Upgrading Heroes?

answered, ty

If you are going to be doing Hard mode you should upgrade your heroes fully. Survivors and the highest Vigor you can afford. Minor or major runes on headpieces etc. Crafting them 40/40 sets is also cheap.

You don't need to upgrade their armors&weapons, but it doesn't hurt either.

Use minor runes to be able to switch the main attribute more easily, e.g. switch fire and earth rune from head and hand piece.
Use +armor insignia when most builds of the profession will fulfill the criteria, e.g. Blessed (+10 armor when enchanted) is good for eles, otherwise use +health.

Survivor's sig for chest and legs (+25hp) is very helfupl,then use things like Bloodstained or +armour on the other pieces.

Just want to take this and say it's pretty much your best bet excluding some insignias where + armor is better...I tend to only use minor runes on my hero's unless it's to meet a breakpoint (or to have some real fun with my one mm build xD)...
Just want to stress though the main attributes rune going on the headpiece...easy mistake to make if your not paying attention...

If you are going to use your heroes to fill up your party, equip them as thoroughly as your own character, since they take an equal role in your party as yourself. The party is only as strong as all of its members are - including heroes. Upgrade only heroes that you actually plan to take along.

What runes and weapons you give them, depends largely on the hero's build. My most-used heroes get major or superior rune of vigor and a balanced mixture between additional health and energy runes and insignia. In the headpiece I put a minor or major rune of whatever attribute is the main attribute in the build and in the chest I put a minor rune of the primary attribute of the hero's class. Sometimes an additional minor rune for a third attribute.
Don't give heroes vampiric weapons or with energy +15/-1 mods, since they are unable to swap their weaponsets.

Specialized heroes like my minion master gets a different rune set, of course. Bloodstained and Minion Master's insignia, Superior Death Magic and additional health in this case.

If you cannot afford to equip your heroes fully, take henchmen. Any henchman is better than a badly setup hero.

You should equip them like you would your PC. Runes and Sigs to match the builds you give them.

Not worth it... apart from specific break points such as 14 channeling for 5 hit splinter. I dont bother buying things, i make do with drops. If your getting into HM then the basic HM team builds are enough to get going and over time you should get enough weapon drops that arent worth selling, but are gud enough to use on heroes. Go with that. Runes also drop fast...

just give them whatever works best with their builds.
my necros have +10ar when they have an item (pwk) and bloodstained insignias. applicable runes and all 3 discords have sup death. cuz im brave like that, and pve is a joke.

and just a quick note: ive spent more on hero armors and weapons than i have on my PCs gear. (necros rock BDSs)

If you want have useful Heroes, you should fully outfit them. I'm still surprised at the people will complain about Heroes and/or not want them in a group, who don't bother to give them any runes and/or give them any old crap weapon they have kicking around.

The great thing about Heroes is that you can fully outfit them. You don't need to outfit all your heroes, just the ones that you actually use. My general method of outfitting a Hero is similar to what Silmar Alech says:
- After much experimenting with various things, I generally put Survivor Runes on the head, hands, and feet (+15 health) and Radiants on chest and legs (+5 energy). There are some exceptions, such as 4 Survivors and a Bloodstained on MMs.
- Put a Major of the appropriate attribute on the headpiece and appropriate Minor(s) on other pieces. (In some cases you can use a 2nd Major when the Minor is too expensive - in which case some extra Vitaes or extra health on the weapon helps.)
- Use a Major Vigor. (Don't be cheap. )
- Use Vitae or Attunement (as seems appropriate) on any not-otherwise Runed piece(s).
- Give them a fully functional weapon. Do not give them Vampiric or Zealous. The exact make up of the weapon can vary, depending upon what their build is etc., as far as max energy, max health, HCT, etc., goes. The weapon can have a high req or be purple or blue, or crafter/collector. It should be fully useful (not +13% vs dwarves) and fairly generic (15^50, HCT20%, Health+30, etc.)

It is relatively expensive to fully outfit a hero in this manner, but that's what the gold is for, and you can re-coup the expense fairly easily when you blow through something rather than have your heroes die constantly.

P.S. - Note that you can't destroy a Hero's armor, so you can simply use an Expert Salvage kit to remove and rearrange Runes and Insignias on them.

Not really, if you pay attention to all the drops you get, keep good weapons, salvage weapon upgrades and build your own hero weapons from this. Same way with runes and insignia. Use the Perfect Salvage Kit, if necessary. Don't sell everything immediately to the merchant. Create mule characters, maximize their inventory and collect good upgrades there.

Main rule with runes/insignia: keep all runes with a sell-value above 150g, since you lose much money if you have to buy it back later.

If you have the Bonus Mission Pack, get your req9 fully upgradeable/inscribable weapons from there for free. They are also quite exclusive - I rarely see people walking around with BMP weapons.

Even if your are out of your personal stock and you have to buy runes from the trader: I don't call 10p for a full hero runeset expensive.