Guide:Gearing on a Budget

Gearing a 7-hero team is an expensive task. However, the cost-to-effectiveness of different gear pieces are not all created equal. In other words, by properly prioritizing which gear pieces to buy first, and by making appropriate substitutions where applicable, gearing a team of 7 heroes can be far less intimidating. As a note: trader costs are in constant fluctuation, so all rune/insignia costs in this guide were current as of December 2020.

Example Bar
Consider with a typical hero Mesmer bar, pulled straight from 7 Hero Mercenary Mesmerway

The cost of fully equipping this hero is pretty hefty:

Making Appropriate Substitutions
When on a budget, rather than purchase the listed equipment, it is recommended to first purchase similar and cheaper alternatives before eventually upgrading. The most obvious example is the Rune of Superior Vigor. Rather than pay for the premium superior rune, it can easily be replaced with a Rune of Major Vigor or a Rune of Minor Vigor, which provide nearly the same benefits at a fraction of the cost.

Some other common substitutions:
 * Rune of Superior Domination Magic ⇒ Rune of Major Domination Magic
 * 5 Prodigy's Insignias ⇒ 5 Radiant Insignias
 * 40/40 Domination Magic ⇒ any green Domination Magic staff

While these examples are specific to a Mesmer, the same guidelines also apply to any profession with notably expensive profession-specific equipment (such as Shaman's Insignias).

Prioritizing Your Purchases
Not all equipment pieces are equally impactful. For example, attribute runes should be purchased first, whereas insignias can be saved for the end. The generally recommended order in which you should purchase your equipment is as follows:


 * 1. Cheap Attribute Runes
 * 2. A Rune of Minor Vigor
 * 3. Weapon set
 * 4. Cheap Insignias (radiant/survivor's)
 * 5. Miscellaneous runes (attunement/vitae)

And once you are ready to upgrade to more expensive equipment:


 * 6. Replace cheap Attribute Runes with the preferred (usually Superior) attribute rune
 * 7. Replace the Rune of Minor Vigor with a Rune of Major/Superior Vigor
 * 8. Replace cheap Insignias with preferred Insignias (such as Prodigy's/Shaman's)
 * 9. (As a player) purchase additional weapon sets (shield set, high energy set, longbow/flatbow)

A useful note on weapon sets: most 40/40 weapon sets can be crafted by Gertrud in Vasburg Armory or Telamon in Leviathan Pits. Furthermore, most high energy weapon sets can be crafted by Honglei Sun in Maatu Keep.

Budget Breakdown
Returning to the example of a typical Mesmer hero, the following table shows the cost breakdown of gearing the hero on a budget:

Clearly, it is possible to gear a hero with a completely adequate set of runes/insignias for only a fraction of the cost.