Mercenary

The Mercenary is the steady frontline pick in Mistfall Hunter and the most forgiving class to learn the extraction loop on, because it can survive the mistakes you make finding your way around a map.

Sword and Shield or Greathammer

Sword and Shield is the beginner set and the safer one: you block to build Shield Pressure, then cash it into a punish, with skills including Block, Shield Slam, Shockwave Strike, Impalement and Whirling Cut. The two-handed Greathammer gives up the shield entirely for Super Armor and heavier burst.

The September 3, 2026 update buffed both halves: more stagger on the post-block follow-up, so the punish lands more consistently, and a larger shield from the Mercenary's trio talent. Two patches have since pulled in opposite directions. September 15 reduced the Energy cost of Stonebreaker Slash, the class's cheapest pressure tool. September 23 then cut the damage of each rock thrown by Warhammer Sling while the Rock Scatter talent is active, with Bellring writing that the burst combo built around that talent "significantly exceeded our design expectations"; charged casts under Powerful Rock Sling were left untouched. Neither patch published a number.

October swung back toward the shield. The October 15 update let Sword and Shield overdraw Energy to parry, which Bellring called a compensatory change for the Energy cost it had raised on the parry talent in an earlier pass: you are no longer locked out of a block because you are a few points short. The October 21 update then cleaned up Perfect Block itself, fixing an infinite blocking state that could trigger when a Blackarrow skill connected mid-block, a case where a Perfect Block registered the hit but played no animation, and a bug where blocking a Super Armor skill stacked Breakaway charges so the enemy broke away after a single hit.

See the classes overview for how it compares to the other five.