Forge Army Forge Guard Build Guide

Posted By Oplewi19 on October 3, 2022

Last updated on April 21, 2023

Overview

0.9 Patch - Changelog:

tldr: New node for Forge Strike helps with the clear. The build is more than fine for 0.9, feel free to start with it.

Details:

Manifest Armor now looks super cool.
Forge Strike got a new node called Engines of War 5/5, which provides your weapons faster clearspeed.
Dawn Helm and Dawn Plate no longer grant Critical Strike Avoidance. You can get additional CSA on your rings to counteract these changes.
Heavy Strike 5/5 from Forge Strike now grant less more damage, but more stun chance. Not that relevant change.
Manifest Armor nodes changed a bit numerically, but it shouldn't make a big difference.
Volatile Reversal cooldown got nerfed a lot. It shouldn't be a big problem for this build, since we mostly use it on bosses.

About the build

Hi, I'm Oplewi. This build is a tanky minion summoning build, where you only need to use Warpath on Monoliths, and maybe Void Cleave twice on bosses. It's the laziest build that I've played. If you like to watch some movie or Netflix on an other monitor while spin to win, you'll love this build!

The minions

We use a Manifest Armor and 12 Summon Forged Weapon which is an army by themself. I'll give some tips to the nodes and skills later in the guide, but most of our damage comes from the Summon Forged Weapon.

Clear Speed

You have a decent clearspeed with this build. You cannot be stunned while using Warpath and with the helps of the Forgemaster Stance node, we don't have to worry about using Forge Strike at all. One thing to note here is that you need time to summon your weapons. You can have a total of 12 Summon Forged Weapon. You summon one in every ~2sec with the Moving Forge 5/5 nodes, so this is why the Sunforged Cuirass is a big help. You can manage to summon all of them without the Body Armour, but it definitely helps.

Boss Killing

As a mentioned before, you have 12 Summon Forged Weapon , therefore you need all of them, to delete bosses. If they're up, and you use your combo correctly, (I'll describe it later in the guide) the bosses will explode in seconds.

Defenses

With this build you can actually cap your armour (85%) in a lvl 100 zone! How? You get armour from the Sunforged Greathelm after every summoned forge weapon, then the your actual Sunforged Cuirass Body Armour has a tons of armour by itself. You can scale this with the Throne of Ambition to the moon. But this isn't even all of your scaling. You have a lot of resistances from your passive tree, and you can get flat PrefixArmour rolls on your Idols too. You are stun immune, since you use Warpath all the time. You have capped critical strike avoidance with the Grand Survival of Might and some SuffixCritical Strike Avoidance on your jewellery. Also you have 300-500 life regeneration based on the number of the summoned Summon Forged Weapon . On top of that you get 35% less damage taken via Hammer and Anvil 5/5 and Armour Clad 5/5.

Pros & Cons

Pros

Very good scaling with gear

Super tanky against hit damage

High single target damage if you stack Rift Maker, Molten Blades and Harbinger of Dust up on the enemy

You can play the build as soon as you get the Forge Strike

No mana problems with correct Volatile Reversal usage

Lazy gameplay

Cons

Reliant on the Sunforged Cuirass to feel good

Your Manifest Armor sometimes die and you have to resummon it

Your hits will feel weak, due to this is a pure minion build

You can't do T4 Soulfire Bastion

Maybe too lazy gameplay

Gameplay / Mechanics

Gameplay rotation on Monoliths

If you think your minions are weak, or you are too low level, just stack up your 12 Summon Forged Weapon while spinning with Warpath at the start of the Monolith. If they're up, you can go.

If you're a bit stronger, you can just go and start spinning with Warpath as soon as you load in. Your Manifest Armor will kill the first few monsters, and while spinning you slowly start to summon all of your Summon Forged Weapon. (Also the Sunforged Cuirass helps a lot with summoning them if an enemy hits you.)

