Overview
A melee focused Forged class build and build walkthrough that centres around Cyclone and the Electrode Relic.
Introduction
[This section is skippable if desired!]
Hello, this is my (Early Access Version) Forged guide for the ‘Stormforged Cyclone Build’
In this guide I will be breaking down: the Skill Tree, the Legendarium, the Relic Tree, Desired Stat Bonuses on equipment, the Play Style for this build and much more!
I will break the guide up into easy to navigate sections for readability, making returning to this guide for a quick reminder on things a simple task. At the bottom will be extras including notes, closing thoughts and any tips or tricks I have to offer.
Before I begin, here’s a little background of me:
ARPG’s are my favourite genre and Torchlight II is pretty much my favourite game of all time, having sunk 400+ hours into it and that’s without ever using mods. I’ve played a whole bunch of the ‘big’ names in the ARPG scene, like Grim Dawn, Path of Exile and Diablo 3. I’ve always wanted to share my builds from the likes of Torchlight II, but, I assumed that by the time I got into the endgame and really started tinkering with theory-crafting, most players had already moved on to other games by then, or were playing with mods anyways. So, I’ve made sure to be on time for this one, haha!
I’d also just like to mention that this is the first guide I’ve ever written. So, feedback is more than welcome. Hope you enjoy! 🙂
NOTE: Even though this is a build guide for the Forged class, a lot of the information can be universal, such as the ‘Tips & Tricks’, ‘Pet Skill Overview’ and ‘Enchants:’ sections, so it may be worth a look through even if you’re not playing Forged.
Acronyms & Terms Explained
[This section is skippable if desired!]
To make this guide as beginner friendly as possible, here is a list of all the acronyms used throughout the guide:
Acronyms;
- ARPG – Action Roleplaying Game (like TL3 :P)
- DPS – Damage Per Second
- AoE – Area Of Effect
- CC – Crowd Control (like stun, slow etc.)
- CD – Cooldown (the time it takes for something to be usable again)
- TTK – Time To Kill (how long it takes for an enemy to die)
- HP – Health Points (the amount of health your character has)
- DoT – Damage Over Time (these are ailments or conditions that cause enemies to lose HP over a period of time, such as bleeding)
- OPW/1PW – One Point Wonder (a skill or passive that gives a lot for only 1 point)
Terms;
- Stunlock – To maintain the stun CC on a foe indefinitely through use of skills, items etc.
- Tank(y) – A players ability to withstand damage. (Anyone with good defences. The term was originated in MMO games that had someone play the role of a Tank)
- BiS – Best In Slot. This simply means it’s the best in the game for that particular item.
NOTE: If any are missing from these lists please let me know in the comments and I’ll add them. Thanks
Who Is This Build For / Not For?
[This section is skippable if desired!]
In this section of the guide I will give a quick bullet point list explaining who this build will be (and won’t be) most enjoyable for.
This build is for;
- Those who like close-quarter combat styles. For those of us (like me) who always jump into a new game and immediately pick the Warrior, Bruiser, Berserker or any other variant. We love to get up close and personal. Sure, the Forged chest cannon is pretty cool, but nothing will ever be as satisfying as charging head into battle and destroying hordes of mobs with a giant sword.
- Those who like to rely on one or few skills in ARPG titles. This entire build centres around 2 core abilities (excluding the heat dump), the rest of the chosen skills are for their stat bonuses, utility and mobility.
- Those who like the robot design. It’s like Marmite, people either love or hate the idea of playing as a robot, there’s no in between. Personally I think it’s cool. *shrugs*
- The three out of ten people still playing Early Access, that aren’t playing Dusk Mage. Alright this one’s a joke, us Forged will have the last laugh when Dusk Mage gets it’s nerf. It did get nerfed and no, we’re still the least played class in the game *cries*
This build is not for;
- Those who prefer to fight at range. This is a melee oriented build, if you prefer to play as a ranged class, then this build is obviously not for you.
- Those who like to play piano builds. If you like variety in your builds and like to be always mashing at keys, this build might not be for you. You could find the simple play style to be boring, since the majority of combat consists of holding down your mouse button and well… not much else.
- Those who prefer a casual gaming experience. At least at the time of writing this guide, the Forged (and Railmaster) tend to have a harder time in Novastraia. You need to be on the ball as a melee class, any carelessness will result in death.
Build Summary
[This section is skippable if desired!]
This build for the Forged class, focuses on the Brawl skill tree, specifically the Cyclone (Spin2Win) skill for AoE damage. This build pairs itself nicely with the Electrode Relic, hence the name of the build. Using the active ability Chaotic Strikes, along with Cyclone and complimentary buffs and debuffs, this build can pull off some high AoE burst, as well as being capable of taking down bosses with ease.
As seemingly with most builds in Torchlight III, it really starts to come to life from level 15 onward.
NOTE: This build is designed for Ridiculous Difficulty.
Levelling
The following sections of the guide, labelled as ‘Levelling:’ will be going over all you need to know while progressing through the game. It is worth noting that these sections assume one or more of the following;
You are…
- A) Starting your first character.
