Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred Mercenaries guide

Mercenaries are a new addition to Diablo 4 introduced as part of the Vessel of Hatred expansion. These are companion allies that fight alongside your party both in solo and co-op similar to those long-time Diablo fans may remember from Diablo 2 and 3. There are four different Mercenaries with unique perks, abilities, and passives you can hire or enlist (more on that distinction below). In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to unlock all the Mercenaries, the Rapport system, and Bartering.

How to unlock Mercenaries in Vessel of Hatred

You’ll unlock Mercenaries by playing the Vessel of Hatred campaign once you reach The Mercenary Den in Nahantu and start the Chapter 2 Thrust Into the Dark quest. You’ll unlock the first Mercenary, Raheir, automatically. If you look around The Den, you’ll spot items marked by purple icons on the map. Interacting with each of these items will trigger specific quests that you’ll need to complete to unlock the remaining three Mercenaries, as follows:

Mercenary name	Type of Mercenary	Quest start item in The Den	Quest	The Den role once unlocked
Raheir	Tank shield bearer	N/A	Thrust Into the Dark (Chapter 2 campaign quest)	Blacksmith
Aldkin	AoE-focused magic caster	Archive of Kuo Chosah	A Nameless Mystery	Occultist
Varyana	Melee DPS berserker	Brutal Note	Slayer’s Retribution	N/A
Subo	DPS archer	Muddy Letter	A Feather on the Scale	N/A

How to hire Mercenaries

You can hire Mercenaries from The Den hub in the northeast of the Lingering Hatred region in Nahantu. Interact with a Mercenary and you’ll be given the option to hire them as a Mercenary or enlist them as a Reinforcement. When playing solo, you can have one hired Mercenary and one enlisted Reinforcement at any point. In multiplayer, you can only have one enlisted Mercenary Reinforcement.

Hire Mercenary

The Mercenary will join your party as a constant companion when you play solo, fighting alongside you as you explore Nahantu and beyond. A Hired Mercenary is unavailable when playing co-op with friends and will despawn until you go back to playing alone.

Each Hired Mercenary has their own mini skill tree with one perk, six skills, and 12 passive abilities. Skill points are unlocked by earning Rapport Ranks (more of that below). The skill tree is accessed via the Mercenary menu (Shift + M). You can reset and respec the skill tree for free at any time.

Enlist Reinforcement

An Enlisted Reinforcement will only join you under very strict conditions (or an Opportunity as it’s called in-game), such as when you cast an ability in combat, and use a pre-assigned skill that you configure beforehand. After using the skill, the Mercenary disappears and goes on cooldown. You can have one Reinforcement in both solo and co-op. You can adjust the summon condition via the Mercenary menu, which you can bring up by holding Shift + M on PC.

Opportunity conditions:

• Summon when you cast a specific skill
• Summon when you cast any skill in combat
• Summon when you become Injured (below 30% health)
• Sumon when you get hit by a Control Impairing Effect

How to earn Mercenary Rapport

To earn Rapport, hire a Mercenary or enlist them as a Reinforcement and play as you would normally – campaign, dungeons, quests, and so on. As you earn XP and level up, you’ll develop Rapport with your Mercenary and level up what’s called their Rapport Rank, which you can check under the Rapport tab in the Mercenaries menu. In other words, the more you explore, fight, and quest with a Mercenary, the better the Rapport Rank. As you hit new ranks, you’ll unlock Mercenary Skill Points, Pale Marks, Barter upgrades, and caches. You’ll need to manually claim these in the Rapport menu. Here’s a breakdown of the rewards for each rank:

Rapport Rank	Rewards
Rank 1	1 Mercenary Skill Point
Rank 2	1 Mercenary Skill Point
Rank 3	1 Mercenary Skill Point
Rank 4	1 Mercenary Skill Point
Rank 5	50 Pale Marks Legendary Bartering Upgrade: – Raheir – Defensive cache (Bartering shop) – Aldkin – Resource Aspects cache (Bartering shop) – Varyana – Mobility cache (Bartering shop) – Subo – Utility cache (Bartering shop)
Rank 6	50 Pale Marks – Raheir cache (Legendary armor and gold) – Aldkin cache (Legendary armor and gold) – Varyana cache (Legendary armor and gold) – Subo cache (Legendary armor and gold)
Rank 7	50 Pale Marks – Raheir Masterworking cache (Masterworking materials and Legendary armor) – Aldkin Masterworking cache (Masterworking materials and Legendary armor) – Varyana Masterworking cache (Masterworking materials and Legendary armor) – Subo Masterworking cache (Masterworking materials and Legendary armor)
Rank 8	75 Pale Marks Legendary Bartering Upgrade: – Raheir Crafting cache – Aldkin Augmentation cache – Varyana Masterworking cache – Subo Boss Summoning cache
Rank 9	75 Pale Marks – Raheir Living Steel cache – Aldkin Distilled Fear cache – Varyana Malignant Hearts cache – Subo Exquisite Blood cache
Rank 10	100 Pale Marks – Grand Raheir cache (Legendary items, Gold, Scattered Prisms, and Gem Fragments) – Grand Aldkin cache (Legendary items, Gold, Scattered Prisms, and Gem Fragments) – Grand Varyana cache (Legendary items, Gold, Scattered Prisms, and Gem Fragments) – Grand Subo cache (Legendary items, Gold, Scattered Prisms, and Gem Fragments)
Rank 10 +	200 Pale Marks

✓ Tip

When playing alongside a hired Mercenary and a Reinformcement, the Reinforcement only earns 50% of the Rapport of the hired Mercenary. Make sure you’re playing with both, especially during the campaign, to level up Rapport Rank as efficiently as possible

Barter system explained

As you unlock Rapport Ranks, you’ll earn a new currency called Pale Marks, which is used to purchase Legendary items and special Mercenary caches that contain anything from materials to Aspects by way of Gem Fragments, Runes, and Gold from the vendor called Fayina in The Den. Bartering and Fayira’s shop unlock once you hit Rapport Rank 5 with any of your Mercenaries.

The Barter name is a bit of a misnomer as you aren’t bartering for items at all. It’s a normal shop that only accepts Pale Marks instead of Gold. The items Fayira sells run on a daily rotation, but you can hit Restock Supply to push through a restock early. The first time is free, but any subsequent refreshes will cost you 50 Pale Marks.

The stock can be further improved by Bartering Upgrades, two per Mercenary for a total of eight, that are unlocked through Rapport Ranks, specifically hitting Ranks 5 and 8. The upgrades add more items to the shop and unlock new caches full of Legendary weapons and materials.