Hearthstone Mercenaries had a pretty rocky development – it was first meant to be released over 6 months ago, but after some delays it’s finally here! Well, at least on PC. Sadly, mobile players will have to wait a bit longer – the official PlayHearthstone Twitter account said that the mobile launch will happen 3 hours after PC – I hope that it’s just an estimate and the patch will be available a bit sooner. Update: Patch is now available on mobile! That said, we should also get some freebies, log-in bonuses and Twitch drops. You can read more about them here.
We’re really excited about the new mode, and we’ve been (and still are) working hard to provide some content and guides, so you have easier time actually playing it. Here’s a full list of Mercenaries content we have so far:
- Mercenaries Launch Guide – I created a guide for new players with some tips & tricks and overview of some systems, things that you might find most confusing when you first start playing. I based it on my (pretty limited) early access play time.
- Mercenaries Overview – A general overview of the game mode, its systems, how its played and so on. It was meant to explain the quite puzzling initial reveal – right now people understand it a bit better, but if you’re still confused about what the new game mode actually is, give it a read.
- Mercenaries Heroes Guide – A full list of 51 launch Mercenaries, their abilities and equipment. Some of the data is outdated compared to the launch version (since it was based on early access), but most of them should be correct. We’ll update it with the new versions soon after launch, and try to add more information, like short guides or descriptions for Mercs in the coming days.
- Village Guide – Village is the main hub of Mercenaries – you do everything from here, including managing your party, launching bounties, and accepting tasks. Learn more about what each building does, how much it costs and what order you should be upgrading them in.
- Coins Guide – Learn how to earn Coins, and how much Coins everything costs (crafting, upgrading abilities & equipment).
- PvP Guide – While PvE is the main way to play, Fighting Pit also seems to be pretty popular. Learn how it works, how different it is from PvE, what’s the matchmaking like and why you should play it.
- Best PvE Party Comps – We’ve listed some of the cool, mostly cheap party comps you can run PvE bounties with. There’s a lot of synergies to explore in Mercenaries, so we will be adding more of them in the future!
- Leveling Guide – What are the best levels to max your Mercs – level them up to 30, then farm Coins & Tasks.
- Is Mercenaries PW2? – We’re trying to answer the question whether the new game mode is pay to win – will you get a huge advantage if you spend real money on it?
- Mercenaries Budget Guide – If you’re F2P player and you didn’t open any Legendaries from packs, we’ve prepared some budget & semi-budget party comps for you.
- Mercenaries PvP Tier List – Based on official data, we’ve listed all of the currently available Mercenaries and placed them in respective tiers based on their PvP power level.
- Best PvP Party Comps – A list of 7 (for now) PvP party comps that have been working very well at high MMR. Meta is changing pretty quickly, though, so we’ll probably update in 1-2 weeks.
And that’s it! Hope you all enjoy the new game mode.
I find the mode to be fun. I certainly don’t see any reason to buy packs for it.
Completing the tasks will be part of my daily heartstone ritual.
Blue portal takes you to boss, sabotage makes all fights one colour so green blue or red. Mysterious stranger gives you a task for a Merc you own which you need to complete multiple of to get more equipment for your mercs.
Heroic bounties seem pointless to me, much more difficult for not enough extra rewards.
I’m not entirely sure the mode has any legs to it, but it’s a finish distraction at the moment
You know that feels when you’re right about how bad mercenary is?
The thing is, COINS. It’s COINS everywhere.
You want to level up the merc you want? COINS. Specific COINS only.
You want to get skills? COINS. upgrade skills? COINS.
You want equipments? that’s right. COINS again.
The only way to get COINS is from pack and tasks, and it’s random, and what’s more, you can get portraits from packs which is literally useless. Why the F* Blizz would you put useless items in packs?
The grind you need to make to get the needed coins for your merc is frustrating too.
Just avoid this game altogether, and keep your gold for your ‘traditional’ Hearthstone.
Unless I’m confused the portraits are as good as getting the merc itself.
Grinding away at tasks is sort of the nature of alot of games.
Certainly a totally different game then hearthstone. I think I’ve spent 300 gold so far upgrading the town which isn’t really alot imo. 120 dust.
The portraits you can start receiving instead of new mercs in my experience which means every new one for Merc you have already deprives you of a new Merc.
You can never get a cosmetic portrait INSTEAD of a new Merc. It only happens when you own all the Mercs from that rarity anyway.
Well, the duplicates portraits aren’t gonna be any helpful if you can’t ‘dust’ it.
We can at least get something from the packs like Hearthstone even with duplicates. But not with this one.
I don’t know what’s in their mind, and I’m quoting PCGamer, “How can we replicate the runaway success of Battlegrounds, but, y’know, make real money rather than rely on easily ignored cosmetics?”
And I haven’t even started about the bugs too..
Yes, but once you get to the point where you got all mercs in one rarity, packs not gonna be 100% in their values anymore. Like I said, save your economy for the real mode.
Grinding the rewards is one thing too, if it’s good for you. But not me. Between the slow actions and randomness on coins, I better spent my little free time elsewhere.
I don’t see alot of reason to buy the packs in general.
Between the frees packs and the 5 bucks I spent for 5 packs and a legend. I already have all the rare Mercs and and over half of the available in general.
To me this mode replaces my BGs time which I have like 90% of the achievements anyways. Damn AFK.
Is there anyone in Hearthstone who can help?
I’m getting desperate here.
On a PC, my Mercenaries game is frozen in tutorial in the Tavern.
Pages won’t click so I can only see the Fighter page. No other page.
It won’t let me build a full party because I can only use the 3 fighters.
The tutorial won’t advance. I can’t open my packs or play the game because the tutorial is unfinished.
I have tried multiple times to submit a technical problem ticket to Hearthstone.
The page won’t accept the ticket.
I have paid $90 for mercenary packs I can’t use.
The game won’t play.
Hearthstone won’t even let me submit the problem.
All advice appreciated.
I’m at the end of my rope with frustration.
Hey, have you tried again? Because a lot of people were locked in tutorial, but last night they’ve released a hotfix that supposedly tackled this issue.
What worked for me was uninstalling the app and then downloading it again and the mercenaries got going 🙂
There is easier way (for next upgrades) – if the application doesn’t upgade automatically, open play store on your mobile, go to your account (icon in the top right) and choose manage your applications and devices. From there you can check for upgrades of any of your installed application.
This works for me even if the upgrade is not visible directly
Is this happening to anyone else?
I started the tutorial – finished the first mission and was sent to build my tavern.
Once in the tavern – all I could see was the fighters page. Clicking on any other page would not let me see either protectors or casters. I unwisely deleted my “default” party.
Now all I can make is a party of 3 mercenaries which is not enough.
I am frozen. Can not move backwards. Can not move forwards.Can not open my packs.
I play on a PC.
Anyone else having this problem or is it just me?
Am I doing something stupid or is this a major bug in the tutorial?
Still not on mobile, ipad or android
It’s up on android, still not on ipad, grrrr
That’s weird, I got reports from both Android and iOS that the patch is downloadable. I also got mine on Android. But then many people said that they don’t see it.