- B) Starting your first Forged.
- C) Don’t having many/any of your Legendarium Affixes unlocked.
- D) Are unlikely to be using any BiS items as of yet, due to still levelling through to sixty.
Levelling: The Skill Tree
While levelling, the consensus for point allocation is mostly about optimising story clear speed and getting the Core Build online in as short of a time as possible. There are two ways in which to do this. First, you can level all of your skills to the milestones needed/wanted, or alternatively you can level them to the minimum you need in anticipation of the Class Set bonus Skill Points. Depending on how much you want to rely on respeccing later will determine which way you choose.
The Core Build is made of up 57 Skill Points. This means you could have the foundations fully built by level 48, (including all bonus Skill Points). If you are taking skills to their milestone numbers, this is instead 69 points – this way would require level 59.
Personally I recommend a bit of both, I tend to take skills to their milestones whilst levelling through Act 1 and 2. Once into Act 3 I start switching points around, usually by now you have found at least one of the needed set pieces.
Skill Tree Walkthrough
This section of the guide, walks you through the process of ranking up your skills to be as optimised as possible throughout the entire game. With 70 points, for the Forged Core Build, there is little room for mixing and matching without any set pieces. This walkthrough is my recommended path to take, opting for a well-rounded point allocation approach.
(There are actually multiple ways to play this build depending on your preference and focus whether it be shock bolts, relic energy/skills, brawl skills or even CC – but more on that in the ‘Build Options’ section later in the guide).
NOTE: All the ‘[bonus]’ points are referring to the extra point we get every 5 levels, starting at 5 and ending at 50, for anyone unaware.
- Level 1: Rapid Fire. This one gets selected for you.
- Level 2: Vent: Vortex Bomb. Take this for the sake of your sanity and your DPS. At the absolute latest get it at level 3.
- Level 3: Rapid Strike. The builds early game melee attack, for the next few levels you’ll be a circumstantial hybrid between melee and ranged.
- Level 4: Localised Storm. This is Electrode’s energy draining buff. We get a 25% damage boost while active and some AoE damage, too.
- Level 5: Ramming Robot. Of course, take the movement skill here. Not as good as a teleport, but good enough.
- Level 5 [bonus]: Chaotic Strikes. One of the core skills of the entire build. It’s amazing. This will actually account for most of your damage output. Don’t miss!
- Level 7: 2x – Chaotic Strikes. Take this immediately to Tier 1 for more burst damage. Man, I love this skill.
- Level 11 & [bonus]: 5x – Vent: Vortex Bomb. Take this straight to Tier 2 for the added damage reduction in melee and armour bonuses, but also because each point reduces it’s cooldown and by Tier 2 there should no longer be any of those awkward pauses between max heat and this coming off CD. It’s also one of our biggest burst skills.
- Level 12 -1x – Rapid Fire & +2 – Rapid Strike: Take our melee AoE skill to Tier 1 for added DPS. Although, it’s really just to build heat for big bursts from Chaotic Strikes as on it’s own the damage is somewhat lackluster. Also – the point from Rapid Fire can be removed from level 5, feel free to remove it when you no longer feel the need to juggle between melee and ranged.
- Level 14: 2x – Localised Storm. Bringing this to Tier 1 gives it a little extra damage output.
- Level 15: Sonic Pulse. This will most likely stay as a 1 point wonder for the remainder of your Forged’s life. It’s a solid 40% damage bonus as a debuff.
- Level 19 & [bonus]: 5x – Lightning Strike. This passive helps increases our DPS by augmenting our attacks with random bonus damage. We may as well max this out now for the highest proc chance.
- Level 21 & [bonus]: 3x – Thousand-Volt Burst. Huge AoE burst after spending 200 relic energy, which we spend a lot of due to our reliance on Chaotic Strikes (and to a lesser extent Localised Storm). We take this immediately to Tier 1 for the 5sec shock debuff which helps to trigger our Lightning Strike.
- Level 27: 7x – Chaotic Strikes. We max out our hardest hitting skill here. The Tier 3 bonus also means we can use it more often which is great. Notice I haven’t bothered to level Cyclone Mode yet? Well, in the current patch, it’s movement speed was nerfed and it’s also a huge point investment to get online where it surpasses Rapid Strike (needing at least the tier 1 to be usable). Feel free to level Cyclone earlier than me if you’d prefer.
- Level 33 & [bonus]: 7x – Localised Storm. Next we take Localised Storm to it’s maximum potential. Now that we have the Tier 3 bonus, this hits considerably harder and we can choose to use Chaotic Strikes more sparingly if desired.
- Level 35 & [bonus]: 3x – Thousand-Volt Burst. Taking this to Tier 2 massively increases the upkeep of the buff. Attack speed is our best friend. (FYI: These 3 points are not part of the Core Build).
- Level 38: 3x – Rapid Strike. A tier 2 Rapid Strike gives us a 20% global increase to our Brawl Skills damage. (Taking it to it’s milestone is based on the assumption you have no set items yet, also feel free to take these points earlier in your build if you feel your DPS is lacking).
