Lately there's resurgence of reviews/threads talking about how heRO's 7 digit costs to cards are highly intimidating and staggering. Some comments that it's downright unfair, saying that our server has a destructive economy.
This is more a misunderstanding, or the transition from a higher rate server to a 5/5/3 in heRO is difficult to adjust to. Hopefully a quick guide will help out with the starting stages to the many zeny making methods (be it unmodified or custom) in heRO.
1) Stick to 1 Character
With the exception of making a quick lv 20 merchant with max level discount and max level overcharge, don't make new characters until at least one of them reached lv 80. You gain much freedom and a sudden boost in party invites the moment you hit lv 80 compare to 60-70, and the same applies to zeny making options. Also, you are focusing your investment on one character so your character will be a lot stronger that way.
2) Do the Job Change Quest
You can pay off the job change quests by going for job change at the Job Manager NPC in Prontera. However, if you do the job change request then talk to the Job Manager NPC instead, you get 40k zeny along with an accessory for your class for all 1st class job. You get 100k zeny for your 2nd job change. Your main class + your merchant will be 80k zeny at just ~level 12. This is certainly not enough to get gears, but this is all the teleport, warp unlocks and healing fees you will ever need.
If necessary, just repeat this for characters you plan to play and get the 40k zeny early.
3) Know Your Hatter
Click here to know about heRO's hatter, one of the most important custom aspect that directly influence heRO's economy. Within the link, scroll down to the section about "hatter hats" (usually shortened to "hatters" on main chat). If you stumble upon a random card, be sure to verify with the wiki page if the card is a hatter card. If it is, then you scored yourself a decent amount of zeny. You can probably ask on main to sell hatters, and usually there should be offers.
While I don't recommend you to purposely go out of your way to solely grind for hatter cards for zeny, hatter cards are definitely a factor to consider about when you determine where do you want to train. Hatter often turns otherwise considered useless cards in other servers to have some value to them as well.
3) Some Class 'Cost' More: Accept It
There's some class that can make a lot more zeny than other classes, especially early on. Classes that don't rely on equipment or items as much will obviously make much more zeny. Don't be discouraged if someone of similar level but different class is doing a lot "better" than you are. Generally speaking, ranged class makes more than melee, and within that, melee that relies on flee do better than tanking classes.
This doesn't mean that melee classes are inferior to ranged classes, but if you play a melee class, you need to lower your zeny expectation a little and accept the fact that your wealth comes at late game with a bitter start instead.
4) Don't Pay to Unlock Everything ASAP
In heRO, you need to pay zeny to unlock dungeons for warper. This cost does add up for new players. There's ways to handle this.
First of all, as mentioned before, use your zeny from doing job change wisely. That zeny is there to handle this.
Unlock dungeons only if you decide to grind there for a long time. Some dungeons are so close to the town warp that you probably don't need to unlock it for the sake of saving up.
Acolytes who favor Glastheim, remember that you can get by with warp portal. Using a blue gem every time cost less than paying 60k at once for now.
5) Mining/Fishing
Did you check out our wiki for
Fishing and
Mining yet? They are both easy ways to obtain some items that other players may want. While mining focuses more on getting ores and stones for future Lv 4 weapon quests for more experienced players, fishing gives you easy access to healing items instead of buying potions. Use a class with high weight capacity (usually merchants) to do some mining/fishing to obtain items to sell or personal use.
6) Use Intermediate Gears
Part of a low rate server involves using intermediate gears that aren't your end game gear or your pvp gear: just something to use to help you level faster so you can generate zeny even faster, like an investment. This is a low rate, where you can't just jump to the top in one go.
Normal slotted defensive gears like normal shield[1], guard[1], and etc, along with usual forged elemental weapons, can usually carry you enough to lv 90 non-trans range perfectly fine. The benefit of a long standing server is that these gears cost very little in the eyes of a vet. You can probably get away buying these in bulks for ~50k each, enough to refine them to +7s.
It should be noted that in heRO, generally speaking custom headgears got an absurdly high base def values and are almost always better than official headgears except for some classics like feather beret. If you just want a random headgear with def, custom headgears should cost less AND have a good base def to it as well.
The reward from the Sisterly Affection 2 quest has an extremely powerful hat that should help you immensely up until lv 80.
