Forge Guard Rive Build 0.8d

Due to lots of people asking, here is an updated Forge Guard

Video


Build Overview


Pros
  • Decent Clear Speed
  • Can Clear all game content
Cons
  • Not as tanky as paladin
  • Not as Dps heavy as void knight

Updates


  • Initially posted January 3rd 2021. Viable for 0.8d

Passives


Sentinel
Forge Guard
Paladin

Skills


Ring of Shield
Lunge
Sigil
Rive
Smite

Idols


The main affix on idols you want is % increased rive critical strike multiplier for prefix, suffix is open to anything you want.

Gear


Below is a Tunklab Gearplanner link that has been put together from the gear shown in the build video. This gear is higher tier than the video and shows what to work towards, the video shows all things are possible even with low gear tierā€™s.

Rive Forge Guard Gear planner Link

1 Like

Nice guide, what wave of the endless arena did you get to?

This is a very nice build, and the first FG build Iā€™ve seen that rivals other awesome builds. Iā€™ve been trying this out and itā€™s working great but I have one question:
Why ā€œMelee Critical Strike Chanceā€ on the sword rather than just ā€œCritical Strike Chanceā€? Looking at them, they are both prefixes but the ā€œCritical Strike Chanceā€ has a much higher rating for each tier. Am I missing something with the affixes?

the ā€œmelee critical strike chanceā€ adds directly to the base crit chance, while the ā€œincreased critical strike chanceā€ multiplies the base.

base crit chance is 5%, so adding +5% crit chance is equivalent of a 100% increased crit chance mod. in short, itā€™s way more impactful.

1 Like

Ah, thanks!

1 Like

@boardman21 When I was playing through my Rive Forge Guard I decided to try Juggernaut Stance in lieu of Ring of Shields. I never realized how many mini attacks RoS blocks, which affects both Stalwart (3% armor per hit taken in the last 10s) and Avatar of War (1% damage per hit taken in the last 10s). Iā€™ve been jumping to the end of my empower monoliths and letting the stacks fly on top of the boss. Hereā€™s a screenshot of my 23,000+ armor from 268 stacks of Stalwart: https://imgur.com/a/xTIKZ9B

As an added bonus, you get to recapture 5 passives for allocation elsewhere. Just a thought for updating this build down the road or future Forge Guard builds. Also, FG works great with your Regifter concept. After they nerfed block scaling on passives, I dropped them for all of the tier 1 Strength and Vitality talents, and added Banish (Retribution). Itā€™s a ton of fun with great survivalability due to stacking Stalwart/Regen and decent DPS with stacking Avatar of War.

Yeah block builds have lots of intriguing effects. The holy aura 21 ward on every block is impressively good to for paladin, ive seen paladines with 10k+ ward in lower end monos that have pulled in hundreds of mobs to attack lol. But what most of them have in common is there good for lower end stuff, get to 200 waves+ in arena and there efficiency drops

Yeah, I wish I could use Holy Aura on all of my Sentinels. I just thought this was an interesting way to exploit both offense and defense thatā€™s unique to the Forge Guard (gets stronger the more he gets hit). Both block and Ring of Shields keep those numbers low, but with enough armor and the ā€œRegifterā€ regen, I get very tank very fast as long as I donā€™t have an Armor Shred modifier running ā€“ and even when I do Stalwart helps balance it out.

Yes do you also have the node that gives RoS a chance when hit? Getting 100 shields is fun as well :stuck_out_tongue:

No, I purposely dropped Shield Creator (those are the 5 passives Iā€™m referring to). By NOT running Ring of Shields, Iā€™m able to generate way more stacks of Stalwart (3% armor) and Avatar of War (1% damage). I used to run Shield Creator WITH Juggernaut Stance, but they disabled Shield Creator from proccing if Ring of Shields isnā€™t on your active bar.

In fact, Iā€™ll probably post about in the Suggestion section because it seems counterintuitive to make Shield Creator a top tier talent for Forge Guard when the functionality of it prevents Forge Guard from maximizing its innate ability (Stalwart) and other top tier ability (Avatar of War). Iā€™m doing MUCH better with Juggernaut Stance + stacks of Stalwart/Avatar of War than any amount of block or healing from Ring of Shields previously gave me.

1 Like

Hello! Iā€™m currently using this build, around my level 30s, and Iā€™m liking it.

I have a question ā€“ why do we take so much ā€œShield Breakerā€ if its only for throwing attacks? I can understand Hammer and Anvil because we passively stay in a stance that reduces damage taken, but I canā€™t figure out why thereā€™s so many points in Shield Breaker. Am I missing something?

It gives phys & fire resist shred on throwing attack hits which youā€™re getting from the Throwing Axe node.

Also, welcome to the community!

Shield Breaker is selected solely to unlock Hammer & Anvil for the 25% damage reduction. Unfortunately, 4 points is the minimum investment to unlock Hammer & Anvil (as indicated by the 4 dots on the connecting line above Shield Breaker). It is a worthy 9 points, though. 25% damage reduction is a great defensive layer thatā€™s unique to the Forge Guard.

Doh, I didnā€™t even notice the 4 dots there as a requirement, that explains it.

Thanks everyone! Also, Iā€™m really loving the game. <3

This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.