- Level 46 & 2x – [bonus]: 10x – Cyclone Mode. For the next 8 levels we dump everything into Cyclone Mode since our Core Build is almost complete. You can take on the Act 3 boss with your new AoE skill! (Again, taking it to it’s milestone is based on the assumption you have no set items yet).
- Level 50: 4x – Vent: Vortex Bomb. A pretty sizeable increase to our vent’s damage here by maxing it.
- Level 53 & [bonus]: 4x – Vent: Coal Launch. Still want more Vent damage? Well, say hello Coal Launch, we will never use the skill but it’s Tier 2 bonus grants us a huge 25% increase in damage to vent skills. (Now we’re in the endgame, I don’t recommend taking this to it’s milestone, but feel free if you still have no set pieces).
- Level 56: 3x – Ramming Robot. Sit this at 4/10 ready for it’s Tier 2 bonus. Faster recharge rates = more burst.
- Level 59: 3x – Sonic Pulse. I have taken this to 4/10 for bonus Relic Recharge Rate. These points are not part of the core build.
- Level 60: -2x – All Brawl Skills. By all, I mean all that you took to their milestones. From here, all points are personal preference, you have 7 to play with. If you don’t care for the Tier 2 Sonic Pulse, you have 10… If you also don’t care about the Tier 2 Thousand-Volt Burst, it’s 13 points. For completion’s sake, I recommend;
- 5x – Energiser. For huge bonuses to Relic Recharge Rate.
- 1x – Power Projection. A ‘OPW’ for bonus defence and a 15% instant heal in tough situations.
- 1x – Vent: Fracking Strike. Another ‘OPW’ for when you’re up against mobs you’d rather not get up close with *cough* Toxic Custodians * cough*.
NOTE: Every playthrough is going to be a little different, especially when it comes to luck with gearing your character. If at any point beyond level 15 you feel the incoming damage is too high/survivability is a little sketchy, feel free to invest into your defensive Active Skills earlier than advised in this walkthrough (in this case that would be: Power Projection or even a Tier 2 Sonic Pulse to it’s milestone).
Skill Overview
In this section, I will be going over each of the skills utilised in the build, and the reasons for choosing them.
Sonic Pulse as seen in the tooltip serves as;
- The only skill taken from the Barrage Skill Tree
- The primary AoE debuff of the build. A massive 40% increased damage towards affected targets for 6 seconds, used for high burst damage against Elites and Bosses. You can also use this against normal mobs, however, they die quickly enough without using this CD, it is far better to hold onto it (as it has a quite lengthy 12s cooldown at max rank), for when Elite mobs abruptly spawn nearby so you can take full advantage.
- A stat modifier. The Tier 2 bonus of this skill is great, as the relic active skill plays a large role in the burst damage potential of the build.
Rapid Strike as seen in the tooltip serves as;
- The primary AoE damage source of the build, early on. This skill has nice damage, even at lower ranks, above level 7 this skill is a great AoE cleave and also serves as a boss nuke.
- A stat modifier. As good as this skill is, from level 15 onwards it gets replaced by the real DPS skill of the build, Cyclone. However, it still serves us well with the Tier 2 bonus being too good to pass up. A flat 20% damage increase to all our skills.
Vent: Vortex Bomb as seen in the tooltip serves as;
- Our essential heat dump. When I first checked out the Forged, I created a build that I thought would be able to conquer all of Novastraia, then quickly ran into trouble when I was constantly overheating. This is compulsory.
- A stat modifier. You might have been thinking, well, why this one? There’s several other heat venting choices. It’s simple, the Tier 2 bonus has us take 20% less damage in melee. Giving us some of that much needed survivability.
- A (sometimes) decent DPS skill. This would actually be a super neat supplementary AoE attack in between our spinning and winning, however, as of writing this guide the current version has awful range. To actually land this on an enemy, you need your nose pressed up against them (and even then it can still be out of range). This of course wouldn’t be a problem but the pull in effect has been disabled right now due to bugs, once it has been re-implemented it will be a great skill (if it works as intended) since it actually puts out decent damage.
Ramming Robot as seen in the tooltip serves as;
- Our essential movement skill. What is an ARPG class build without a movement skill. Gets you out of a jam when you need it, as well as helping the game be as little of a walking simulator as possible. Especially handy when in Early Access with the current bugs that cause your toon to get stuck in mobs (at the time of writing this review) – prior to level 5, don’t let yourself get trapped, it’s a guaranteed death.
- A stat modifier. There’s a pattern emerging here, this skill has a very nice Tier 2 bonus, it boosts the relic active skill damage by 20%. Which, as mentioned earlier, is a core part of our burst damage.
- Not only that, but this skill actually puts out some respectable damage. Use it to close the distance and take a chunk out of the enemies health pool.
Servo-Driven Uppercut as seen in the tooltip serves as;
- A stat modifier. Nice and simple, the only reason we want this is for that sweet 20% critical chance increase.
