They could simply remove a lot of useless nerfs they did that were so over the top the class suffered from it. The old interactions where something fun happened when you used skill on your living armours was nice.
Personaly I would love if the FG get some summon armour nodes that work more like beeing ironman in the end. He takes the best animated armors that help him wreck havoc by putting them on his armor. So he becomes more of a juggernaut char instead of wet noodle joe.
On the other hand I would like if his Armors and weapons become more kind of skills. Like summon weapon just crates a real big hammer for example that smacks on the screen instead of only some dulli weapons that fly arround. Something impactfull and fun.
On top of it according to name I guss the FG should be the beefiest of the sentinel classes but not only is the dmg ass but the defences as well. EHG has shown they are able to mindlessly overbuff sentinel classes when they worked on the paladin. Iām sure they can do it again.
This is why the manifest armor tree sucks - its so lame, they need to add way more dmg and survivability to it! Falcon is invincible, abomination never diesā¦ its bs.
Thatās why FG is BS. Everything FG can do every other mastery can do better by a mile.
1 Like
Actuallyā¦
After reading your post, I started to think what FG can do better than other classes/masteriesā¦ and yes, the pool of possibilities is VERY shallow.
In fact, one constant issue I found is what to use as fifth skill; nothing feels impactful enoughā¦ but then it hit me: What if Forge Strike is not an actual spender but a generator? What if our actual āsuper-spenderā is Smelterās Wrath?
I mean, the way I have been using Forge Strike this season has been as a generator for itself. The buff to Forgemaster Hammer really raises the FG damage ceiling once all 15 Forged Weapons are outā¦ but what if we use the extra tankiness of the class [and the Health Regen from the Forgemaster set], to make sure our Smelterās Wrath hits REALLY hard?
With that in mind, just swapped Ring of Shields by Smelterās Wrath, assigned some points and check it out. Well, I was hitting the dummies for 10+ millā¦ including the boss one.
Afterwards, I went to monoliths to corruption 300+ and entered in a Lv3 Omen. Well, yes, I diedā¦ but just because I wanted to use Smelterās Wrathā¦ with full changeā¦ every ā¦singleā¦ time. Feeling was incredible though!! I was been smashed by absolutely everything in the screenā¦ and the dude didnāt give a f***. It just did his job with max Smelterās Wrath to clear screen after screenā¦
Yeah sure this is a nicheā¦ but hollyā¦ it rocks!!! Please try it outā¦
Just throwing this out there my timerot shield throw char here - https://www.lastepochtools.com/profile/donzpie/character/Rotty he hits the dummies for over 500m on the triple dummy set up 637m - my warpath hits very fast and does 11-18m depending on anomaly and where the hp of the dummy is on. Now to throw that into a what does that convert to on uber? Well - https://www.youtube.com/@Donzpie there are 1 of each video with that dmg. Now scale that against 10 million on a dummy AND you have to channel it and channelling in a boss fight is pretty garbage.
Found a video on YT of a guy doing uber with it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV2fhLyLv64 near 14 mins long
I am only posting all this to show you that smelters wrath is horrible, FG is super weak, dummys mean nothing and the class needs a HUGEEEEE buff and skill reworks. Leave channelled AOE for casters, yuck!
Well,
Letās say that there might be still some growing potential hereā¦ 
Anyhow, the linked video is from a year ago. Back then, we didnāt have access to nearly as much power we have today. My polite guess is that todayās numbers would look much better.
Well if you make it work please do a video or let me know and Ill join you in game to watch and link me your char Iād love to keep my eyes on it as you build and I am 100% cheering you on cos I really want FG to be strong. I did the usual builds this season shield throw and forged weapons for the first time with some top end gear but it was super lacking even on normal abby to warrant keeping on ;(
Good luck! <3
I would be lying if I say something like āchallenge acceptedā or something like thatā¦ My time does not really belongs completely to me; I have others that requires it.
But I surely can do one thing in the next few days: Re-clear NORMAL Abby and post a build with whatever gear I have in LastEpochTools [maybe over the weekend]. It didnāt really feel that hard to me. Sure I am not one-shooting in seconds it didnāt take that much either to kill it.
I can tell you right away few things:
- Right now, I can do 1 million damage to the dummies with Forge Strike even with sub-optimal gear by stacking STR and Crit chance/Multiplier. I do have a half-decent weapon though.
- Smelter Wraith hitting for 10 million is a x10 multiplier over ānormalā damage; thatās a good number to keep in mind and thatās why I am happy to see it.
