Hero Items to Buy

So I just came back to the game to finish up my HoM (Mourne Yegan if you want to search it). I've bought myself a couple Tormented items for my Warrior, and now I want the rest of the HoM shrine for weapons to go to heroes.

I used to run the standard 2 Mes, 2 Rit, 3 Necro team build. Is this still one of the best? If so, what items should I buy for them? I have 9 more slots to fill in my HoM and only have an Oppressor Restoration Staff so far. What would be wise to purchase from here on out?

The melee hero update wasn't too great, so I don't think anyone's going to advise you to change your caster support team. But obviously they will all use staves and wands+foci -- the problem being that only one of each weapon type per skin counts in your hall (so your Oppressor Staff slot has already been filled and any other Oppressor Staves will be redundant). So you'll probably have to spread staves, wands, and foci across Tormented, Destroyer, and Oppressor. But if you want a full display, choose one of the cheapest between Destroyer and Oppressor and just chuck the spear, scythe, bow, etcetera on whoever, or use them yourself for gimmick warrior builds.

Oh don't worry, my Warrior was happy to take the Tormented Sword, Axe, and Hammer . Yeah I knew about the "only 1 of each" thing, but I guess I should have asked what is better for certain skill sets, wand/offhand or staff? Say the Necros run Sabway, what items would the 3 heroes need? Honestly I've logged over 4200 hours in this game and never cared to look up/test the difference in the two weapon setups until now...no clue why!

Sorry about that. I didn't think you were a newb out of the box, and I did wonder if my reply was being redundant while writing it.

Fact of the matter is that it really doesn't much matter what you give heroes (which is why a lot of people just stick greens on them). You can take a look at the wiki page for various wand, focus, and staff upgrades and see what would work best for you. I think people mostly choose wand+focus to pile on HCT and HSR, and choose staves to up enchant duration or HP.

yeah like being said, it doesn't really matter a lot what you give them, as long as it keeps them at foot (so no melee for casters).

But I have been in situations where I went out with my heroes (specially those nightfall missions where you need to bring a hero you normally never use) and I forgot to give them a weapon. So most of the time I give them my pulling bow and they still work great.

Exactly what I needed guys/gals, tyvm

What I generally do is go shopping at Vasburg Armory or Leviathan Pits. You can get a 40/40 set for any caster (except, bizarrely, resto rits) from Gertrud or Telamon. Sure, they're 5k a pop, but that's small change these days.

Only item I have trouble with is a +5e spear of enchanting. The only one that springs to mind is the Spirit of the Forgotten which is a Nightfall endgame green. Very useful as part of a defensive set.

Spears are valid caster weapons for herors too. Slap on a +5 energy or 10% HSR mod and a 20% longer enchant mod and you are good to go. So combined with the HoM possible caster weapons of Staffs, Wands and Foci that's 12 items for it. 15 if you decide to run some with Shields also (which I do for Spirit Spammers and the likes as they generally don't need more energy and HCT/HSR mods don't count for spirits anyway).

@Snograt :
One of the endgame green Spears for Winds of Change has 20% enchant lengthening too, so if you can stomach it in both HM and NM that's three more of those for you, although like Prayer of the Forgotten they have an elemental attack mod so can't trigger things that react on physical hits (and unlike Prayer a +damage inscription instead of a caster one) limiting their viability and potential. They also don't go in the HoM yet (if they ever will).

Yeah, but the Imperial Dragon Spear is 15^ench - in other words, poo.

Yeah, but in all fairness the +20% enchant lengthening is the important part of the weapon. That's the part that will make or break a build.

+5 energy, or HCT or HSR are far less important, as in most cases if your energy management is good enough you won't need the +5 energy, and if a build is reliant on the incredibly small chance of that 10% HCT or HSR to work it's obviously a bad build seems random elements shouldn't be relied upon.

To be fair it is the elemental mod that stops me from using it on my heroes though, seems part of the whole point of putting Spears on caster heroes is to have them trigger Mark of Pain and/or Barbs. May aswell just use a Wand otherwise if you don't need the +20% enchant length.

Still, it's cold damage so I guess if somebody was gimmicking it with Spinal Shivers somewhere it might be okay too.

Ah, I thought the whole point of giving squishies martial weapons was so that the dumb AI doesn't prioritise them...

...did I dream that?

According to wiki, that's a factor too. But KotCR has made some strong arguments in favor of spears on spellcaster heroes for a martial PC -- I failed to consider Mark of Pain, Barbs, etc. Good point!