Hero Weapons Guidance

Greens should be better but they are no longer considered so because though they have perfect stats they cannot be altered.
A max damage gold item can have its attributes customised to suit the player.
Then there is the skill requirement of the item, Greens tend to be set with some exceptions at 9 while golds mostly come in at 12, this is why golds with a req of 8 or 9 fetch high prices.

I got fed up chasing my tail trying to get the perfect hero items and after farming for greens and golds and equipping one characters heroes I started using the bonus pack items.
The hourglass staff is pretty good and suits almost all caster heroes, not perfect but in pve I don't need perfect.
The weapon set should match your build ie a fire item if you have enough points in fire and are using the element, having a fire requirement/bonus on an ele using water is useless so you need to consider this.

Popular for player character casters is a 40 40 set ie a wand and focus set that each have -20 to cast and -20 to recharge allowing faster use of skills assuming a hero makes use of this, I have my doubts that they do.

The weapons you use depend on the skills you give your hero.
Zealous will give energy with each hit but reduce your energy recovery by 1 now if your a barrage ranger hitting multiple targets zealous can be useful.
A warrior could use a furious weapon to gain more adrenaline to power his skills.

I keep things simple I maximise the health of my warriors and otherwise give them good basic sword shield combos, don't use tactics that much so avoid shields needing same.

My casters all have hourglass staffs Energy +15
Fire damage: 11-22 (Requires 9 Divine Favor)
Fire damage: 11-22 (Requires 9 Fast Casting)
Fire damage: 11-22 (Requires 9 Soul Reaping)
Fire damage: 11-22 (Requires 9 Energy Storage)
Fire damage: 11-22 (Requires 9 Spawning Power)
Halves skill recharge of spells (Chance: 20%)
Halves casting time of spells (Chance: 10%)
Health +45 (While Enchanted)
Damage +20% (automatically customized)

Since my party is usually 1 melee and 6 casters I am sorted

Correction I do use a different staff on my necros since I don't always have 9 points in this area

One thing to keep in mind for caster heroes: If the same hero always use same build with skills from same attribute line it can be an advantage to use weapons that benefit spells of that attribute (example halves casting and recharge for death magic spells for a minionmaster).
But if you often swap builds on the hero or use builds with mixed attributes then it is better to use weapons that give general benefits, improve cast/recharge for all spells or with + energy etc.
A discord hero often got both death spells (discord is death magic) and healing/protection spells from ritualist or monk.
A ele hero might want to swap between fire and earth etc.
If the hero got a weapon with general benefits you dont need to swap weapons when you swap builds in order to get the full benefit from the weapon mods.

edit: gremlin posted first, but it is the same idea: The hourglass staves fulfill the general purpose as I describe, giving benefit regardless what build or attribute the hero uses.

If I remember correctly, 2 out of the 3 discord heroes use rit as a secondary and there for will be holding a pot (Protective Was Kaolai) for the majority of the time. So this means it doesn't really matter what weapons you give and, as said previously, the staff from /bonus is probably great for them.

One thing I will say though, if you are using a prot monk then use a staff with 20% enchant on it. You can pick up a green with good stats on it pretty cheap kepkhet's refuge.

Whenever I need to work on getting better gear for some heroes, this is the page I go to first: http://www.guildwiki.org/Index_of_unique_item_lists

You can browse the green items per profession per campaign. The mods are also well explained (the abreviations will start to make sense after a while, they aren't that hard to grasp).

Kepkhet's refuge has been mentioned before as a good prot monk staff. Go to the green items for monk (prophecies or all campaign list). Under divine favor you will find several staves that have +20% enchantment duration, and some of those will have a HCT for prot spells mod. Among the staves that seem to do the job (I personally don't care if it the prefix is +30hp, +5 armor, +5energy or whatever; that won't make or break your team) I check which boss is the easiest to get access to (close to an outpost) and start killing that sucker over and over until he drops his green for me.

You can also check out the collector weapons or crafter weapons per profession... crafting a weapon might cost some coins, but it saves you the time you would have to spend farming a green.

Thank you SOOO MUCH! I woke up to a ton of info! I REALLY REALLY appreciate it. I was worried I was going to bashed... really appreciate the activity of the forums Can't wait to get home tonight to dig in.

General guidelines on choosing weapons:

1. If the build is reliant on enchantments, use a staff of the main attribute with 20% enchant length and 40% half cast time.

2. If the build is not reliant on enchantments, use a wand and focus of the main attribute with 40% half cast time and 40% half skill recharge.

3. If the build uses more than one attribute, pick the most important attribute OR use a staff with universal 20% half skill recharge.

Example: Discord Necros. The build has no enchantments so definitely don't want the enchantment mod. The spell you most want them to cast is Discord + you usually spec 12 into Death Magic, but since the Necro will usually be holding Kaolai any HSR mod for Death is not likely to matter. The best weaponsets then would be a 40/40 Restoration set. You can also use a Death Magic staff if you usually push so hard your red bars are constantly dropping, which means heroes will drop Kaolai.

