The Forge Guard is one of the three Sentinel Masteries in Last Epoch, offering a unique playstyle focused on heavy armor, fire damage, minions, and throwing attacks. This class excels at summoning Forged Weapons—minions that deal high fire damage and critical hits—making it a powerful choice for players who enjoy commanding a legion of steel warriors to fight alongside them Last Epoch Gold.

Core Mechanics and Skills
The Forge Guard’s signature mechanic revolves around summoning Forged Weapons through skills like Forge Strike and the reworked Vengeance skill tree. These minions scale with the player’s weapon stats, so weapon choice is crucial for maximizing damage output. The build often incorporates skills such as Void Cleave (which enhances the Forged Weapons with Molten Blades) and buffs from Symbols of Hope for sustained damage and survivability.

For mobility, skills like Volatile Reversal, Lunge, or Healing Hands are common choices, allowing the Forge Guard to quickly engage or disengage from combat while maintaining healing and buffs. The synergy between these skills and the minions makes the Forge Guard both offensive and durable in battle.

Build Variants and Playstyle
There are several popular Forge Guard builds, including:
1. Summon Forged Weapons Build: This build focuses on summoning multiple Forged Weapons to overwhelm enemies. It uses melee attacks like Rive or Multistrike to generate minions and trigger healing effects such as Healing Hands. This build is effective for leveling and endgame content due to its balance of offense and defense.

2. Reflect Build: A more niche variant that leverages the Ring of Shields skill and the Thorn Shell shield to reflect damage back to attackers. This tanky build stacks attunement and block chance to maximize damage reflect, making it viable against bosses and high-level enemies.

3. Throwing Weapon Build: Utilizing skills like Hammer Throw and Shield Throw, this build excels at ranged AoE damage while maintaining high block chance and sustain. It is beginner-friendly and effective for clearing groups of enemies quickly.

Recommended Gear and Progression
While the Forge Guard does not require unique items to function, certain uniques like Clotho's Needle and Phantom Grip paired with Falcon Fists significantly boost damage output and survivability. Weapon stats heavily influence minion strength, so players should prioritize weapons with high damage and critical stats buy Last Epoch Gold.

Leveling the Forge Guard typically involves using Rive early on for single-target damage and transitioning to Multistrike and Forge Strike to summon Forged Weapons as the character progresses. Defensive nodes and healing procs like Healing Hands are essential for survivability during melee engagements.