Power Projection as seen in the tooltip serves as;
- Our primary buff. This skill gives us a whopping 25% bonus defense. Throw this down when you’re in a pickle. The Tier 1 bonus adds a passive heal and the Tier 2 bonus gives us a 10% increased block chance. This skill is all about survivability. The Tier 3 bonus would be nice to avoid those huge damage spikes, but losing any of the other tier 2 bonuses from other skills in the tree isn’t worth it.
Cyclone Mode as seen in the tooltip serves as;
- Our bread and butter. The meat and bones of the build. Saving the best until last, this skill is the primary AoE DPS skill, and is one of the two core skills that the entire build is based around. Having replaced Rapid Strike at level 15, this is our main damage source. Every Tier bonus of this skill is great, making the skill better and better as you progress through the game. Notably the Tier 2 bonus, which rounds out our survivability giving us a chance to heal with all of our skills.
Levelling: The Legendarium
– This is what your Legendarium setup should look like at endgame. This particular setup is well rounded, with a focus on mobility. It can be used to do all kinds of content from farming to levelling from 40 to 60 and so on. There are some options when it comes to min-maxing your damage potential, at the cost of reduced mobility – Check out the Honourable Mentions section of the guide for a rundown of changes you can make.
REMINDER: This is early days. Any new additions to the Legendarium could make the ones presented in this guide less favourable.
Legendarium Affix Overview
Similar to the Skill Tree, in this section of the guide I will go over each of the Affixes used in the build and why they were chosen.
Mountain King’s Hatch as seen in the tooltip grants;
- A 50% chance for a free Sonic Pulse, when we use our Relic Active. This goes off pretty much all the time, since we (should) be using the Relic Active as soon as it’s off CD. So it’s free damage, and helps with debuff upkeep on mobs.
Quicksilver as seen in the tooltip grants;
- A huge temporary movement speed increase after using a potion. Specifically 50% for 5 seconds. This is great for increased survivability, it lets you get out of harms way before you take another damage spike and end up dead.
- A flat 10% movement speed increase. Not seen in the screenshot, but is displayed in the in-game tooltip. Extra movement speed is always nice in any ARPG, as it lets you get things done quicker.
The Wanderer’s Hood as seen in the tooltip grants;
More mobility. We get an extra charge on our Ramming Robot, as well as having it recharge 20% faster than normal. You can never have enough movement charges. Helps to get in and out of combat, as well as faster map travel during downtime.
The Legendarium Part 2: The Boss Nuke Setup
– This is what your Legendarium setup should look like at endgame. This particular setup is for maximum DPS potential, at the cost of mobility. Swap out to this build before you enter boss rooms to keep your burst as high as possible. Just make sure to save all of your movement charges for dodging, otherwise you’ll be a sitting duck for big damage spikes and could potentially end up dead.
REMINDER: This is early days. Any new additions to the Legendarium could make the ones presented in this guide less favourable.
NOTE: As the reminder states some things can change. Only in this case the skill that the Legendarium affects is what has changed. Arc-Powered Treads/Wheel (the in game version of the name) is actually no longer useful to the build due to an update that changes how the Electrode Active Skill works. It now has 100% upkeep and is actually a passive effect that does damage on hit. This may still be a good option when you’re using a relic other than Electrode.
Legendarium Affix Overview Part 2: The Boss Nuke Setup
Similar to the Skill Tree, I will go over each of the chosen Affixes and why they were chosen.
Mountain King’s Hatch as seen in the tooltip grants;
- A 50% chance for a free Sonic Pulse, when we use our Relic Active. This goes off pretty much all the time, since we (should) be using the Relic Active as soon as it’s off CD. So it’s free damage, and helps with debuff upkeep on mobs.
Arc-Powered Locomotion as seen in the tooltip grants;
- A chance to refresh the Relic Active. It’s a 10% chance to be specific, it sounds low but it is still a pretty huge deal considering that our Relic Active, ‘Localised Storm’, one of the two core skills that the entire build is based around. Even if it only procs once or twice in a fight, it’s still a DPS increase. Do note that this replaces Quicksilver from the core setup, limiting our mobility by a fair margin. This also synergises well with the aforementioned Mountain King’s Hatch.
Unstable War Arm Cannon as seen in the tooltip grants;
- A DPS increase on our Vortex Bomb. Considering we will (should) always be above 75 heat when activating our heat dump skill, this is a guaranteed proc. A 400% weapon damage AoE is nothing to scoff at.
The Legendarium: Honourable Mentions (Offence)
In this section, I will gloss over a few other potential candidates for Legendarium slots and the situations they’re best used in. This will be split up into three parts, Offence, Defense and Utility.
Arc-Powered Boots and Hatch as seen in the tooltips grant;
- A chance for added AoE damage on block. This is great. In fact the entire Arc-Powered legendary set is amazing for this build and if you follow this guide, you’ll probably be using a shield, too. But more on those things later in the Equipment: Desired Stat Bonuses section. Right now, all you need to know is it’s more free damage.
Arc-Powered Locomotion and Pants as seen in the tooltips grant;
- A 10% chance to instantly refresh your Relic Active skill. This affix is used in the Boss Nuke Setup from earlier in the guide. I included it here because there are two items that give this effect. But, as mentioned earlier this will periodically give us increased burst damage.