Example: Prot Monk. Protection spells are usually long-lasting enchantments, which immediately means you should use a 40/20/20 Protection Prayers staff (#1 of the guidelines).

Example: Spiteful Spirit Nec. It depends to some extent what's on the rest of the bar. If the SS Necro is responsible for casting Protective Spirit and Aegis, then you need the enchanting mod, and the best choice is a 40/20/20 Curses staff. If the SS Necro has Restoration heals on the bar, then again the hero is most likely to be holding Kaolai in fights, so a 40/40 Restoration set is best (or a Curses staff if you find heroes usually aren't holding Kaolai). If the hero has nothing but offensive spells, then a 40/40 Curses set is the best.

gl and hf

Green staffs, particularly ones from Domain of Anguish and Tombs of the Primeval Kings (see the link to unique staffs in an above post), are more than enough for the casual player. You should be able to buy them from other players for 1-2k. Reqs for these staffs are irrelevant, since the req only affects wand damage and not the weapon stats, so feel free to use a soul reaping staff on a elementalist hero, for example. Just put staffs with a +20% enchanting mod on heroes that often use enchantments.

If you are doing extensive Hard Mode playing, it may be worth upgrading some heroes to 40/40 sets. The 40/40 page on gw wiki has a good description. Basically, a 40/40 set provides high reduced recharge and cast times for a particular attribute. This gives great specialization at the cost of flexibility. So, if you don't mind Gwen always being a domination mesmer, you can give her a domination 40/40 set and she can spam esurge/panic/etc more. 40/40 sets can be crafted at Vasburg Armory and Leviathan Pits in Factions for 10-15k or so, depending on material costs. 40/40 sets are most useful for offensive caster attributes and healing/restoration. I've vanq'd everything without giving any of my heroes great weapons, though, so be aware this is entirely optional.

For melee heroes, I've just given them what I've found out exploring.

Edit: @Jeydra. Yes, that weapon setup is the absolute ideal. But, the time and cost to get such a setup is excessive for a casual player :P

I usually just used the hourglass staff on my heroes, as they were all usually casters anyway. Most of the time i cba to throw runes on them unless i got an armor drop, after all...it's only pve right?
Anyway since my heroes seem to be more pro at most at WTFAGGROTANKING even when flagged i decided to bite the bullet and finally sink some money into them. They all run either Stalwarts(+10armor vs physical) or Blessed(+10armor while enchanted inscriptions and i have them all with a wand with 20/20 half cast time and half recharge time and a shield thats usually +30 health and -5dmg(20% chance) just to make sure they're sturdy, while this may not be optimal, or even reccomended, it's what works for me...for heroes(on my mesmer)i run 2 mesmers(panic, ineptitude) 3 Necros(standard discord) 2 rits(1 rit lord superprot, 1 SoS) this worked for me everywhere i needed to take it, NM missions, HM vanquishes, whatever...im thinking about changing it up just for some variety and running something like 3 mesmer(including myself) 2 Paragons, 2 Minion Masters(with heal support) and 1 Healing burst monk, though if this doesnt have enough defense/healing, im going to drop one of the mesmers for either another monk, or the superprot rit. if you're wondering the build its something along the lines of Boon of creation, ritual lord, union, shelter, displacement, then some rit heals(prot was kaoli, mend body and soul, etc)

sorry i got on a bit of a rant, but the shield idea is one to take into consideration if you're having a problem with wiping...although playing Gwens BMP story(its the easiest/shortest imo) 14 times to get all the weapons gets just a tad tedious :-p, im sure there are plenty of greens to use as replacements though if u dont have the BMP(bonus mission pack)

I use green staffs on my heroes.
I try to give all heroes a staff of the attribute they use. Eg. Panicmesmer uses domination staff.
Did all of HM with this (vanq ect.)
It isn't that big of a deal really.

I don't know about you guys, but my time is more valuable than my in game money.
So I just bought 40/40 sets for my heroes are the weapons trader in Leviathan Pits/Vasburg Armory.
They are just 5k per piece+material cost.
You can just go to your material trader in your guild hall, buy the materials and you'll be done in 10 minutes with all perfect sets for your heroes.

One thing to keep in mind when using staves is that the requirement alters ONLY the autoattack damage and the attribute-specific bonuses (HSR and HCT for a certain attribute).
The staff-inherent 20% HSR is global, means for every attribute. If you're using +30hp, +30hp and +5e mods, or +30hp, 20% enchant and +5e, it doesn't matter if you use a domination or soul reaping staff on your necro with curses.

I would also suggust you consider spears (i tend to use +5e and 20% enchant mods) for your heros in areas with foes that use choas storm (such as fow and the deep)- in HM it really hurts bunched heros that seem happy to stand in it, but with spears equiped foes wont use it.

It should really be noted that you can make it through nearly all end game content with mismatched weapons and no runes on your heroes.