Overview
This is a Mercenary league start designed around a single idea: get to maps as fast and as cheaply as possible, then pivot into whichever Gemling Legionnaire build you actually want to play. The creator has been iterating on this setup since 0.1, and 0.5.5 changed nothing about it, so the route is unchanged and proven.
The skill progression is deliberately simple. You open the campaign with grenades and armour-piercing rounds, add Galvanic Shards when they become available, and pick up Storm Blast Bolts in Act 3 — at which point almost everything dies in a single hit. Tactician is the recommended ascendancy for the levelling phase specifically because Supporting Fire, gained after Trial of the Sekhemas in Act 2, floods the screen with arrows and makes campaign clear speed absurd for the currency invested.
The pivot is the point. Once you reach maps, run Trial of Chaos for your third and fourth ascendancy points — a five-minute detour — then respec into Gemling Legionnaire and move into whichever endgame Gemling build you prefer. None of the Gemling builds were nerfed in 0.5.5, which the creator frames as the last window to play them before the 1.0 balance pass.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Very low divine budget; one-shotting bosses through the campaign with ordinary gear
- Tanky enough through the campaign that deaths are rare
- Supporting Fire plus Artillery Ballista is an unusually strong and under-used levelling combination
- The whole route is written up as a full guide with per-act notes and skill rotations
- Designed to hand off cleanly into any Gemling endgame build
Cons
- The endgame ceiling belongs to whatever Gemling build you pivot into, not to this shell
- Getting genuinely deep into endgame gets expensive fast
- Requires two ascendancy trials and a respec to complete the transition
- Highly popular archetype, so the enabling gems and gear will be contested early league
Key Skills
- Grenades — the opening clear tool, with Multishot taken immediately
- Galvanic Shards — main map clear once available; still strong despite no longer firing five shotgun projectiles
- Storm Blast Bolts — the Act 3 power spike and primary single-target; stack them and detonate
- Artillery Ballista — pins enemies and adds free damage; pairs with Supporting Fire
- Supporting Fire (Tactician) — minion that carpets the screen with arrows; cooldown is now around 10 seconds instead of 40
- Armour-Piercing Rounds — early DPS filler that starts the armour break
Gear & Anointments
Crossbow-based and intentionally undemanding. Herald of Ash goes on first; swap to Herald of Thunder once a second spirit gem is available, or run both if spirit rolls on gear allow it. Defensively the requirement is unglamorous: cap resistances, take some shield, and land roughly 40–50% evasion with some deflection. That is enough for tier 15–16 maps at 200% delirium. Specific unique items are not called out — this is a rares-and-gems build by design, which is exactly why it works as a starter.
Endgame Notes
Endgame footage shown is tier 15 and 16 maps at high delirium, cleared with Galvanic Shards alone. Boss fights use the same rotation you learned in the campaign: reload Storm Blast Bolts, place mortar cannons on the phase transition, and the boss dies. The build does not change shape between the campaign and maps, which is a large part of why it is recommended as a first character of the league.
Credits & Source
Build credited to Kingdom Twelve. See the source video for the full build’s gameplay footage and voice commentary: The Easiest Mercenary League Starter to Seamlessly Pivot.