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Tactician Ascendancy Overview

Early Access

Last Updated:April 3, 2025

The Tactician Ascendancy for the Mercenary class grants very strong defensive options across the board. Between disabling monsters when pinning them, cheaper persistent buffs, and high thresholds against ailments/stuns, the Tactician has a lot of great tools to survive. The Tactician Ascendancy also has great potential for a supportive co-op focused playstyle by providing flat damage and multiple persistent buffs to your party.

Early Access

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Tactician - Mercenary

The Tactician Ascendancy has the following nodes:

Node EffectWhat it Does
Persistent Buffs have 50% Less Reservation50% is an extremely generous multiplier, allowing builds to fit in twice as many persistent buffs.
Allies in your Presence gain added Attack Damage equal to a 25% of your main hand Weapon's DamageCan be used for the player's own minions or party members in a more support oriented setup.
Can place multiple BannersA good boost to any banner intensive build.
Projectile Damage builds PinPin on its own is already a fairly strong mechanic but this mainly serves as a way to reach the node below it.
Pinned enemies cannot perform actionsA super strong defensive node as it prevents most monsters from ever fighting back in the first place.
Gain 100% of Armour as extra Stun Threshold
Gain 100% of Evasion Rating as extra Ailment Threshold
Grants the Tactician Ascendancy extreme resilience to stuns and ailments as 100% is a very generous value.
Defend with 200% of Armour
Enemies have an Accuracy Penalty against you based on Distance
Maximum Evade Chance is 50%
Maximum Physical Damage Reduction is 50%
With how Armour works (Click here for an in-depth Armour formula explanation) it is unlikely to mitigate large hits for more than 50% in the first place. Assuming the distance based Accuracy Penalty is the same as it is for players, even low amounts of Evasion results in decent mitigation.
Grants Skill: Supporting FireNeeds further information to assess its strength.
Totems have 30% more Skill Speed
Totems only use skills when you fire an Attack Projectile
Gives up your Totems' ability to attack on their own for a somewhat marginal boost in theoretical DPS.

Tactician Summary

The Tactician Ascendancy is a great option for anyone that's looking for a generically defensive Ascendancy or is looking to provide more bonuses to co-op/party play. This is due to strong defenses against stuns/ailments, fitting more persistent buffs, crowd controlling monsters and granting flat damage to party members.

Credits

Written by: Cptn Garbage
Reviewed by: Tenkiei

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