Spirit cost as Witch skills do, you have another challenge: you have to be mindful of what ammo you have equipped, and what grenades are on your hotbar. That way, you can combine them more efficiently, to deal as much damage as possible.

Check out our other Path of Exile 2 guides and features:

Edited by Adarsh J Kumar