7) Item Generating heRO Gears
There's a few seasonal custom headgears that drop Giftboxes or Old Blue Box when you defeat enemies based on enemy levels, and they work a lot better than mystcase and mimic cards. I often find that the amount of OBB/GB that you get will easily make up for it quickly and in a short time, you'll start to see profit out of your hat investments. If you see some of these available, I strongly suggest you to buy it if you are an offensive class (especially if you mob, like a sin or knight.)
Here's a few links to some of those equipment in our wiki. Bee Wings is highly recommended since it is a quest and does not rely on seasonal events. Some of them are also by the Hatter Quest. With sufficient luck from the hatter, you can get them or buy it off players as well.
Bee Wings
Hatter Hats
Look for the crooked hat for some DB or even BB as part of your grind!
Spare Cards
Look for spare cards and this is another way to generate items in the lower headgear slot to get some valuable items. 10 spare cards can be traded to the GM Assistant NPC in Prontera for some prizes, such as exp, zeny, ygg seeds and etc.
heRO celebration items almost always have gift boxes involved. However, they have to be purchased from players or they are very low rate drops from some custom monster (usually a poring of some sort.) Refer to this link here:
Seasonal Gears
8) Where to Grind for exp but with decent zeny at the same time (pre 80)?
A quick, short list for those before lv 80 that can give enough zeny to survive and get basic gears:
Moscovia 1: if you only fight the Les, the etc items pay very well for a long time. Aloe leaflets are good to keep or sell it to other players since they weigh near nothing. Remember to keep those green herbs, as you'll need it eventually for nameless island quest.
Hillwind: goes without saying that these are candidates, but just like Moscovia 1, everyone's here too.
Einbech 1: you may not even know what Pitmans are, but they are in einbech 1 (alternatively named einbroch dungeon). Steel at 15% drop is pretty nice along with some other etc item. Keep the random flashlight in your kafra for hatter purposes in the distant future. Noxious and Venomous both drop good etc item drops too. Does anyone realize that all 3 of these got pretty decent exp/hp rating at 1.7-1.9 exp/hp (that's a high ratio for heRO's rates)? It's great if you have problems funding an elemental weapon. Hunting your own steel can really lower the cost in negotiation with blacksmiths.
Toy Factory: cookies and cakes sell for a good NPC price, plus the cakes are common quest items such as Sisterly Affection 2 quest (and the quest gives you a *very* powerful headgear for especially for low levels) and Poporing Island access so you need to come here eventually anyway. The 2 cookies' cards are also hatter once more. The custom Myst Case Hat is good to have for some classes, even Mage/Archer for the sole purpose of handling ToH in the distant future.
Verit/Nightmare Verit: if you are mentally strong enough to handle hunting immortal hearts all day long, creators will absolutely love you enough to buy them all off of you. Verit card itself isn't a bad card by any means either. They actually come with white herbs (also creator-tradebaits) and some decent etc drops on top of that as well. Alternatively, there's the
Nightmare Pyramid with Nightmare Verit to hunt as well which is more abundant on the map with more exp gain as well.
GH Prison: It's solely because zombie prisoner gives a much better steady source of income compare to evil druid that I never hunt evil druids myself. As much as evil druid card worth a lot more, GH prison ofters better steady income. You are less likely to be screwed over by Murphy's law in prison compare to evil druid hunting. Prisoners got decent etc drops. You got elunium to sell, and you can keep a few shackles for something called the zodiac quest (either to sell to other people who are questing, or save it for yourself.) Also, while evil druid is an almighty pvp card, zombie prisoner is a godsend for leveling in the nightmare dungeons and nameless island later for priests. You get to high priest so much faster with it in parties.
Thara/Hydra: early mages can try for a bit of luck and go to Comodo early instead of doing mandragoras/floras. Quick lightning bolt easily kills these, and you may just get the cards. I wouldn't purposely come here to hunt without stop for the cards for zeny already, but if you are just starting a mage, you can come here as part of the training.
Clocktower basement 4: good old bathory in basement is still a gold mine for new assassins and rogues who can get pass penomena with their hide/cloak. Witch starsand sell to alchemist players once again, and their card is probably the most important armor card for pvm purposes along with pasana. Fly wing against the swords and joker just like other servers.
9) Check the BBS
Sometimes older players are too lazy to hunt for the small items needed in the highly repeatable hatter run. Hatter likes them low level etc items. High level players hate going to these newbie places. Talk to the BBS in middle of prontera, and sometimes you stumble upon people requesting etc items at decent prices off of low level mobs. Besides hatter items, alchemists often use BBS to find ingredients as well.
This isn't necessarily reliable way to make zeny, but sometimes you stumble upon things here.
