Forge Guard Multistrike Forged Minions Endgame Build for Last Epoch (Patch 1.0)

Our base class is Sentinel, which fills the role of a knight in Last Epoch. Upon finishing Act 1 in the campaign, your character will be offered an opportunity to select an Advanced Mastery. Each base class has three possible Masteries to choose from. For Sentinel, you can choose between Passive Trees for Paladin, Forge Guard, and Void Knight. Upon selecting a Mastery and placing 20 Passive Points into the Sentinel Tree, you'll then be able to place Passive Points into the Mastery Trees.

Forge Guard is the Advanced Class used for this build, and also where the majority of our Passive Points will come from. The Forge Guard Tree will focus around picking nodes that increase our Minion Damage and Armor, Attunement, Strength and Attack Speed. A lesser amount of Passive Points will come from Paladin, focusing mainly on Attunement, Resistances, and defensive scalers. Void Knight is not used for the Forged Minion build. Each Passive Tree and their points are broken down below.

• 8 points into Juggernaut: This node gives us Strength, which gives us armor and our minions damage. This also has resistances.
• 2 points into Fearless: We will collect some Vitality, for base HP and Regen.
• 5 points into Armour Clad: This gives us some base armor but also 10% reduced damage from melee enemies.
• 5 points into Time and Faith: This will give us 25 health and 10 mana every time we use  Multistrike. This happens relatively quickly with our attack speed.

Our base class is Sentinel, which fills the role of a knight in Last Epoch. Upon finishing Act 1 in the campaign, your character will be offered an opportunity to select an Advanced Mastery. Each base class has three possible Masteries to choose from. For Sentinel, you can choose between Passive Trees for Paladin, Forge Guard, and Void Knight. Upon selecting a Mastery and placing 20 Passive Points into the Sentinel Tree, you'll then be able to place Passive Points into the Mastery Trees.

Forge Guard is the Advanced Class used for this build, and also where the majority of our Passive Points will come from. The Forge Guard Tree will focus around picking nodes that increase our Minion Damage and Armor, Attunement, Strength and Attack Speed. A lesser amount of Passive Points will come from Paladin, focusing mainly on Attunement, Resistances, and defensive scalers. Void Knight is not used for the Forged Minion build. Each Passive Tree and their points are broken down below.

• 10 points into Weapons Master: This node starts our tree building, but adds significant Strength to our character.
• 6 points into Battle Hardened: We get a significant gain to Armor and Physical Resistance when we are hit.
• 1 point into Peltast: This is a traversal point.
• 4 points into Shield Breaker: This is a traversal point.
• 5 points into Hammer and Anvil: We take 25% less damage, and do 25% less damage, but our damage is secondary to the minions.
• 8 points into Iron Attunement: We gain Attunement, which adds Minion HP and Minion Damage. This node also buffs both minions and our Armor.
• 10 points into Folded Steel: We add significant Melee Physical Damage to both our  Manifest Armor and  Summon Forged Weapon, and add +2 to our maximum amount of forged weapons.
• 6 points into Might: Further adding to Strength, which gives Minion Damage (but not life, like Attunement) and increasing our base HP.
• 8 points into Molded by the Forge: Increases Attack Speed (two-handed sword), which allows us to attack with  Multistrike very quickly. This allows us to cast  Forge Strike quickly as well.
• 1 point into Flawless Defender: This is a traversal node.
• 1 point into Osprixbane: This is a traversal node.
• 3 points into Shield Crafter: When we are hit, we have a 3% chance to cast  Ring Of Shields, moreover, we also increase our minions health and armor by 150%.

Our base class is Sentinel, which fills the role of a knight in Last Epoch. Upon finishing Act 1 in the campaign, your character will be offered an opportunity to select an Advanced Mastery. Each base class has three possible Masteries to choose from. For Sentinel, you can choose between Passive Trees for Paladin, Forge Guard, and Void Knight. Upon selecting a Mastery and placing 20 Passive Points into the Sentinel Tree, you'll then be able to place Passive Points into the Mastery Trees.

Forge Guard is the Advanced Class used for this build, and also where the majority of our Passive Points will come from. The Forge Guard Tree will focus around picking nodes that increase our Minion Damage and Armor, Attunement, Strength and Attack Speed. A lesser amount of Passive Points will come from Paladin, focusing mainly on Attunement, Resistances, and defensive scalers. Void Knight is not used for the Forged Minion build. Each Passive Tree and their points are broken down below.

