I’d like to try a Forge Guard, maybe some time in the future when it gets buffed, but the main theme of the class is Forged Weapon, with which a lot of abilities/effects have synergy. And it is a summon, which I don’t like. To clarify, I just don’t like things running around, and ability like Ring of Shields are totally fine.
Idea for a class rework: add an option to make forged weapons attach to caster, and act like a Multistrike swords, but attack enemies in range, or attack when you use any melee attack in the same direction. Can be put into the Forge Strike skill tree (a node that doesn’t block access to other nodes) or into passive abilities for mastery as some ending node or a separate node that has per-point effects and a non-scaling effect described above.