10) Don't be a Douche
Pissing someone off, especially spamming "buff pls" to a potential veteran rich guy on a secret priest account, is shooting yourself in the foot. Established players and guilds feel a lot more inclined to help you out if you don't annoy them in return, including lowering their own profit margin to sell you those much needed elemental weapons at a slightly lower price. Also, being nice to other new players often help you in establishing candidates for partying together, allowing you to challenge much harder places earlier on, and that applies to zeny too due to better drops. If you got a bad reputation in the server for being unsociable, then you'll hardly get party invites.
Joining a guild helps as well, but don't expect freebies or people flocking to be your buff-bot or tank for you. Guilds are afraid to invest heavily in new players because who knows if you will stay in heRO for more than a week? Don't be a douche, and in time when your guild knows that you will stay for good, automatically they will lend their help. Guilds help in zeny making not by directly giving you free stuff, but rather they notify you if there's a good bargain on main.
Hopefully that's enough to get through lv 80, which should be enough time to start getting adjusted to the economy of heRO!
For reference purposes: I didn't make my first million until lv 80, with a FS priest healbombing in glastheim (I do not have TU, at all) selling eluniums to players, and spoons to NPC. I only unlocked payon dungeon, amatsu dungeon (got help on the quest)) as the only dungeon unlocks.
I only used pupa coat, evil bone wand, and the rest are all NPC gears at +4. I stuck with that type of gear until lv 90+, only then my gears started to change dramatically.
What about zeny spots pass lv 80?
Here are a few more suggestions for higher level characters...
Babayaga: low level hunter/bard/dancer can try this already, but babayaga also drop a ridiculous amount of cakes. Moscovia 2 actually got more Les on the map than Moscovia 1, and with babayagas as well, Moscovia 2 is much less crowded, and equally lucrative map as Moscovia 1. Wind+Fire arrow is all you need. Repel/fly wing from Uzhas. Fortunately only very few Uzhas are on the map.
Enchanted Peach Tree: more archer class goodness. Fly wing around and kill the peach trees to get good etc loot. While this may not seem like an efficient spot for zeny, the secret is in its proximity to the healer. Save at Gonryun. Bwing immediately for SP, make the short walk and resume spamming.
Sleeper: great location for monks using investigate. You can memo on sleeper maps. Sleeper got great etc drop to sell. Keep the great nature and use the ore breakdown (which is not a heRO custom feature) in umbala to maximize profit. Sleeper is a hatter card itself. You can kill demon pungus if you want as well since their drop isn't bad either, but their vit is lower so it takes more investigates.
Geffen 3 Dungeon: the collective mob of nightmare, deviruchi and whispers are great for ME priests, or sin with smokie pet for perfect hide to mob up and slaughter a huge mob. Individually these mobs aren't very good, but the density makes up for it. There are quality drops in oridecon, blue herbs, fabric, and handy cards like whisper and nightmare. Just hotkey the fly wing to avoid doppelganger.
Brasilis Dungeon 1: customized in heRO, piranha mobs heavily with potential drop of Scalpel, Fisherman's Dagger and Gladius. You can NPC the gladius and fisherman's dagger for good zeny. Scalpel can be sold for a bit to players as well. They also got decent etc loot. Taking them one by one is decent in zeny, but this can get much better if you can handle the Waterball and mob them in a huge group. Iara is harder to mob due to being passive, but the roses and mirrors are like mini-Mavkas.
Card Hunting: the truth of "huge" sale is always going to be cards and gears that everyone wants. Here's some common cards that "everyone" wants:
- Abyssal Knight (Knight of Abyss or Death Knight)
- Alice
- Thara Frog/Other Racial resistance card in shield slot
- Hydra/Other Racial weapon bonus card in weapon slot
- Zakudam/Other Racial magic damage bonus card in weapon slot
- Aqua Elemental/Elemental shield card in shield slot
- Eye of Surtur
- Pasana
- Bathory
- Evil Druid (Fallen Druid and Evil Druid)
- Marc
- Raydric
- Other elemental armor card still worth zeny, but far less than the ones above
There are other good cards that people will hand over a lot of zeny for, but those are usually beneficial for a specific class or specific build only. The ones above are very likely to be attractive trade deals for all players regardless of class though.
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![[Image: 375d8dddd0e9143a2869cda6fd81b2d2.jpg]](http://img.speedywap.com/375d8dddd0e9143a2869cda6fd81b2d2.jpg)
I had such a hard time gaining zeni, good job BTW 
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