Gameplay rotation on Bosses

Stack up your 12 Summon Forged Weapon , summon your Manifest Armor , and then use the following rotation:

If you are close enough to a boss hit it with Void Cleave twice. This applies Crit vulnerability via Rift Maker 3/3 and buffs your minions via Molten Blades 5/5 which gives a lot of free flat fire damage to them.
Next you want to use your Volatile Reversal which replenishes your mana, and creates two Void Rift. These Void Rifts apply Harbinger of Dust 3/3 twice, if you position yourself correctly. This is 60% increased damage taken for the boss.
You start spinning again with Warpath.

If the boss is not dead, you should use this combo every time your Void Cleave and Volatile Reversal charges are up.

Tips/Tricks

You can use the combo mentioned above on Monolith bosses too if it's needed.
If your Manifest Armor is dead and you have to resummon it, you can use Volatile Reversal after, to replenish your missing mana, since the summoning costs a lot.
Generally you don't have to use Forge Strike at all, but if you want a bit more "active" gameplay, you can utilize it to summon your weapons faster.
You have to hit an enemy with the Void Cleave in order to get the benefits.
Just a reminder: Always keep your Manifest Armor up! He is strongest by far in your build. It's sad you can't have more of them.
You can press the 'A' key to command your minions to target an enemy.

Set Bonus/Why this body armour

So why are we using this Sunforged Set?

First of all, we are using it, because the Bis items are granting you this set bonus. That's all. We don't need it, and we are not forcing it into the build. That's why I don't use the third piece which is the Sunforged Hammer. It's a terrible weapon, and you can't even use Void Cleave with it. The +3 maximum forged weapons would be cool, but you can't keep up 15 Summon Forged Weapon with Warpath! They would expire before you summon a new one.

The other item is the Sunforged Greathelm, which is a must have Helmet, since it grants you stacking Armour and Health Regen after your Summon Forged Weapon.

The last item is the Sunforged Cuirass, which helps you keep up all your Summon Forged Weapon, and grants a tons of Armour.

With this two item, you get +1 to Forge Strike, which is enough to get ALL of the Summon Forged Weapon related nodes. Even if you get more PrefixLevel of Forge Strike, you can't allocate more useful nodes.

You can use a rare chest with PrefixLevel of Forge Strike. But it will grant you no additional power! Your minions scales with PrefixAttunement and your Level.

Skills

Passives

Stat Priorities

Equipment

Most of your gear slots can roll PrefixIncreased Minion Damage and PrefixMinion Health. You can also roll for PrefixAttunement, since it scales both, but in a less effective way.

For defenses you should roll for PrefixArmour and SuffixIncreased Health. The best health mod is the SuffixHybrid Health , but if you can get a SuffixHybrid Health and a SuffixIncreased Health, it would be the BiS.

Most of your resists are coming from the Passive Tree, and from the Idols, so you don't have to get a lot of resistances on your gear. This frees up suffixes for more Health.

Slot

Items

Stats

Helmet

Sunforged Greathelm - The best helmet for this build, you can't replace it.

Dawn Helm - Is a great option until you get the Sunforged Greathelm

Body Armour

Sunforged Cuirass - We use this Body Armour to get our +1 to Forge Strike, and this Armour helps greatly with the summoning of the 12 Summon Forged Weapon.

Dawn Plate - Good alternative until you get the Sunforged Cuirass .

Gloves

Crusader Gauntlets - Best Gloves base for this build. You can't get a lot of void res on your Passive Tree, so the base is perfect.

Belt

Bronze Belt- Best belt base by far. It grants up to +100 Armor.

Boots

Solarum Greaves - Best Movement Speed/Armor base. It also grants you some fire resistance, which you probably don't need at this point.

Relic

Argent Crest - Best base by far. You get all the remaining elemental resistances you may need here.

Another good option is Mournful Pennant, which grants a bit of Health, and Health Gain. This effect triggers often, since you use Warpath.

Main-Hand

The weapon slot is a tricky one. You want a weapon that your minions will use as their weapon, but at the same time, you want to boost them too.