Arc-Powered Shoulders as seen in the tooltip grants;
- A 30% movement speed bonus as well as an additional 100% weapon damage AoE on hit for 15 seconds. This can be considered both offence and utility for what we get, but it will mostly be used as a way to increase burst DPS. Also, I wanted it to be next to the rest of the Arc-Powered items listed in the guide – it’s better that way. 😛
The Bird’s Eye Focus as seen in the tooltip grants;
- A small DPS boost in the form of a 40% Weapon Damage AoE. It’s not much but, when fighting tougher enemies this skill will be up frequently and every little helps.
Defiled Guardian Shield as seen in the tooltip grants;
- A minor DPS bonus while using Cyclone. 30% Weapon Damage is rather small, but I decided to include this anyway purely because Cyclone is one of the two core skills that the entire build is based around. It’s also poison damage which ruins the theme of Stormforged, that may or may not be a deal breaker for you (probably not :P). Either way, I wouldn’t worry too much about this one, it’s just another potential option.
The Legendarium: Honourable Mentions (Defense)
In this section, I will gloss over a few other potential candidates for Legendarium slots and the situations they’re best used in. This will be split up into three parts, Offence, Defense and Utility.
Frostwall Shield as seen in the tooltip grants;
- An AoE CC (freeze) and 3 seconds of damage immunity. At the time of writing this guide, this is the only defensive Affix worth considering. But it’s a good one. It’s sort of a mix between a free panic button and a cheat death, yet not quite either of those things.
The Legendarium: Honourable Mentions (Utility)
In this section, I will gloss over a few other potential candidates for Legendarium slots and the situations they’re best used in. This will be split up into three parts, Offence, Defense and Utility.
Godsbeard’s Glove as seen in the tooltip grants;
- More frequent potion usage and a higher chance to find them. This Affix is the king of the early game, alongside Quicksilver. It halves your potion CD. Halves… and trust me, you’ll be using a lot of potions as a melee. The extra 50% potion luck is a nice extra. I highly recommend starting your playthrough with this Affix, and picking up Quicksilver at level 20 when your second slot unlocks, or swap them earlier if and when you feel like you no longer need to use as many potions.
Token of Rapid Bartering as seen in the tooltip grants;
- A 90% reduction in the pet vendor timer. It does what it says on the tin. Swap into this Affix before sending your pet off to town to sell all that loot you’ve been farming, saving you a few precious minutes, before swapping back to your regular Affix.
Mountain King’s Helm as seen in the tooltip grants;
- A +1 bonus to all Brawl skills. A nice bonus, giving us sightly better versions of every one of our skills minus Sonic Pulse. At this time, I am unsure if overcapping is possible (similar to Grim Dawn) but if so, it makes this Affix desirable. Otherwise, it is still a solid choice as it frees up some points in your Skill Tree to use elsewhere.
The Relic
The Relic Tree
Relic Tree Walkthrough
This section of the guide, walks you through the process of ranking up your Electrode relic to be as optimised as possible throughout the entire game.
- Level 10: Fried. Save all your points if you can until level 10 and grab our one point wonder that grants us stunlock potential.
- Level 11: 10x – Increasing Charge. Max out this passive to further increase stunlock potential for the build.
- Level 16: 5x – Brutal Intent. This entire walkthrough section is pretty much personal preference, unlike the Skill Tree which at least had some form of optimal ordering. Some might even prefer to level Localised Storm passive bonuses from level 1 for higher burst. The Relic Tree choices are all helpful while levelling and all end up at the same end goal. Personally, I take 5 points into Brutal Intent for crit chance when using the relic. If your crit chance is sufficient, place 5 points into Quicker Storm instead.
- Level 21: 5x – Quicker Storm. Here is where we start to work on Localised Storm, starting with the CD reduction, this is an exciting time as Localised Storm is one of the two core skills that the entire build is based around.
- Level 26: 5x – Quicker Storm. Max out this passive.
- Level 31: 5x – Stronger Storm. Make a start on the damage increase passive.
- Level 36: 5x – Stronger Storm. Max out this passive. If you went with Quicker Storm instead of Brutal Intent, take 5 points into Deadlier Bolts (again this assumes that crit chance from gear is sufficient).
- Level 41: 5x – Brutal Intent. Max out this passive. If you’re doing the alternate build route, take 4 points in Deadlier Bolts to a total of 9 and one point into Brutal Intent.
- Level 46: 5x – Deadlier Bolts. Take 5 points here for the added AoE. If you’re doing the alternate build route, take 5 points in Brutal Intent. Instead of Deadlier Bolts you can also choose to max out Fried for higher stunlock potential.
- Level 50: 4x – Deadlier Bolts. Use all remaining points on Deadlier Bolts (9 total) and you’re done! If you’re doing the alternate build, max out Brutal Intent. Dump them into Fried if you want longer stun duration.