- Another good number is that I am using shield + 2 handed weapon; which means 20% LESS damage
- Also; for bossing; there are two buffs which are intriguing to me:
- In the amulet you can stack a Abandoned Eyes of the Weaver Reforged [crit chance] and a corrupted modifier for Strength converted to Brutality. Sure it is nerfed but the one thing that we have to keep in mind is that the cap for ā20ā is for 20 mana in the skill; not for a total of 20% more damage cap. For a skill with 20+ mana it still gives 0.02x20 = 0.4 more damage per Strength. For 200 STR, that would be 0.4*200 = 80% more damage. It is not busted but it is respectable. Problem is that your defenses drop dramatically and it is terrible for mapping. I can attest that :(. But for bossing, it might have a chance.
- The other intriguing buff is Added Melee Damage and Increased Melee Damage per Strength. Yes; it is āincreased damageā not āmore damageāā¦ but, since we are stacking STR anyway, it is a relatively āfreeā affix. 200 STR translates into 2% * 200% = 400% increased melee damageā¦ and between 17 and 77 added melee damage tooā¦ for free :]. Problem here is that it is really hard to have a decent reforged weapon with the ārightā corrupted affix. I got several amulets with both affixes above quite easilyā¦ but the weapon must do decent damage too; so it is much [much] harder to get. For the records: I did yet.
Donāt worry Iām not challenging you or expecting devotion to this lol just when you do it, let me know! Also I have used str/brut and its very strong with ES and I also stracked the rampancy one on a rive build, also very strong I think the double conversion should be nerfed for season 5 anyways ~ The other corr is great I have a 77 world splitter on my WP with a T7 of that corruption, was a huge buff.
Was just checking my uber vids - my 17 mill crits on boss dummy hit uber for 1.7 then drop down to 1.2ish maybe 1.4ish per crit. My time rot which does over 500 mill on the boss dummy the biggest pop I saw was first phase at 38 million so unsure of the percentages but youāll want to be hitting the dummy with a channelling skill for at least 170 million to get 17 mill on uber (thats complete on the fly numbers in my head sounded right) because WP youāre constantly hitting 1.2x3 per second or whatever it is or more, with a channel you canāt be hitting for 3 mill each channel or youāll be there for a week haha!
What you mentioned about 20% less dmg with the 2H / Shield thats the first thing that should be removed from FG - no debuff, should be all buffs like poe2. Its a specialty node FFS and the haste to block is digusting for movespeed I hate that node how it is!
I made few adjustments and now I can farm comfortably regular Abby.
Ok, here we go: https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/Qna3Op7a
Yesā¦, it is a mess and I am still missing some damage multipliers in the skill trees and the equipmentā¦ but even so, I can hit 78 mill the boss dummy with Smelterās Wrathā¦ with zero ambition stacks from Throne of ambition Idol and over 110 mill with 20 stacks.
Things that I realized since last time:
- Brutality drawback doesnāt matter at all with the Sunforged Helm. I mean, I even had a bad roll and corrupted my amulet with an additional -45% reduced armor and still, I can have around 5000 armor once my 15 Forged Weapons are out.
- Yes, the 78/100+ mill is with shieldā¦ and I rather want to keep it. Extra damage doesnāt really compensate the loss of the defensesā¦ at least with this garbo equipment
- If not wrong, the node that actually matters in Smelterās Wrath is Stoked Flames. Thatās +150 damage for a meager 10 ignite stacksā¦
- The build basically stacks up STR and base melee attack. The big boost to raw melee attack comes from our Forged weapons: 15x20 = 300 fire damage.
- Forged Weapons are used mostly as a buff; not as damage dealers. They give us armor, health regen, raw damage and even stats due to the ācompletedā set. They also help on getting the 10 ignite needed for the big multiplier from Stoked Flames.
- Talking about āsetsā, Legends Entwined ring is huge here enabling multiple buffs from ācomplete setsā .The most remarkable one being the Bear set, with huge Health Regen based on STR and +30 STR.
- Throne of Ambition is also superb, as we can reap benefits from all its buffs [even the armor one due to Brutality]
Problem to push this build forward is to get better equipment in SSF. Best items in many slots are crafted non-uniquesā¦ so it is extra grindy to try to get those.
I hope this can be used as inspiration somehow to some of youā¦ now it is time to come back to my necromancer dual shades skeleton mages
2 Likes
Ok, after playing a bit more, I can double-confirm that Rebuke feels unnecessary.
I gave a try to Smelter Wrath and it feels as a much better Rebuke:
- It does protect you from serious harm for few seconds.
- Every second that you channel, doubles as damage multiplier.
- It can randomly stun out of attacks to big bosses too !!!. At least for regular Abby, when he prepares his big attack, I prepare mine and I just stun him.
So please consider merging Rebuke and Smelter Wrath into a single skill.
1 Like
With Smelters being 2 seconds - how many fire stacks can you get from throne if youāre constantly channelling?
You are not constantly channeling. You still need to move to avoid DOTs and such.
Actually you will need to use Rive quite often to recharge mana and Forge Strike to re-build your Forged Weapons. Whenever he tries to do something, I roll past him, so I am always nearby.