• 8 points into Defiance: Rounds our Resistances out, provides extra Attunement for minions.
• 5 points into Valor: This aids the healing we receive from  Smite, and gives us base HP.
• 7 points into Blinding Light. This blinds the enemies with our attacks, which helps prevent critical strikes on you. We also add to our Endurance %.
• 10 points into Dedication: Further adds to our Attunement scaling, increasing minion damage and health.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill shine in the build. While some of these skills do allow for some variation to exist depending on your own custom choices, we recommend utilizing the skill trees as presented until you have a strong understanding of the build itself.

 Multistrike will be our primary method of "attack". We will do nominal damage however the real damage come from the dropping of  Forge Strike which has a chance to summon  Summon Forged Weapon. This and our  Manifest Armor is where our damage will actually come from. Every thing we do is supplimentary to them, however, we do have some crowd control with the stun that comes from Anvil Blow in the  Forge Strike node. We will be healing ourselves and the minions constantly with  Smite by using this.

• 3 points into Relentless Advance: Since this skill will be summoning our minions, we need to be sure we do this as fast as possible.
• 1 point into Perfect Steel. Stacks will be explained later, but for now this is a traversal node.
• 1 point into Doctrine of the Anvil. Adding another stack, but also a traversal node.
• 1 point into Fiery Justice: This is where the build attomation comes into play. When we reach maximum stacks, we will use  Forge Strike, which has a chance to spawn minions, and will do significant area damage and chance to stun.
• 1 points into Way of the Sword: Increases the duration of the stacks, which helps us as we move from pack to pack.
• 4 points into Guarding Stance: We generate 150 armor per stack, by default this is 2 stacks, however we add an additional 2 stacks from the above nodes. Be aware, that after casting  Forge Strike these stacks will fall off, and you lose the bonus armor. However, we generate these stacks so quickly, it doesn't matter much.
• 1 point into Flanking Strikes: This will ensure, that even if you have generated 0 stacks, you still have 1 for the next node we take.
• 1 point into Hallowed Arsenal: This is how we support our minions, by healing them with  Smite, but only when we Multistrike with Armament. It is important to note that when you are fighting a solo enemy, there is no way for this additional sword to proc, as "double dipping" damage does not happen. The only way to have  Smite go off, is to back up and "miss" with  Multistrike, however, you will not generate a stack. The player must learn to balance this timing between "Healing" and "Summoning". This is the most difficult (not that hard) part of the build.
• 3 points in Determination: This is a traversal node.
• 3 points in Sweeping Blows: This increases the effective area of the "Swords".
• 1 point in Victory Strikes: If an enemy dies to Multistrike, you will create another "Sword".

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill shine in the build. While some of these skills do allow for some variation to exist depending on your own custom choices, we recommend utilizing the skill trees as presented until you have a strong understanding of the build itself.

 Forge Strike can be used manually in order to quickly summon minions by using it directly when you have stacks from  Multistrike. Generally, however, this wont be done much. This skill is what scales and casts our minion "Swords".

• 4 points into Forged by Fire. This adds a base of 40 base Fire Damage to our  Summon Forged Weapon.
• 4 points into Well Forged Weapons: This gives us an additional four minions and adds 60% to their duration.
• 4 points into Lightforge: Increases Forged Weapons Attack Speed.
• 3 points into Mass Production: This adds a % chance to summon our minions when  Forge Strike is automatically casted from  Multistrike.
• 5 points into Heavy Strike. This adds 40% more damage to our minions and increases our stuns chance with  Forge Strike.
• 1 points into Engines of War: This node will cause our normally modestly ranged  Summon Forged Weapon, to hit whole packs in a single hit.
• 1 Point into Forgemaster: Another bonus node: This node will give you a 20% chance to summon an axe that will cleave swaths of enemies in a single blow.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill shine in the build. While some of these skills do allow for some variation to exist depending on your own custom choices, we recommend utilizing the skill trees as presented until you have a strong understanding of the build itself.

 Manifest Armor is our builds heaviest hitter. He has massive scaling into defensive armor, which conveniently add significant physical damage to hit attacks. He will retaliate passively with  Fire Nova but more importantly, he is scaled with massive attack speed and critical strike multipliers. It won't be uncommon to see him wipe an area by himself. Be sure to use your "A" key in order to tell him and the minions where to go.