The Relic: Alternative 1 – Bane
The Relic: Alternative 2 – Blood Drinker
The Relic: Alternative 3 – Coldheart
The Relic: Alternative 4 – Flaming Destroyer
Equipment: 1 Handed & Shield vs Two Handed
This section of the guide will go over the 1 handed plus a shield versus a two handed weapon debate with an easy to read pro’s and cons list.
Pro’s;
- Much higher survivability
. A one handed weapon means defence and block chance stats on your shield.
Cons;
- Lower DPS potential
. The way damage is calculated, two handed weapons will put out higher damage numbers (sometimes MUCH higher).
Flip the Pro’s and Cons from above and you’ll have your answer. I’d also like to add one more Con to the Two Handed side though:
- Not viable in Ridiculous Difficulty. This build is designed for Ridiculous difficulty. You may be able to get away with a Two Handed in lower difficulties but there is no choice when it comes to Ridiculous. You will be using a shield.
Now that that’s out the way we can start to look at Stat Bonuses in the next section…
Equipment: Desired Stat Bonuses
This section of the guide will discuss equipment and the Stat Bonuses that are most desired for the ‘Stormforged Cyclone Build’. It will be broken down into three sections: Offensive, Defensive and Utility.
- Electric Damage
A flat damage boost means higher DPS. We want more DPS of course and Electric fits with our theme, but really any flat damage increases are good.
- +% Shock Chance
This gives us a DPS boost, the higher the chance we have the better.
- + Shock Bolts
This gives us a DPS boost. The more bolts we fire the better.
- +% Crit Chance
This one is important. I recommend having at least 50% crit chance.
- +% Crit Damage
This is equally as important if not more important than crit chance. We want to max this out to the hard cap of 300% Bonus Crit Damage.
- Defence
Defence is a top priority for our build. Less damage taken = more survivability. We all want to die less, right? I’d also like to mention a common misconception about defence and elemental defence. We want regular defence, it is far better than elemental bonuses. It gives us damage resistance against all types of damage, whereas elemental defence only gives us resistance to one type of damage. People think that because elemental defences appear to roll much higher numbers that it’s the better choice. In my opinion that’s wrong simply because regular defence does have a chance to roll really high numbers, I have a shield with over 2000 defence at level 35. It just happens less often. Also, you can equip an item with much higher elemental defence in place of an item with lower regular defence and still lose damage resistance to that element overall due to lowering your damage resistance versus all.
- + Health
Health is not quite as important as defence since receiving as little damage as possible makes high health pools a little redundant. But we do want enough health to make sure we don’t get one shot from any big damage spikes. I recommend around 5-7k HP at level 35.
- +% Block Chance
This is important, we take 0 damage when we block. We want this capped at 40%, no more no less.
- Movement Speed
Faster map travel is never a bad thing. Getting from A to B faster means faster farming, faster resource gather, faster everything. Time is valuable.
- +1 To Brawl Skills
Extra skill ranks means we can move points around in our Skill Tree to min-max damage and bonuses.
- +% Damage To Brawl Skills
Bonus damage to all of our skills means higher DPS.
- -% Relic CD
This is important for our build. It lets us use our Relic Active (Localised Storm) more often, which is one of our highest damaging abilities.
- +% Stun Chance
This is super important for us. Stunlocking plays a big part in this build and more stun chance means more stunlock potential.
- + Stun Duration
This ties in with stun chance. Having increased stun duration makes it easier to keep enemies stunlocked.
NOTE: For the Chest Cannon specifically, the only two desirable Stat Bonuses are for the Relic and Brawl Skills as these are universal, any other bonus won’t count towards our Main Hand Weapon.
Equipment: Legendary Items
The Mountain King’s Set is the best for this build in terms of Equipment, and the Arc-Powered Set is the best in terms of Legendarium Affixes and build synergies/bonuses. While levelling you will likely encounter Woodsbeasts and/or Skittering Set Pieces which can be useful to you while you journey through to max level.
Very short section but there you have it. 🙂
Enchants: What’s Best For This Build
This section of the guide will go over what enchants are best specifically for this build.
The best enchant bonuses on Small Armour for this build are;
- + Defence
The best enchant bonuses on Medium Armour for this build are;
- + Defence
The best enchant bonuses on Large Armour for this build are;
- + Defence
- + Health
The best enchant bonuses on Offhand (in our case a shield) for this build are;
- +% Stun Chance
- + Health
- + Health on Kill
- +% Shock Chance
The best enchant bonuses on Weapons for this build are;
- +% Crit Chance
- +% Crit Damage Bonus
- -% Relic CD
- + Electric Damage
- +% Shock Chance
- + Shock Duration
- + Extra Shock Bolts
- +% Stun Chance
NOTE: All of the best weapon enchants for this build are from Blunt Force, Enhanced and Shock and Awe. The rest can be ignored.
NOTE 2: For the Chest Cannon, the only enchants worth bothering with for this build are from Enhanced, as Chest Cannon bonuses are separate.