I used Smelter Wrath when I had a window to hitā¦ which curiously enough was often when Abby was performing his big attacks.
At least for regular Abby, Smelter Wrath stuns him when performing that nova attack. Once he starts to charge, so I do too. I am faster actually, so I hit and stun him.
ok so my question was more like does throne of ambition help with the stacks needing fire attacks and you saying youāre using rive - does it stack off the ignite etc section of rive bottom left to give you max stacks for WHEN you do channel?
Throne of Ambition only needs a hit against a boss each 4s. Any hit. The bonus is fire [and cold] .
I just check in the client and all three provides a stack: Rive, Forge Strike and Smelterās Wrath.
Lol I know how it works - I was curious as your skill charges in 2 seconds ambition stacks drop off at 4 seconds so was curious if you were channelling your skill at 20 stacks or not - I didnāt know you were using rive a lot, if youāre consistently hitting 20 stacks then my question is answered.
I am still very interested to see how it performs in a decent, lets say 300c Omen Veil all 3 bosses at once (I wonāt say 1500_) and also fractured prison boss 400c to do him and then obviously Uber. I have killed Uber 635 times on my VK this season so it would be nice to see it done using Smelters Wrath and Forge Strike.
Actually I just realised something well more thought about it a bit more. A few of us mentioned in here FG just does āsome stuff and does it okā vs Pally/VK and that made me think of build identity.
Whats your build?
I am warpath because my main skill is WP and I spin around doing all my dmg
I am erasing strike I slam my ES skill over and over to kill things
I am a judgement pally I use judgement aura and fry my enemies
I am a timerot shield throw I throw my shield and timerot kills stuff
ETC
Now - I am a Smelters Wrath Forge Guard - I move around a lot, I hit the enemys with forge strike and rive a bunch and sometimes when I can I channel smelters wrath, sometimes.
That is a great example of how FG is lost and forgotten and has no true identity. If you were to say fight uber with that build and all you did was constantly spam smelters wrath and it did great damage and you killed him in say 2 minutes then someone says whats your build? You could say āIām Smelters Wrath FGā but right now you really canāt and that to me is sad as hecckkkkkk for FG. The main damage dealing skill unlocked on a class.
Anyways I personally hate the skill and think its crap and FG should have an instant big damage attack, pure phys since the others do fire/a smidge of lightning/void. Forge strike reminds me of hammer of the gods in Poe2 and thats a shitty lame cop out skill in both games lol
If you are asking for the identity of this build, thatās easy: It is a Sunforged Set build. It only works because all bonus from that set. Damage bonus and ignite stacks are applied by Forged Weapons. Even sustain [Armor and Health Regen], is manly driven by the Forged Weapons.
As for flavor: Your animated swords ping your enemy and give you bonus while you spawn big Fire attacks. I mean, even Rive does fire damage through the āWeapon Specialistā nodeā¦ which; BTW should grand the Fire tag when using maces 
Sure not prime material but maybe just ok?.
Now about the class itself:
- The one thing I am realising with FG now that I am looking onto it, is how unfair it compares with VK and Pally.
- VK gets a lot of void mechanics and [specially] unique items. For a game which main plot is about void, VK gets a lot of love from the ābaddiesā.
- Pally is just broken; mechanically speaking. It is so broken that FG uses the two skill it offers because how OP they are.
- FG is sub-par by itself; so the comparison between the Beloved Children (VK/Pally) and bastard boy (FG) gets exacerbated.
So, whatās an āeasy fixā that can be introduced season by season without changing too much on the class itself: Just add more set and unique items for Forge Guard and small variations on crafting shards [Rive converted to Fire].
For a class that is all about items, it has remarkably shortage of them.
Guess youāve not seen many builds then there is a gemling build that has unlimited, no cool down hammers of the gods doing insanely high damage and AOE.
To the name āsun forged setā - thatās not really a build other wise the rouges wouldnāt be āshadow rendā builds or āshadow cascade buildsā they would all be doppleganger builds or legends entwined builds - well actually a lot of builds use this ring to complete multiple sets so you would have for instance with rogues āI have a doppleganger entwined with a touch of weavers ring buildā
Builds are generally called by their main skill in arpgs. If youāre primarily using a forged weapon bonus and spamming forged weapons then I guess you are a forged weapon build.
Im regards to VK and Pally - a huge percentage of them cross passive but a lot of builds generally hit 15 passives to get symbols. Iāve already written and commented in a bunch of threads about how bad FG is in general and then even more so comparitively to its other sentinel frenz. Infact without scrolling back I went over this in this thread a ton.
I am now literally just hanging out to see you kill uber with your build or even the very simple other things I mentioned: 300c omen veil all 3 at once and fractured prison boss. Very simple tasks. Otherwise thereās not much point in me personally yapping anymore because end of the day FG has sucked for ages and needs fixing
