Mercenary Upgrade Guide to Wasteland Punk
The only way to survive the brutality of the wasteland is to have enough muscle to overcome any hostile group that stands in your way. In this guide, we’ll show you how to upgrade your mercenaries when you Play Wasteland Punk in order to make them more capable of surviving the post-apocalypse. But before discussing how to upgrade them, we must first know what we are upgrading. With that, learning some basic information on mercenaries and their characteristics is a good way to start.
Characteristics of a Mercenary
Mercenaries in Wasteland Punk are defined by several key features. Namely, these features are their class, rarity/quality, as well as their hero attributes.
There are currently six main classes that a Mercenary can have. Their class determines what their abilities are and gives you an idea what their combat specialty is and how they can be used effectively in combat. The classes of Wasteland Punk mercenaries are:
- Wasteland Patcher – responsible for healing fellow mercenaries and giving temporary buffs (i.e., buffs to accuracy)
- Scout – can unleash deadly physical attacks to multiple enemies at once and also has minor healing capabilities
- Jaeger – an expert shooter that can give devastating physical attacks to either one enemy or multiple enemies
- Grenadier – uses their explosive weapons to attack or debuff multiple enemies and can also give minor buffs to fellow mercenaries
- Warrior – utilizes blunt weapons to effectively damage enemies and has enough health to absorb more damage than the rest
- Chemist – uses lethal chemicals to attack one or multiple enemies but can also use non-lethal ones to buff fellow mercenaries
Mercenaries also come in different rarities which determine their base strength. Higher rarity mercenaries are harder and more expensive to recruit than lower ones. Mercenary rarities in order are: D, C, B, A, S, and SS.
Regardless of class and rarity, all mercenaries have the same main attributes which are essentially their basic stats that define their power. These are the stats that will affect when you upgrade heroes. The main attributes are:
- Strength and Technic – the amount of damage a mercenary gives to enemies
- Endurance – maximum amount of health
- Dexterity – chance of hitting a target
- Speed – the likelihood of dodging an enemy attack and the speed at which mercenary skills/abilities are used
- Resists – how much enemy damage is lowered/resisted upon receiving them
- Therm.Res – resistance to thermal damage
- Chem.Res – resistance to chemical damage
- Phys.Res – resistance to physical damage
Upgrading Mercenaries
The most basic way of upgrading your mercenaries is by leveling them up. This can be done by spending XP.
Leveling up mercenaries can be done by going to the Bar in Tombstone, your main base, and selecting the mercenary that you want to upgrade. Once selected, click on the “Upgrade” button to level them up. The amount of XP required is also indicated on the button itself.
Your mercenary’s stats will be increased after being levelled up. However, not all stats will be increased at once as only several of them will increase per level up. More XP will be needed as your mercenary reaches higher levels.
More XP can be acquired by completing story quests, looting enemies from expeditions, and accomplishing jobs from the “Jobs Board” in Tombstone’s outpost. To know more about how these work, you can read this separate guide (XP, Coins, Salvage, Fuel, and More: Resource Guide on Wasteland Punk) that explains how to acquire essential resources in Wasteland Punk.
Equipping Gear
Bonus stat boosts can be given to your mercenaries by giving them gear. These gear items consist of armor pieces, special weapons, as well as miscellaneous accessories.
Each mercenary has four gear slots. One is for armor, two are for accessories, and one is for a weapon. Depending on the gear item equipped, it can increase a specific stat of your mercenary.
For instance, armor can increase their total health. But at the end of the day, equipping gear increases the general power of your mercenary. This can become very important especially with jobs in Tombstone’s outpost which require a specific amount of mercenary power to even begin the job.
Gear can mainly be acquired by crafting them in the Workshop in Tombstone. The Workshop is unlocked after rescuing Chloe in a story quest (happens early on in the game). The items that you can craft in the Workshop are divided into multiple categories: Armor, Weapon, Accessories, Special, Craft Mods, Schemes, and Components.
The Armor, Weapons, Accessories, and Mods categories are the ones we are most concerned with. Each category has a list of items that you can craft. Upon selecting an item, you will see the list of required resources. Almost all craftable items in the Workshop require a resource called Parts, which can be easily produced in the Manor. The other requirements can be garnered from expedition loot.
Aside from required resources, you can also see the “Expected Characteristics” of the item, which tells you the range of stat boosts that the mercenary using it may receive. You can also see the quality or rarity of the item. Higher rarity items can be built when the Workshop is upgraded to certain levels.
Before clicking on “Craft”, note that you can add mods to the item by clicking on the “Mod” slot. Mods give further stat boosts to items and there is a myriad of mods that you can embed in an item. Mods that specifically increase vitality (health), strength, and other mercenary stats are available.
“Chloe’s Mods” are mods that randomly give out a stat boost to the item that it is affecting. These are the first few mods that you’ll have access to in the game. More Chloe’s mods can be crafted in the Workshop too and it costs Electronic Parts.
Crafting items in the Workshop increases the knowledge of Chloe, the one running the Workshop. As she increases her knowledge and subsequently levels up, she’ll be able to add bonuses to every crafted item such as 5% more firepower and 5% more strength.
Hiring Stronger Mercenaries
If your current mercenaries simply are not enough, regardless of how many times you upgrade them, you can always hire a new mercenary who is much stronger and more capable.
New mercenaries can be recruited in the Bar. Every hour, a batch of three mercenaries come to the shop and become available for hire. They can be hired in exchange for coins with the exception of mercenaries with a D rarity as they can be hired for free. The rarer the heroes, the more expensive their hiring fee is. The batch can be refreshed instantly by paying 100 coins, watching an ad, or by using contracts.
When hiring new mercenaries, ensure that the Bar has enough capacity to house them. If you are out of space, upgrading the Bar (paid with Scrap) increases the max capacity. Additionally, it also increases the chances of rarer mercenaries coming into the bar.
