Training a fresh hero

Just to make something clear: If you order a level 5 hero to wait near the entry point of an area, he/she still gains exp if you go out to kill things right?

I'm pretty sure that heroes level up the same way regular player characters do, which means this won't work. For the hero to get exp it will have to be attacking and/or within aggro range.

Edit: Or, as I just learned from Guildwiki, the hero will have to use buffs that affect the characters doing the killing.

Edit (x2): On a related note, good ways I've found to level up heroes are: take them on the Consulate Docks mission (since everyone gets an armor/hp buff and there is lots of killing), hop over to Cantha and take them through Vizunah Square (again, lots of killing), or just make sure to switch the hero(es) that you want to level up into your party before accepting any quest rewards.

thats the fastest way to level heroes

even without levelling them (beyond quest rewards) all my heroes were lvl 20 by the time I got to the Bone Palace

A guild member of mine was recently lamenting the fact she could not finish vizunah mission simply because irresponsible people on the ally team were merely using it to level their heros, so please, don't!

By far the easiest way to level a hero by fighting is to become a wurm, 2 or 3 wurms are enough to kill almost any mob outside of the bone palace.

If you dont have that option just take one low level hero with your group equipped with a few survival skills and set them to passive, spend kournan coins/pendants/battle comendations on the 10 minute exp scrolls.

Please don't take low lvl heroes into Viz, there's another team on the foreign/local side that's actually trying to beat the mission. How you would you feel if you need to beat a mission and one of your teammates adds in lvl6 dunkoro or a lvl2 Koss?

Grab some xp scrolls, do a few runs in an explorable area. I had Koss, Olias, Melonni, Tahlkora, Dunkoro, Jin, & Zenmai all at lvl20 in about 1.5hrs. I use Witman's Folly with myself, Olias, 2 heroes to be lvled, and 1 henchie.

Would be so much nicer if they just made heroes the same level as you then we could skip all this pointless grinding.

Best way to lvl heros is sulfurous wastes with the junundu, you can go out with three and u'll be fune

Not to mention 3,000 hp.

Best way to level heroes is to actually let them fight along with you...
I've levelled all my heroes apart from the Sin one to lvl 20 before i reached Gates of Desolation.

My newly aquired lvl2 Koss jumped to level 5 when I accepted the reward for Friend of the Jurzicks (10k xp FTW), so what i do now is ensure i have max heros selected before cashing in rewards for high exp, as your heore benefits too!