Diablo 4 Season 6 completely changed the way loot works in the game, and that’s because they not only added multiple new ways to earn tons of extra loot but also targeted the loot and bartering systems that you’re actually looking for.
In this guide, we’re going to be covering the severely underrated loot system in the new season of Diablo 4, and that’s Rapport System and Bartering System from Mercenaries mechanic. We’re going to talk about how much loot you can actually get from it, and how easily you can target the bartering system to get the rewards you actually want.
Rapport System
Now, before we talk about the massive amounts of loot, you can get from the system, we first have to cover Rapport System. This is basically just a mechanic for earning XP for your Mercenaries and leveling them up.
With this system, you’ll have 10 different ranks. At the beginning you will be given all the skill points for that Mercenary skill tree, and then by leveling up your Rapport you will primarily earn currency like Pale Marks. If you want to quickly level up your Rapport ranks, then don’t skimp on your Diablo 4 Gold to gear up builds, it’s an important element to speeding up your leveling journey.
Bartering System
For Bartering System, you will be given a bunch of random loot caches. Then, on top of that, you will get an upgrade to Bartering vendor, which includes all Bartering you can do for each of your Mercenaries.
Also, when it comes to actually earning Rapport or experience with a Mercenary, it will be different depending on if you are in a group or not. You can only have your Reinforcement when you are in a group with other players. If you are new to the system, you basically just apply Mercenary as your Reinforcement. They will then use the selected ability depending on what action you choose. So you can select one of their abilities and apply to one of your abilities, as long as it’s on cooldown and you use that ability they will also use that ability.
Now, your Mercenary as a Reinforcement will give you 50% of the normal Rapport. So even if you’re in a group with other players, your Reinforcement Mercenary will still gain Rapport, just at a reduced rate.
But when you’re alone, you can also hire Mercenaries. Your Mercenaries are with you, you can use all of their abilities, and Mercenaries you hire will gain 100% of Rapport. On top of that, you still get your Reinforcement Mercenary. So, you’ll get a Mercenary that gains 100% Rapport and a Mercenary that gains 50% Rapport. This is very important because if you want to get the most out of Bartering System, you’ll want to max out all of your Mercenaries.
Also, remember that Mercenary System includes Rapport and Bartering for the entire account. So you don’t have to level up all of those Mercenaries for each character and waste extra Diablo 4 Gold.
Rapport System Rewards Overview
The most important part of Rapport System is rank 5 and rank 8. These will provide upgrades to Bartering System and vendors. Each Mercenaries adds more items, and more rewards you can get from Bartering vendor.
Raheir
Starting with the rank 5 reward for Raheir, you get a Barter Upgrade for Defensive Aspects. And there will be an additional cache available at Bartering vendor, which has a chance to be a cache for Defensive Aspect, but is usually some rarer or more useful Diablo 4 items or gear.
Now this is actually a very important part of the system, because caches will give you some gear that seems to have a higher chance than normal gear to actually be something you can get an aspect upgrade from.
And then for rank 8 here, you get crafting upgrades. It adds an additional legendary item, and a cache that has a chance to bring a bunch of valuable crafting materials. Most of the time it’s just rare or legendary quality materials, though.
Varyana
Then we move on to Varyana. Her rank 5 reward is Mobility Aspects, an additional legendary item with a chance to be a cache for Mobility Aspects. Then her rank 8 reward is an additional legendary item with a chance to be a cache for Masterworking material and Obols.
This is actually one of the best catches you can get in my opinion, because Masterworking material is an item you have to have to craft unique gear, and Obols also has a high value in Diablo 4 Season 6. If you want to maximize your Aspects, this is what you need.
Aldkin
For Aldkin, his rank 5 reward is Resource Aspects, an additional legendary item with a chance to be a cache for Resource Aspects. Then his rank 8 reward is an Augmentation Cache with a chance to bring a bunch of Scattered Prisms gem fragments and Runes.
Honestly, this one sounds better than it actually is, because Scattered Prisms gem fragments are very useful in this new season, and you can trade them with players who need them for extra Diablo 4 Gold gains. But they don’t seem to give out a ton of Runes, usually only one or only a handful of Runes.
Subo
Finally, for Subo, his rank 5 reward is Utility Aspects, an extra legendary item that has a chance to be a cache of Utility Aspects. And then the rank 8 reward is a Boss Summoning Cache that has a chance to bring a bunch of boss summoning materials.
This is also one of the better caches you’ll want to get, so these are always good to pick up whenever they show up in Bartering.
Pale Mark
Now, another really important aspect of Rapport System is that after you level up different Mercenaries to rank 10, they get an infinitely repeatable level-up bonus. So for every 25,000 points of Rapport they get, you’ll get another 100 Pale Marks.
Pale Mark is just the currency that you use in Bartering System. Now most caches are usually 30 or 40 Pale Marks, so just by leveling up a Mercenary by one level, you can get some caches.
But you have to remember that Bartering vendors don’t refresh very often, usually every day or every 12 hours or so. In addition to the free refresh, it costs 100 Pale Marks to refresh again. So it’s usually very cost-effective to redeem the actual items from the vendor, but the refresh will consume most of your Pale Marks.
Remember that as with every upgrade we’ve discussed, they will add at least one legendary item to Bartering vendor, and there is a chance to get additional caches or other things. And all legendary items sold by Bartering vendor may also be Ancestral, so remember that when you refresh, look at all the actual gear and see if they are Ancestral, which may be good for you. But just the amount of items, resources, and materials is enough. The amount of items you can get from Mercenary System from Bartering vendor is pretty crazy.
Final Thoughts
So why do we feel that many people underestimate this loot system? It’s that many people don’t really calculate how much you can actually get from this Bartering. Like mentioned before, any time you pick up any of the caches you’ll get a bunch of Legendary items that you can sell for Diablo 4 Gold to get aspect upgrades, or maybe even just gear upgrades.
On top of that, there are a ton of ways to get more Rapport in Diablo 4 Season 6, especially in any of the locations with more Elites. If you have a build that can keep up with that and kill everything pretty quickly, the amount of Rapport you can get is absolutely ridiculous.
Overall, Rapport and Bartering System give you a ton of extra loot. If you’ve upgraded all of Mercenaries, get them all fully upgraded to rank 10, then you have all the different Bartering options. Then you can mainly play solo, as that gives you more Rapport to upgrade, and accumulate those Pale Marks. Trust me, by following this route, you can absolutely get as many Mercenary System rewards as possible in the shortest amount of time, and dominate Sanctuary. Good luck!