Smelter's Siege Barrage Forge Guard Theorycraft for Season 5

Sentinel
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Introduction

I was pretty excited about all of the Forge Guard changes and decided to make a build a little out of my comfort zone this season. I always go Multistrike minions or Vengeance, but this time I’m going to try a shield build with Smelter’s Wrath. The javelin node looks very promising along with ignite stacking.

Here is the initial build:

Version 2 - Full Javelin Focus

https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/oYEqGwR4

Old version 1 - Javelin / Spell Damage / Minion Hybrid

https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/olVJ4LRL

The final stats should come to around these numbers:

Defense

3k hp

80% armor

70% block chance

45% block mitigation

60% endurance

100% critical damage reduction

7% life leech

Offense

900% Fire damage for hits

1200% Fire damage for DOTs

25% Fire Penetration for hits

80% Fire Penetration for ignite

70% more damage for hits

40% more fire damage for DOTs

115 flat melee damage

58 throwing damage for Javelin

Synergies

The main synergy points are going to be between:

1. The passive nodes Smelter’s Might + Forgemaster Might + Maehlin’s Hubris. This synergy allows you to equip a 2handed weapon with a shield while benefiting from double bleed / ignite chance from Smelter’s Might. You combine this with Maehlin’s Hubris and you get 400% ignite chance just from 11 points in the tree.

2. Avatar of War + Smelter’s Wrath Sulphurous Sublimation node lets you convert 10 stalwart stacks (150% area bonus) into 450% more Fire DOT damage.

3. Smelter’s Wrath node Spear Volley + Javelin’s node Siege Barrage should let you throw 18 Javelins every 2 seconds. With all the ignite stacking, you’ll be producing close to 216 ignites per cast just from the javelins.

There are also the 30+ ignites you’ll get every time you lunge + shield bash, but it is pretty variable how consistently you can use that, so I left it out.

**Old Ring of Shields Rambling **

The one thing I’m unsure of is the damage from Ring of Shields Forge Flame skill. It is a secondary skill from a minion tree so I don’t know if it still follows the rules for minion scaling. If it does that would make it pretty hopeless to scale up. You can’t get spell damage on shields and I don’t think global spell damage from the passive tree works either. That means the best you could do was give it 15 flat from the Ring of Shields tree itself and maybe some flat from an exalted suffix on Volcanus. Either way, that is going to be really bad compared to everything else.

Current DPS potential and ignite stacks are unknown due to Smelter’s Wrath Backdraft node double cast speculation and potential mana sustain needs for the build.

Gameplay

Gameplay wise you’ll just be charging in and rattling off waves and waves of spears. Smelter’s Wrath will offer tons of defense and big hits while javelins stack massive ignites. It is not clear if the javelins will actually cost mana ( usually the node says they do when that happens), so I won’t know if I have to plan for more mana sustain just yet. It should be manageable either way though.

Conclusion

Forge Guard got some massive buffs this season. I like how competitive the nodes feel now. Usually I dump 1/3 of my points into the other class trees, but I wanted so much from FG this time around. Forge weapons were already great, and now they are even better. I decided to finally try a shield build since I’ve done FG minions to death. If my assumptions are correct, it should work out pretty well. I’m interested to play around with the shield scaling and javelin interactions.

Smelter's Siege Barrage Build Guide Season 5
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I ran a Smelter’s Siege build in Season 4 that, unfortunately, had no chance of killing uber Abby but was capable enough of dealing with regular Abby.

The base of what I ran was not DOTs though. It was simply Strength stacking + a lot of crit multiplier + health regen as sustain.

I can’t say much of an Smelter’s Siege DOT build… but I still have hope in Smelter’s Siege and I will also join you with in the Smelter’s Siege path with my starter character “Bongo Bongo”.

Good look. See you in Eterra :slight_smile:

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Can Forged weapons kill Uber?

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I expect the ceiling to be a lot higher now that the channeled node for Smelter’s Wrath isn’t just throwing out generic axe projectiles. You could probably get a lot of damage out of a crit variant going down the hammer throw path.

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Would Backdraft’s cast of Smelter’s Wrath also cast Javelins thus doubling the amount you get out? Doubling the Javelin’s ignites would be better than adding the Furnace damage from the numbers you gave. You also need to path through Blacksmith’s Breadth which speeds up the channel rate.

Only if it explicitly states that it gives minion spell damage.

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I have actually just tried testing that with the current homing axes to see if I can isolate that very interaction. The only answer I have come up with so far is maybe. The throwing axe node doesn’t double from Backdraft but the javelin node specifically states that Smelter’s Wrath triggers 3 casts, and these casts pick random nearby enemies. Hopefully Backdraft’s double cast will fulfill these triggers.

Either way after doing a few gear swaps and tests with other nodes I am definitely going to outright drop furnace and forge wave from the build.Trying to also scale minion and spell damage alongside was a mistake. The payoff for this build is pumping as many Javelins as possible.

It looks like going for a crafted fire based Deicide Spear will give the javelins some fairly hefty hit damage to back up all their ignites. Ignite duration is 4 seconds with duration bonuses. I calculated the DPS window around 2 waves of spears in 4 second period. With the channel cost cut in half I’ll be able to get 3 waves of spears in (Smelter’s Wrath still has an icky 1 second cooldown so overlap won’t be a perfect 4).

Potentially double the javelins from backdraft and an extra spear wave from cutting the channel cost is going to be better than anything I could do otherwise for ignite stacking. The addition of a crafted spear also means I’ll be at like 1000% ignite chance baseline which will be great.

7

I wondered about Bane of Winter since it specifies javelin hit, not on use & hit. :man_shrugging:

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Maybe with a crazy 3 LP version. At base you would be losing about 400% increase fire DOT damage and 200% ignite chance for an extra 12 hits a second (96 extra ignites since you’ll be at 800% ignite instead of 1000%).

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If you could get a +2 Javelin on your relic you could take Forceful Hurl/Strategic Patience for an additional 60% more damage on the hits & DoTs from Javelin & the attack speed reduction doesn’t matter since you’re not casting it directly.

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I did just that on the revised build I just posted. It is a good callout since the build doesn’t care about attack speed at all. I took points out of the mana reduction node instead to fit it in. I’m going under the assumption that the Javelins will be free casts though. If that isn’t the case, I’ll need to redo my affixes and skill nodes again.