The Witch Hunter Grenadier build is one of the most powerful Mercenary builds in Path of Exile 2, particularly for players who enjoy high damage output, quick clearing of enemies, and a unique playstyle revolving around Explosive Grenades and Explosive Shot. This build shines with the Witch Hunter Ascendancy, which provides excellent utility against tough bosses and rare enemies, as well as potent damage-dealing abilities.

Core Features of the Build:

Explosive Grenades and Explosive Shot: The core of the build revolves around throwing grenades and using Explosive Shot to instantly detonate them, allowing you to clear screens of enemies with ease.

Witch Hunter Ascendancy: The Witch Hunter Ascendancy gives you No Mercy (which weakens bosses and increases your damage) and Zealous Inquisition (causing enemies to explode and spread Ignite when killed).

Explosive Synergy: Using Explosive Shot to trigger Explosive Grenades makes for devastating combos, quickly clearing mobs and dealing with elites in high-tier maps.

Key Skills

Explosive Grenade

Main Skills:

Fire Infusion: Adds 25% of damage as extra fire damage.

Magnified Effect: Increases the area of effect by 40%.

Scattershot: Fires two additional projectiles (slightly reduces damage, but increases total output).

Primal Armament: Deals 25% more elemental damage.

Concentrated Effect: Increases area damage by 40%, but reduces area of effect by 20%.

Explanation:

The combination of Scattershot and Concentrated Effect increases the grenade's total damage while retaining decent area coverage. Fire Infusion and Primal Armament further enhance your elemental damage output, making your grenades potent.

Explosive Shot

Main Skills:

Martial Tempo: Increases attack speed by 25%.

Nimble Reload: Boosts crossbow reload speed by 60%.

Inevitable Critical: Increases critical hit chance by 25% each second, stacking up to 100%.

Ignition: Grants 100% increased chance to ignite.

Explanation:

Explosive Shot detonates your grenades, ensuring enemies close to death are quickly finished off. Martial Tempo and Nimble Reload ensure a fast response, while Inevitable Critical and Ignition enhance your damage and add powerful burn effects.

Herald of Ash

This skill provides a persistent buff that causes overkilled enemies to explode and spread Ignite to nearby enemies, adding more damage and crowd control, especially in large groups.

Attrition

This is an excellent skill for dealing with bosses and rares. It increases your damage against rare and unique enemies as long as you're near them, stacking up to 53%. It also gives Culling Strike, making it easier to finish off low-health rare enemies.

Passive Tree

The Passive Skill Tree is focused on boosting grenade damage, area effects, attack speed, and overall survivability. Here's a recommended path:

Right Side: Take Remorseless, Feel No Pain, and Ricochet to enhance your overall damage and ammo efficiency.

Ranger Tree: Pick up Heavy Ammunition for extra damage and movement speed if desired.

Left Side: Go for Battle-Hardened, Mass Hysteria, and Devastation to boost your damage output.

Center Tree: Focus on Grenadier, Cluster Bombs, Instant Reload, and Adrenaline Rush to maximize your grenade and reload efficiency.

Bottom Path: Pick up Repeating Explosives, Giantslayer, and Smoke Inhalation for added damage, and Incendiary for bonus damage against burning enemies.

The tree focuses heavily on grenade damage, AoE scaling, and attack speed for Explosive Shot. Prioritize damage nodes early on, then focus on survivability as you progress through tougher content.

Ascendancy

Witch Hunter is the ideal Ascendancy for this build, granting No Mercy and Zealous Inquisition for increased damage and added utility against bosses. No Mercy weakens bosses and increases the damage you deal to them, while Zealous Inquisition causes killed enemies to explode and spread Ignite to nearby enemies.

If you'd like an alternative, Judge, Jury, and Executioner can be a viable choice for extra damage against low-life enemies, Culling Strike, and Decimating Strike.

Gear and Stat Priorities

Weapons:

Crossbows: The Bombard Crossbow is highly recommended for this build, as it launches an extra grenade on every shot, adding significant DPS. However, the Construct Crossbow might also be better if you focus on raw damage.

Look for crossbows that increase physical damage and add elemental damage modifiers, along with Iron Runes for extra grenade power.

Armor:

Prioritize evasion and armor for survivability. With Herald of Ash requiring high strength, make sure you gear up with strength items while also ensuring high resistance and life.

Movement speed on boots is a must for this build, as you'll need to move quickly during combat.

Accessories:

Consider getting Spirit on your amulet to fuel your abilities like Herald of Ash and other persistent buffs.

Look for items that boost fire damage, explosive damage, critical chance, and area damage.

Conclusion

The Witch Hunter Grenadier build is a powerful and fun Mercenary setup that leverages Explosive Grenades and Explosive Shot to decimate enemies quickly. With the Witch Hunter Ascendancy, you gain substantial damage boosts against bosses and unique enemies, as well as the ability to clear screens of mobs with high efficiency.

To further enhance your Witch Hunter Grenadier Mercenary build, having the right Path of Exile 2 currency and Path of Exile 2 items can make all the difference.