- + Defence
- – Pet Recovery time
Pet Tag
- + Electric Damage (or any other flat damage – Electric just fits the theme better)
- +% Shock Chance
- + Shock Duration
- +% Stun Chance (this one is particularly great for helping us out at keeping enemies stunlocked)
The Playstyle
This section of the guide will discuss the general playstyle of the build and the disparity between under level 15 which is when you first unlock Cyclone Mode (or 20 when it’s maxed) and over level 15 (or 20).
This build utilises mobility heavily. As a melee, you should be constantly moving, never become static excluding short burst windows as this will generally result in death. Using your Movement Skill both offensively and defensively at the right times will be a fundamental part of your decision making, run out of Ramming Robot charges and you’re in trouble, especially when you aren’t running mobility focused Legendarium Affixes. As mentioned earlier in the guide, this is a pretty low maintenance build, that mostly consists of holding down your mouse button and occasionally hitting a CD or two. Even so, it’s a fun and fast paced, Spin2Win playstyle.
Prior to having Cyclone Mode or Cyclone Mode maxed, Rapid Strike will be our main source of damage and once the Relic Active is unlocked, Localised Storm will be used off CD between holding down Rapid Fire.
Once you’re level 20 and have your Cyclone Mode maxed out, is really when the build starts to come to life. From here, you will continue to dish out most of your damage holding down a mouse button, only now Rapid Strike will be replaced with Cyclone indefinitely, making Rapid Strike’s only purpose in the build a stat modifier for us.
Shortly thereafter, we begin to unlock the rest of our tools in the shape of a defensive AoE buff CD and an AoE debuff CD for the enemies. These give us needed survivability for the endgame and a massive increase to our overall DPS potential, respectively.
NOTE: As you can see this is a pretty short section. There’s not much to really say about the playstyle that hasn’t already been mentioned and really, the only difference between early game and late game is the swap from Rapid Strike to Cyclone Mode. I included this section anyways as it is a pre-face to the section below.
The DPS Rotation
Following on from the playstyle section above, here I will go into more detail of the overall order you will use your skills in combat, from a priority-list style, as situations will arise where you need to break your rotation, such as getting out of the fire.
Priority List;
- 0.) Ramming Robot. Use this to close the distance. Once in range, feel free to ignore this skill.
- 1.) Activate Electrode. Once your Relic is unlocked, this is top priority as it greatly increases your DPS.
- 2.) Localised Storm. Bring on the thunder. This is one of your hardest hitting abilities throughout the game. It holds priority over any other DPS skill.
- 3.) Rapid Strike. Hold this down until everything is dead. Use this as your sustainable DPS skill. It has priority over any other DPS skill when Localised Storm is on CD.
- 4.) Vortex Bomb. Use this ONLY when your heat is about to cap. This has priority over everything at that point in time. You can also use this between fights, to dump any heat you have leftover.
Priority List;
- 0.) Ramming Robot. Use this to close the distance. Once in range, feel free to ignore this skill.
- 1.) Sonic Pulse – (Once Unlocked). This is top priority as it greatly increases your DPS by giving us a 40% damage increase against affected mobs. You may or may not want to use this even if the debuff is up to make sure it doesn’t fall off from Localised Storm Affix procs.
- 2.) Activate Electrode. Once your debuff is up, this is top priority as it greatly increases your DPS.
- 3.) Localised Storm. Bring on the thunder. This is one of your hardest hitting abilities throughout the game. It holds priority over any other DPS skill.
- 4.) Cyclone Mode. Like Rapid Strike, hold this down until everything is dead. Use this as your sustainable DPS skill. It has priority over any other DPS skill when Localised Storm is on CD.
- 5.) Vortex Bomb. Use this ONLY when your heat is about to cap. This has priority over everything at that point in time. You can also use this between fights, to dump any heat you have leftover.
- 6.) Power Projection. This has the lowest priority in the build. Mainly because it doesn’t help us kill stuff faster. But, it’s a nice defensive buff and still can be quite important. In situations where mobs are particularly hard-hitting, I would place this down after using Sonic Pulse and then maintain it thereafter off CD.
The Builds Most Likely Cause(s) Of Death
In this section I will be addressing the most likely causes of death for the ‘Stormforged Cyclone Build’ (or even just melee builds in general) and ways to deal with them.
Mobs;
- Elite Packs: Plaguebearer and Blazing Affixes. These are a challenge for any build, really, as they both do huge damage. But, in the case of a melee Forged, standing toe to toe with these mobs will get you killed pretty fast if not careful. The Plaguebearer Affix is especially lethal as the poisonous bubbles will detonate immediately after spawning. Blazing can be side-stepped fairly easily but larger or multiple packs can cover large areas of the floor making it more difficult for a melee character to heed the sagely advice of ‘don’t stand in the fire‘.
ADVICE: For blazing, hold onto your mobility charges to get yourself out of danger when needed, Ramming Robot has some knockback so be sure to use your mobility skill through mobs rather than just fleeing, as this allows you to continue DPSing them. For Plaguebearer mobs just kite them until they release a poison bubble and then when they’ve moved far enough away, DPS them for several seconds before returning to kiting in anticipation of the next poison bubble. You can also ‘bait’ the bubbles into exploding by running into them and away again. But honestly, the absolute best advice is to just avoid fighting these mobs if possible. Even just one bubble can take well over half of your HP pool and that’s with good defense stats.