• 4 points into Iron Grasp: You can leave 1 point into this until later, we just want to rush the end of this branch.
• 4 points into Redistributed Steel: Weakens the Summon, but doubles damage output.
• 1 point into Titan Sword: He now uses the  Odachi you are using, and all of its modifiers.
• 4 points into Platemail. The minion will now obtain the stats of your chest armor at 160% of its affix values (EG:100 Armor for you = 160 Armor for him).
• 1 point into Force of Impact: This is a major damage bonus for him. For every 10 armor (includes the 160% bonus) he gains +1 to Melee Physical Damage.
• 2 points into Great Helm: He will gain a massive bonus to Armor, given you are using  Sunforged Greathelm.
• 4 points into Steel Greaves: The minions will gain massive critical strike mulipliers, but will be very susciptible to damage with the  Suloron's Step.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill shine in the build. While some of these skills do allow for some variation to exist depending on your own custom choices, we recommend utilizing the skill trees as presented until you have a strong understanding of the build itself.

 Smite is our best way to support our minions and ourselves. We also give ourselves a significant boost in attack speed and amplify our health and mana regeneration. This is a must in order to keep our  Manifest Armor and ourselves topped off in HP.

• 4 points into Holy Wave: We increase the area at which our  Smite will heal us and our minions.
• 3 points into Righteous Fury: This is more of a traversal node, but we do see moderate gains in fire damage.
• 4 points into Righteous Flurry: This node ensures we continue to spawn and heal as fast as possible.
• 3 point into Soothing Balm: Here we increase both our minions and our own Health and Mana Regeneration.
• 5 points into Grace: This node allows us to give maximum heals to our minions and our self.
• 1 point into Panacea: You have a chance to cleanse ailments on you when effected by smite.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill shine in the build. While some of these skills do allow for some variation to exist depending on your own custom choices, we recommend utilizing the skill trees as presented until you have a strong understanding of the build itself.

 Ring Of Shields is used as a strong defensive layer. They will heal you and your minions, give massive buffs to armor and block incoming projectiles. This skill has a chance to automatically cast when you are hit, and does not put the skill on cooldown. It is not uncommon to see several shields around you at some point (15,20 or even 30).

• 3 points into Warrior's Renewal: When we attack with  Multistrike after using  Lunge, we reduce the cooldown by up to 24%.
• 2 points into Ambuscade: This is a pathing node.
• 1 point into Double Strike: This gives us two charges of  Lunge, so we are always ready to jump into the next pack.
• 2 points into Initiate's Onslaught. This is a pathing node.
• 1 point into Cull the Weak: This helps in finishing a boss, but mostly a pathing node.
• 4 points into Reckless Skirmish: We gain Frenzy when we kill with Lunge.
• 5 points into Dawn Charge: We gain 40% of our missing Health when we use Lunge.
• 2 points into Endless Will: We empower our Warrior's Renewal node further, and gain Health when we trigger it.
• 1 point into Lead the Charge: This node will give us Haste when we use  Lunge for up to 3 seconds.

This is an additive section for those looking to push the build further into corruption. Without proper attunement scaling or Mana management, this will add a level of difficutly that newer players may not be interested in facing. While some of these skills do allow for some variation to exist depending on your own custom choices, we recommend utilizing the skill trees as presented until you have a strong understanding of the build itself.

The  Sigils Of Hope alternative scaling, would add a noteable gain to minion damage and self survivability. However, this route does take away from automation, and would leave you with a non-scaled use of  Lunge and  Ring Of Shields. This could cause the rate of play to feel "clunky" and a player may reserve to only use  Sigils Of Hope when bossing. Since  Forge Strike does not need to be in the skill bar to function, we would use this free slot for  Lunge.

• 5 points into Empowering Sigils: At maximum Sigils (5), this is an 125% increase in damage to you and your minions.
• 3 points into Decree of Flame: This will add a total 30 (3 from base, 3 from node) base Fire Damage to you and your minions at maximum Sigils.
• 2 points into Iron Sigils: This adds 150 to our Endurance Threshold at maximum Sigils.
• 4 points into Enduring Hope. Will have the Sigils last a total of 23 seconds.
• 1 point into Tetragram: We add +1 to our maximum Sigils, making it a total of four with this node.
• 2 points into Invigorate: A traversal node, but also adds healing effectivness, ensuring  Smite heals more.
• 3 points into Quiet Mind: This will help keep the Mana cost down. Note: If Mana becomes a significant issue you should respec in the  Smite node, taking 2 points from Immolate and placing them into Soothing Balm.
• 1 point into Polygram: This adds our fifth and final Sigil.