[Suggestion] Mercenary core and replace rogues

Hello

First off, a huge thank you for the Breach "loot explosion" rework! I'm happy you implemented this, it's exactly what was needed! I'm happy you readed my suggestion about it triple G !

I am writing to you today about the Mercenaries mechanic. In my opinion, this feature is one of the most successful introduced in recent years. I want to advocate strongly for its integration into the core game.

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Why Mercenaries Are Essential

Mercenaries are not just a temporary addition; they profoundly enrich the game in several ways:

- They make non-meta builds viable: The auras and gear we can equip on Mercenaries breathe new life into build archetypes that had fallen out of the meta or required colossal investment to be playable. For example, builds like Winter Orb can become barely playable thanks to the bonuses the Mercenaries provide.

- They offer new gameplay perspectives: I was able to experience the Aurabot role for the first time this league. The ability to have a Mercenary assist me when my teammate was offline made solo mapping possible, an unimaginable experience before this mechanic.

- They add a layer of progression and customization: Searching for the perfect Mercenary and equipping them with crafted items and unique gear is an extremely rewarding micro-progression loop (except for the price of the uniques, of course).

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A Smart Integration: Replacing Rogue Exiles

Rather than simply adding the mechanic, I suggest integrating it by replacing Rogue Exiles. While Rogue Exiles are a historical PoE mechanic, their impact is now quite limited, often boiling down to Chaos recipes or rare unique hunting.

The potential for additional unique drops, sought after by high-investment Magic Find players, could be naturally integrated into the Mercenary mechanic via Scarabs. Thus, Mercenaries would serve as a superior replacement for Exiles.

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Scarabs, Atlas Passive, and Crucial Quality of Life (QoL)

This new core mechanic could be enhanced with Scarabs. It would be interesting to have Scarabs that:

- Provide a chance to banish a type of Mercenary for a longer duration.
- Offer a higher chance for higher-tier items or rarer currency to drop.
- Ensure Mercenary items are Vaal with a modified implicit, or are Veiled ( not all, at least one, or something close to that , only uniques ? )

These are just Scarab ideas, but we should also consider the Atlas Passive Tree, which could grant additional Mercenaries appearing in a map.

And the most crucial aspect is the need to prevent our Mercenary from using a specific skill. For example, in their panel, we could click on a skill, and they would stop using Barrage, only sticking to Kinetic Blast.

It's currently too painful to find the perfect Mercenary, only for them to become useless because of an unwanted skill. They don't even become a "take this until you find a better one" option because they will literally deal no damage, or fail to provide the utility we need, if they use a specific unwanted ability.

And a last thing, if you decide to make it core, do not consider ANY player will do his merc, this is a investment with time and also items on merc, so actual and futur builds should not consider as every player will absolutely get his merc. If you do, it will break the fun for most player, and make most builds too weak without a optimized merc.
I passed 2 month, and barely got a good merc, I played 60 to 120 maps per day, so I'm a noobish tier player yes, but it's long and hard to get a good merc.

Sincerely,
Le Vagabond, The first one

Profound idea, I'm confident most of the players would be happy for mercs going core. O7