Now Obsidian Axe is the best base for that.

NOTE: You can only use Two-handed Axe and Two-handed Sword base types in order to use Void Cleave as one of your skills.

Best possible outcome:

Other good rolls:

Off-Hand

Ring 1

I use 2 Turquoise Ring as my bases for rings. These rings gives your minions overall happiness. The only bad thing about this base is that the roll ranges are high, so you need some luck to hit one with good implicits and explicits.

PrefixMinion Health
PrefixIncreased Minion Damage
SuffixAdded Health
Any resistance you may need

Ring 2

Amulet

The best option here is a well-rolled Turquoise Amulet. If you lack some resistance you can go with a Gold Amulet or a Bone Amulet.

If you get a good exalted Ruby Amulet, then it's useable aswell.

You can fix your Resistances here if you craft some resistance instead of SuffixHealth Regeneration.

Idols

Throne of Ambition is the BiS idol for our build. It has some insane Armor stacking, but the damage part is irrelevant for our build.

Currently there are no offensive Sentinel Idols in the game that can help our build, so your Idols are mostly just defensive flat stats.

Resistances
Armour
Increased Health Regeneration
Health
Vitality (for more health)

Idol

Stats

Small Eterran Idol or Small Lagonian Idol

SuffixIdol Health
SuffixIdol Sentinel Increased Armor
PrefixHealth Regeneration
PrefixIdol Vitality
Any missing resistance

Stout Lagonian Idol or Humble Eterran Idol

SuffixIdol Health
PrefixIdol Increased Health
PrefixIdol Vitality
Any missing resistance

Blessings

Timeline

Blessings

The Black Sun

Grand Memory of Light is your go to option here.

Ending the Storm

Grand Rhythm of the Tide is a huge boost to your Health regen.

Pick Grand Light of the Moon if you have mana problems. (Which you should't have.)

Reign of Dragons

I use Grand Survival of Might in my build, but if you can manage to cap your Critical Strike Avoidance elsewhere, you should pick Grand Virtue of Command It's a massive boost to your minions survivability.

The Age of Winter

The best option here is Grand Bulwark of the Tundra

Spirits of Fire

There is a couple of good ones here.

First, Grand Spirit of Command It grants up to 100% increased minion damage! It's huge! If you already have your defensive layers, it's the obvious pick.

Next, Grand Body of Obsidian which is looking great, but there is the Grand Patience of Herkir , and since you use Warpath all the time, it's a huge boost to your armor.

Fall of the Outcasts

Depends on your build state.

The Stolen Lance

Depends on your build state.

Blood, Frost, and Death

Depends on your build state.

Fall of the Empire

Depends on your build state.

The Last Ruin

Depends on your build state.

Build Variants

Leveling

You can level with Warpath up until you get your Forge Strike up an running. Prioratize two-handed weapons, mainly with SuffixHealth On Melee Hit suffix. This one roll will keep you healthy for the Acts.

You should get Unchained 5/5 first, in order to use Warpath permanently. You can use Lunge in Acts for faster travels. If you feel like your damage is not best, you should use Forge Strike more often, to keep your blades up.

Another thing that you can do for damage, is to get a high PrefixArmour Body Armour. This will give your Manifest Armor a lot of flat damage via Force of Impact 1/1.

In the Acts you can also use Rebuke, especially on bosses.

Good luck, it will be a lazy and fast leveling, trust me :)

Endgame

See: Gameplay / Mechanics section!

Loot Filter

No loot filter is provided for this guide. You can generate a loot filter for this build in the Build Planner or create one using Filter Wizard in the Loot Filters section.

FAQ

Video

Changelog

April 21, 2023

Fixed some typos

March 29, 2023

Dawn Helm and Dawn Plate no longer grants Critical Strike Avoidance.

March 11, 2023

Added 0.9 Changelog, updated the trees with progression

October 3, 2022

Build guide was published

Discussion

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