LizardIRL has been playing Last Epoch at a high level for years. He has invested a huge amount of time learning the game, theory crafting builds and making educational content. By the time LE Multiplayer launched, he already had thousands of hours driven by his competitive nature and desire to improve. His builds and min/maxing rules have shaped the meta, establishing him as a top build maker and theory crafter. LizardIRL livestreams his Rank 1 Arena pushes and has dominated both SC and HC ladders. Learn how to scale your Damage and Defense in the Ignite Shield Rush Forge Guard Build to reach the different Endgame Activities like the Monolith, Dungeons and Arena.
Build Scaling
This Forge Guard uses Shield Rush to brutally charge across the battlefield and Ignite your enemies. Scale your Ignite Chance and Fire Damage Over Time as much as possible. This build also has decent survivability thanks to the multiple defensive layers it can take advantage of.
- Ignite Chance: The more Chance you have, the more Ignites you apply.
- Bleed Chance: Thanks to the Maehlin's Hubris Gloves, all sources of Bleed Chance get converted to Ignite Chance. A flaming hot Bardiche is even deadlier than a regular one!
- Increased Fire Damage And Ignite Duration: This powerful Prefix extends the duration of your Ignites, allowing them to deal extra Damage for a longer period of time.
- Shield Rush: This ability has really high Damage Multipliers inside its Tree that greatly enhance the Damage of the Ignites applied by it.
- Strength: Shield Rush gains 4% Damage per point of Strength. Additionally it grants 4% Armour per point, which adds a nice defensive layer for the build.
- Elemental Damage Over Time: This powerful Prefix has some of the highest numerical values of any offensive Affix in the game. This is a priority when it comes to scaling this build and its main source of Increased Damage.
- Sigils Of Hope: They grant increased Damage and Ignite Chance with this setup.
- Crushing Blows: Great synergy with this Shield Rush setup high Mana cost.
- % Increased Damage: Anything that increases Fire Damage Over Time is welcomed.
- Throne of Ambition: Provides an insane DPS boost while fighting Bosses.
- Volatile Reversal: The Time Rifts and Harbinger of Dust Nodes apply a powerful debuff on your enemies that makes them take additional Damage.
- Abyssal Echoes: The Crumbling Node applies another great debuff on your enemies that makes them take additional Damage.
- Fire Penetration: Causes enemies to take extra Fire Damage. Get some with the Conviction Passive and gain even more while in combat thanks to Lunge's Crusader's Fury buff.
- Level of Shield Rush: Get this Prefix on your Body Armour to invest more Points into its Skill Tree. You can also get a point with the Thorn Slinger Belt.
- Grand Breath of Cinders: While not necessary, this Blessing allows you to apply 10 stacks of Fire Resistance Shred. 10 stacks increase the Fire Damage enemies take by 50% (20% for Bosses). If you decide to pick it up, make sure it rolls nicely (45%+).
- Armour Clad: Grants Damage Reduction and is crucial for any Sentinel's survivability.
- Channeling: Since Shield Rush is a channeled ability you have Stun Immunity while using it. Additionally, you can make use of the Grand Patience of Herkir Blessing.
- Protective Speed: This Node inside Shield Rush provides 20% Damage Reduction while rushing.
- Wings of Argentus: The Damage Reduction this Unique provides is incredibly powerful, especially since it can be fully utilized while attacking with Shield Rush or Lunge.
- Endurance: It allows you to take up to 60% less Damage while below a certain Health threshold. Your base Endurance Threshold is 20% of your total Health.
- Strength: Grants 4% Armour per point.
- Armour Mitigation: This setup can get insanely high Armour. Combine the Armour from your Item Implicits, Grand Patience of Herkir Blessing, and all the Strength this build has to reach 40% to 60%+ Mitigation. Thanks to Throne of Ambition this Mitigation increases to 65%+ while Bossing. This is huge on top of all the other defensive layers the build has.
- Health: This build can stack a decent Health pool that can surpass the 4000 mark. Health is very effective when combined with all the other defensive layers, but be careful since this Shield Rush setup consumes 15% of your current Health on use.
- Leech: Bleeding Heart provides tons of Leech for the build. Use Avarice (obtained by completing Erza's Ledger Quest in the Campaign) for their Elemental Leech until you find the Amulet.
- Chill and Slow: Are Ailments that greatly reduce the Action and Movement Speed of your enemies. They are must haves on most builds, especially once you reach hard content with insane speed modifiers.
- Frailty: This Ailment reduces the Damage dealt by enemies by 6% for 4 seconds. Stacks 3 times.
- Ward and Ailment Cleansing on Potion Use: Cleanse all Ailments on Potion use.
- Abyssal Echoes's Freedom of Movement Node helps while mapping, turning Slows afflicted enemies apply into Haste, a 30% Movement Speed buff.
Our Damage Explained Article covers all you need to know to scale Damage.
Learn all you need to know to scale Defense with our Defense Explained Article.
Recommended End Game Activities
Last Epoch has multiple end game activities with completely different roles and rewards. All the builds in Maxroll.gg have been tested and are designed to complete all available content. However, not all builds excel at doing the same activities. Make sure you are familiar with the end game strengths and weaknesses of your character.
The Monolith of Fate is the main end game system. Most of your character gear upgrades are found here. Once you get all of your desired Empowered Blessings, you can start pushing Corruption to increase your chances at finding incredible Exalted Items. The Monolith of Fate rewards speedy builds that are able to target farm Echo Reward Nodes or stack Timeline Stability as fast as possible.
This Forge Guard is an amazing Monolith of Faith farmer. It's super fast, has great AoE and kills enemies on the move. Since it's also a fairly tanky build, it's an amazing setup for farming content in high Corruption.
