Act 3 mercenaries (Iron Wolves) can equip shields, Paladin shields, 1-handed swords, wands, scepters, tipped maces (not clubs/hammers), knives (daggers/throwing knives), & Sorceress orbs.Act 2 mercenaries (Desert Guards) can equip polearms, spears, & javelins.Act 1 mercenaries (Rogue Scouts) can equip bows (including Amazon bows), crossbows, & quivers.All mercenaries can equip helms, chests, gloves, boots, & belts.The top level Mercenaries can reach is level 98.Mercenaries gain experience from both your kills and theirs, but they will level up faster from experience obtained from their own kills.It does not apply the other way around for your character.

Followers benefit from both the Magic Find Equipment they use along with the Hero's Magic Find Equipment as both Magic Find Rate add up but only when the Mercenary kills enemies.Resurrecting Mercenaries has a fee that increases as your Mercenary levels off.

Mercenaries can be resurrected at any time by visiting Mercenary Leader NPCs in each town.

So first remove Mercenary's gear before hiring a new one. If players hire a new one, the current follower and his/her equipment will be lost.

Only one Mercenary can be used at a time.

With the release of Patch 2.4 Desert Mercenaries have suffered some changes.

Thorns aura level scaling increased and will now continue scaling up beyond the highest-level threshold up to max level.

Added some quality-of-life improvements by allowing players to hire all six different Aura types in Nightmare and Hell difficulty, rather than having to switch between modes.

Nightmare and Hell difficulty now have all 6 different aura types available from the Hire menu, instead of separating them out by 3 per difficulty.

Updated each stat/skill gains in each difficulty to match so that there is no disadvantage of leveling up a Hell difficulty mercenary versus a Normal difficulty mercenary.

Important Note: With the release of Patch 2.4 Rogue Scouts have suffered some changes:

Each time a Desert Mercenary levels up, the Mercenary gains +1.5 Strength, +1.5 Dexterity, +9.5 Defense, +1.5 Resistances, +10 Life.

Widely consider the best type of Mercenaries due to their Auras.

Melee-attack companions that use Spears, Javelins and Polearms to attack Enemies.

They can be hired from Greiz at Lut Gholein Mercenaries are special NPCs who act as companions who team up with our hero to fight the forces of evil in Sanctuary. Desert Mercenaries are melee-attack followers that use Spears and Javelins. Desert Mercenaries are a type of Mercenary in Diablo 2.

Diablo 2 equip mercenary