Equipping your Heroes....

IF we compare heroes to henchies whi have modless whites, max damage weapon with any mods is good enough.

That said, they will be getting whatever weapon drop for character they are accompanying. No buying/Crafting.

Will go mostly collector items for the most part. At present I have a Shadow Shield and Blade in storage for Koss. Shield is max, white, no mods, and the sword is purple, poisonous, and I think 13^50. Not the best, but I think the black weapon/shield will compliment his white armor. Then there's this inscription thing, so who knows what they will finally get in thier hands.

I've been gathering some collectors weapons, but I may craft some weapons for my guys as well.

I think we have to bring Koss with us, so he'll get the best of what I can find. For other heroes, I plan on bringing at least 1 monk per character, and I've always wanted a fire hench that didn't suck, so most likely I'll be setting up that elementalist hero (Sousuke I think) with a 20/20 staff and mods.

Here's to imperfect mods!

I will be using greens, theres enough cheap canthan and prophecy ones to get something decent for each

I have 6 PVE characters right now and I'll probaby have 2 more in Nightfall. Let's say each character only gets one hero of each profession. (even though in preview, I had two monks in my hero list). that means i have to equip 8 X 10=80 heros!!! I may very likely go broke within the first week of Nightfall's release.
unless the heros can use the customized weapons from other characters. (if my monk's koss can use my warrior's swords/axes). then it's just a ton of weapon transfering i suppose.

Here's to swappable Inscriptions and Runes! (I hope)

because i'll probably quit GW anyway (im moving on the 24th) i dont think it will matter.
but if i do get nightfall, i know i have enough to equip them adequetly.
to those who do not, may i suggest crafters.
if i did not already have the items stored, i assure you i would not purchase a single additional "vanity" skin for a single one of the heros; its simply a waste of money and misappropriation of funds to arm heros with expensive items (unless you already have them as they sit in your inventory collecting dust).

what i think is more important is a simple question.
i know heros will be able to use items customized to your character, but will the customization deal extra damage while being wielded by the hero?
if so, then will all the weapons heros use have to be customized?
if so, i think thats a gigantic waste.
while i applaud the ability for them to use customized weapons, i am of the firm belife they should deal an equal amount of damage, customized to your character or not...
...so people can at least switch the items back and forth between heros among different characters on the same account, rather than having to buy a new set of items for every hero for every character.
im one of the wealthiest players there is, and for people wo have to buy new weapon sets i still think that would be gross overspending (even if you used collectors).




to those of you who will not be using collectors items, but rather golds, may i suggest you (at first) use collectors items?
if in case some thing in the coding goes wrong and items start getting deleted off of heros, i'd hate to see people lose thier savings worth of items because of a glitch.
im not saying it will happen, but i know ill be using heros for a good 2 weeks+ before i even think of putting anything expensive on them.

Well, you can only take three with you at any one time. You'll need to equip more than just the three as a practical matter (although there's no reason why you should spend enough to equip them with optimised gear), but decking out ten heroes is strictly for obsessive completists.

Three heroes for general use will need pretty decent gear.

Two-three specific heroes will be mandatory for specific missions. Honestly, at that rate you can either (a) deck them out with the first white drop you get for that class or (b) wait for a PuG with someone who's specialised in that hero and has pimped him out.

Potentially, you may lose the use of 1-2 heroes due to plot twists (if they turn out to be the bad guys, if they get killed in the final mission, if they /ragequit because you recruited someone they don't like), but of course that's just speculative. I bring up the possibility because if it happens late in the game you might have to replace one of the heroes on your shortlist.

(as a coda to that last possibility, you may lose the use of specific heroes for the duration of particular missions - e.g. a "Rescue Koss from his kidnappers" mission)

Any way you look at it though, there's no way you should need to fully equip more than five heroes per character... And even that's pushing it.

Heroes not used often = mules for weapons.

I'm mostly going to use weapons that don't rely on specific criterias I may not be able to rely on the AI to accomplish.

For example, for Koss I already have 15^50 Sword and a -5/+30 shield. As far as mods go, I'll stick with barbed for now, but later will switch to either a Furious or Sundering mod. Unless I'm over flowing with +30 health mods, I'll just stick with the defensive mods.

For any caster not using enchantments, I'll use a HCT/HRT wand and focus items.

For anyone relying on enchantments, they'll get a HCT/HRT staff with energy and enchantment extension mod.

For the rangers, I'll use Longbows and whatever condition mod extends the condition I base their build around, or default to sundering if I can find it. I'll use the defense grip.

For Dervishes, I'll take what I can get. Perhaps when my Ascalonian character travels over the see, I can find a place to build or collect a max one, and then use that. I won't worry about mods right away. Ideally, probably a sundering and defense mod.

For paragons... that's harder. Again, probably a defense mod, since they tend to be underpriced compared to the health mods. Depending on what skill I use will affect what other mod I use; probably sundering as the ideal if I don't go heavy on adrenal skills.

Oh, and as for the heroes on my other accounts... I'll just place the weapons into storage and give them my other heroes on the other account. Unless, for example, I decide I want Koos to be hammers on one account and swords on another, there's no sense in buying the same weapons over and over again (though with collector items, I can rely on just those).

Does anyone know for sure if mods even affect heros? It is logical, but not necessarily coded that way. Did anyone give Koss a vampiric weapon and watch to see if his health dropped?

LOL, the first 4 or 5 posts of this thread are arguments between the OP and the first poster in the thread.

What Cloudpiercer meant is that GOTY Edition would keep everyone (as in heros) equipped.
He did not mean everyone as in everyone playing the game.

Back to topic: there is no need to spend huge amount of plats on hero weapons.
Green weekend is here, so pirces will be low.
Collector items are just fine enough to give them to heros.
Mods are cheap so you can just mod the collector items.

My thinking is, it will be cheaper to buy warrior green items (due to the fact that +30 health and sundering/furious mods will add up in price with all the heros running around)
For casters, its just moded collector items. +5 energy mods are 1k and slap enchants on the staff. Or just get collector wand and off hand there and you saved on staff mods.

I will be going that route too, or if better items drop. That way if anything should happen to where a glitch could case them to lose their weapons it not going to bother me much.

I've decided on the following:

ToPK staves for the casters. I now have 29 assorted ones. Are they the "best"? Nope. But at 1-3k, they are cheap and effective.

Collector swords/shields for the warriors, will get mods added as I find mods.

Collector bows for the rangers.

Preorder items for sins, rits, dervishes and paragons.

I'm trying to get as many greens for warriors/rangers as I can. They're already max modded, they're dropping like flies thanks to this weekend, and also thanks to this weekend, whatever you don't have you should be able to buy very cheap. I call that a win/win situation. Plus, you can then keep all the mods for yourself and your weapons.

Greens, FTW!

I completely agree on the /bonusitems, though. Caster items are easy to get from collectors, since they don't need to be modded.

Farmed some greens today for my heroes
-Sunreach Shield
-Scareater
-Kaolin Prot Staff
-Kaolin Dom Staff
-Kaolin Accursed Staff
-Reefclaw Refuge
-Woe Spreader

Planning on buying/doing kanaxai and urgoz since no good bows and melee drops from normal bosses. (except victos)


And arent the weapons from the pre-orders and GOTY editions customized to the character you make?

Yep, and thank Anet the heroes can use your customized items!

Well, I just didn't like the prices on any of the warrior greens that I actually wanted.