Monolith Goals
Your goals in the Monolith of Fate will differ greatly depending on what build you play and what stage your character progression is at. Here are the objectives you should aim at when playing this build:
- Reach Empowered Monolith as fast as possible.
- Farm your Combat Empowered Blessings. Prioritize gaining Timeline Stability and fight the Timeline Bosses as often as possible. Once you are done with one Timeline, move to the next one. Reach 200 Corruption to farm your desired Blessings faster, as it unlocks a 5th option to choose from after you defeat a Timeline Boss. Defeat the Shade of Orobyss to gain and transfer Corruption between Timelines.
- Farm your first Drop Rate Empowered Blessing in The Stolen Lance Empowered Monolith Timeline. Here you should also farm Wings of Argentus and Throne of Ambition until you get them.
- Finish up the rest of your Drop Rate Empowered Blessings.
- Farm for key Uniques.
- As you farm for Uniques, stack Corruption as high as your gear can handle. The higher Corruption you do, the more Items you find. Get your character ready for the other end game activities.
Monolith Modifiers
Every time you choose an Echo a Modifier comes attached with it, adding difficulty and changing how enemies behave. These Modifiers stay active for a maximum of 6 Echoes and stack with each other. Some Modifiers can handicap your build immensely while others can almost be ignored. Monolith Modifiers scale with Corruption and increase the Item Rarity of Echoes. Ideally you want to do the hardest content possible, without delaying your clear times. Keep up Item Rarity as high as you can without it slowing you down.
Easy Modifiers
- Enemy Critical Strike Avoidance.
- Enemy Critical Strike Chance (Once you have 100% Critical Strike Avoidance).
- Enemy chance to receive a Glancing Blow.
- Increased enemy Movement Speed.
Avoid these Modifiers
- High health enemies take less damage.
- High health enemies deal increased damage.
- Enemy chance to Dodge.
- While bossing: enemies Enrage at half health and enemies gain Frenzy and Haste when hit.
Learn more about the Monolith of Fate with our Empowered Monolith Guide.
Dungeons are another important end game activity. All of them have an unique reward system attached that can only be accessed by defatting the Boss guarding it. They are divided by 4 Tiers of difficulty; it might take you some time to have a character strong enough to defeat Tier 4. Remember, Dungeons require specific Keys to enter them.
This Forge Guard is a good Dungeon farmer due to its mobility, sustain and really high single target DPS. It has an easy time with all the Dungeons and can even rush T4 Bosses.
Dungeon Tips
When it comes to Dungeons, each build has different needs and should focus on the ones that fulfill them. Remember, each Dungeon comes with an unique Dungeon Skill. Make sure you are familiar with the different Dungeon Skills, Boss fights and Rewards before you attempt them.
Recommended Dungeons for this build:
- Temporal Sanctum: You need to interact with the Eternity Cache to upgrade any desirable Uniques you find with Legendary Potential. The Boss fight against Chronomancer Julra is fairly easy for any Sentinel, as they can get out of her telegraphed attacks with the multiple mobility Skills available to them. Additionally, you can place unspecced Rebuke on your Skill bar and use it before taking Damage.
- Lightless Arbour: While the gold sink in the Vault of Uncertain Fate is not necessary for this build to progress, it has a decent time dealing with The Mountain Beneath and, thanks to the Rebuke swap mentioned above, his most dangerous attacks can be trivialized. The Stone Titan's Heart is easier, just make sure to use avoid its moving lasers. Run this Dungeon when you have some excess Gold, be careful as it gets expensive really fast!
- Soulfire Bastion: Make sure you pay attention to the Damage type on the floor while fighting Fire Lich Cremorus and use the Rebuke swap to tank the big telegraphed attacks if you struggle. Overall this Dungeon and the Soul Gambler are low priority as nothing attached to them is relevant for the build.
Remember that T4 Dungeons are hard pinnacle content that can only be defeated with well geared characters. If your build struggles against a particular Dungeon you can always dedicate a different setup that shines against it to earn its reward. This is not possible if you play in any of the Solo Game Modes.
Check all of our Dungeon Guides if you want to learn more about their Bosses and rewards systems.
Use everything explained in the Gameplay and Build Scaling sections of this Build Guide to defeat them.
The Endless Arena is the main competitive game mode. It's all about the Ladder! While you might get some upgrades, the other end game activities are far superior for gearing up. The Endless Arena is not for everyone and only the best builds and players can reach the top. You need an Arena Key or an Arena Key of Memory to enter.
This Forge guard build is decent for competing in the Endless Arena, but struggles against high Waves. It's playstyle is very chaotic and it's easy to make mechanical or positional mistakes that get punished by enemies.
Endless Arena Tips
Adjusting your playstyle to the build you are playing is mandatory to reach high waves. Use the easy early waves as a practice tool; learning about wave management, developing good habits and limit-testing your build are very important things to become a better Endless Arena player.
Tips for playing this build in Arena:
- Make sure you always keep track of all 4 enemy packs. New waves do not spawn as long as there are two enemies of the current wave alive. Finish them up at the right time!
- As a melee build it's crucial to know when to go in. Find the perfect window to engage!
- Don't ever stand still! Always kite melee enemies so you can hit them but they can't hit you.
- Target ranged threats first. Deal with the rest of enemies once the ranged ones are taken care of.
- Enemy homing projectiles are really dangerous. Use Lunge to engage them quickly or hide behind terrain.
- Maintain 4 Sigils Of Hope up at all times for the powerful buffs they provide.
- Hit as many enemies as possible when you Lunge to stack the Crusader's Fury buff.
- Use Abyssal Echoes and Volatile Reversal for extra Damage against dangerous threats.
- Hold a Movement Skill to disengage or emergency situations.
Eager to get competitive? Check our Arena Guide!
