herc is a rather good hero, lots of damage and burst but lacks in early game the most. His passive is amazing - lets him farm like crazy any time so he can out farm anyone. No more screwing up last hitting indeed. I ALWAYS GO TOP AS HERC

Pros:
Good burst
Great attack speed
great damage
good farming abilities
lane sustain
lots of cc

Cons:
Weak early game
Easily shut down early game
Needs help early game usually
big - can not avoid shrooms easily because of big ***

I say this is a very standard rune pick except for the hp - the 26 hp gives u quite a lot of extra hp - your first choice would be for sustain. You don't really have any speed early on because you play a defensive introduction therefore no boots, thats why the extra hp is helpful in making you more sustainable.
Arm pen - help you harrass
flat armour - since you're going top most likely vs another melee dps
shielding - for resistance against ap later on and a bit early on

I go all defense because tbh, early game is the most important part for setting up a win and well sustained game. If you have this much defense - the hp and mr + armour you should be very solid top agaainst any harrassement. I did not pick for hp regen because you don't need it because of your w.

I start of pots and cloth - cloth gives great early game armor - pots give u sustain from harassing and establishing a dominance. Triforce - an overall great item for atk speed, burst, slow etc. I say buy wards because wards are so important for you top. put one in the enemy brush right by above the river if you're blue and put one by the enemy exit camp of the blue buff site if you're purple. This will be explained further down below. After that I build lifesteal because if i'm dps, i can just attack to heal, gives me great survivability in games, then I put in more attack speed and damage to further compliment your dps-ness. The last itme can be defensive or offensive if you survive this long. if you want to own the other team with dps - go youmu. if you want to own them with slows and make them look like they do 0 dmg, get omens.

Situational items;
Struggling with top at 5 minutes -
buy heart of gold , philo stone and play safe
save money for a phage first! then finish tri force
Build a witsend after triforce
then resume normal build

Doing great?
get the phantom dancer
get black cleaver
get blood thirster
get infinity edge
get warmogs

You can usually just go with ghost and ignite
ghost and heal is viable if you are vs against some heavy dps top like i.e. teemo or xin
flash is also viable but with your e and ghost, you will be able to chase and run away much more effectively since it covers more ground.

Okay, w is a health sustain so this is what u do
Harrassing in the lane: when a new wave comes - walk up to your guy u wan to harrass flip on w, and dps the **** out of him, he will loose hp, and he will do **** dmg to you because you're recovering hp and dealing that dmg to him. then farm, rinse repeat, if u get low / past half use a health pot, make sure that u keep pushing past his minions sometimes so they don't all get back tracked to his turret.