NOTE: Add Stormbringer and Storm’s End mobs to this. Introduced in Act 3, they can kill you especially if your Defence is too low (it can one shot). Just be on the move.
NOTE 2: Even after Act 3. Plaguebearers are still by far the number one threat to Melee Forged.
- Toxic Custodian. These little metal critters seem harmless when they crawl out from the walls. However, they cause huge damage if in packs. These are mainly a problem for melee builds as they have a short range on their poison spit, ranged builds just need to maintain a safe distance. Even with 60%+ poison defense, these hit for around 10-15% of your HP pool and are usually in packs of around 3-5. You’ll find these in Act 2, there are fire variants in Act 1 but I found those to be less troublesome.
ADVICE: For these, the best thing to do is burst them down as fast as possible. If they’re in large groups, charge in, land a few hits and dash back out again. If you stand around for too long they will likely kill you.
- Any ranged monster. It’s a no-brainer that ranged has an upper hand against melee. Most ranged creatures such as the Goblin Gunner, the Infernal Archer and pretty much all spider variants can put out some decent damage and they’ll slowly pick you off if you let them.
ADVICE: To deal with these, simply prioritise ranged creatures over melee. Use a charge of Ramming Robot if you have to, to close the distance. Other than that, they shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
- Thorned Strider. These are the huge trees (treants?) that cause vines to shoot out of the ground and damage you. They appear in Act 2 and can be a problem for all builds. Their AoE covers a huge amount of the ground space and does noticeable damage. The real problem is when they are paired with packs of other mobs. Avoiding their vines throws your positioning off and can cause you to to get backed up and cornered or surrounded. This is more of an issue due to getting stuck (from bugs) in Early Access at the time of writing this guide. On their own they’re not that big of a deal, though.
ADVICE: They can either be dealt with by bursting them down or by moving far enough away as they’re slower than most other mobs. Just be sure to keep your mobility skill charges available when in areas where these spawn and avoid getting trapped in dead ends of the map.
- Charging Mobs. A problem for everybody and more of an annoyance than a straight up cause of death. These irritating mobs will interrupt you and in the most severe cases, when there’s multiple, they can lock you into an interrupt loop until you die. Being stunlocked by mobs with a stunlock build is a painful irony.
ADVICE: Hit them first. Get them into a stunlock and then they can’t charge you anymore. A little harder when they’re spread out, in that case you can Ramming Robot to them and burst them down.
Other;
- Bad equipment. At the time of writing this guide, it is too early to say what builds are most gear dependant than others, as pretty much everyone is using whatever they can get their hands on. Still, having low defense or health can be a problem.
ADVICE: Make sure you at least have something in each slot and then refer to the Gear and Desired Affixes section of this guide for futher information on equipment.
Early Access Bugs;
- You will most likely die at least once to something bug related. Whether you get stuck inside mobs and get beaten to death or there’s rubberbanding and you’re suddenly hit with a large damage spike out of the blue. It’s going to happen.
ADVICE: There’s no real way to deal with this. Just remember that the game is in Early Access at the time of writing this guide. Bug fixes will be implemented as development goes on. But as mentioned earlier in the guide, for these reasons I do not recommend playing Hardcore mode.
Pet Skill Overview
This section will cover the currently available Pet Skills at our disposal and which ones are best suited for each situation.
These are the permanent buffs our pets give us. Only ONE can be active at any time.
Defender;
- Gives all allies a 25% bonus to defence.
ADVICE: This aura is super good and I’d recommend using it in all situations. A permanent 25% bonus to defence is amazing for melee builds as it gives us a little tankiness.
Deadlier Strikes;
- Gives all allies a 15% increase to crit chance.
ADVICE: This aura is also great when you need that extra boost to Crit Chance. Run this aura when you have sufficient defence, and low crit.
Running Partner;
- Gives all allies a 15% increase to movement speed.
ADVICE: This aura is best used when you’re about to do your cardio workout. Jokes aside, it’s a very noticeable speed boost and I’d recommend using it for map travel and farming (such as resource nodes. But for combat, I’d stick to Defender.
Increased Awareness;
- Gives all allies a 10% increase to block chance.
ADVICE: This aura sounds nice on paper. But the truth is, block chance at the time of writing this guide caps at 40% and once you’re above level 30, it’s fairly common to see shields with well over 40% by themselves meaning you don’t need block chance from any other source. I don’t recommend using this at all if you’re using a shield.
These are all the pet skills that have a 30 second CD. Some are buffs and others are DPS skills with a sprinkle of CC here and there.
Battle Cry;
- Gives all allies a 25% increase to damage for 10 seconds.
ADVICE: This is a ‘shout’ style skill for pets and is amazing for increase our burst potential. That is of course, when the pet uses it at the right time. I’d recommend running this mainly for boss fights or when you want high burst.
Screeching Stun;
- A 200% weapon damage pet attack that also stuns enemies for 1 second.
ADVICE: This is a decent damage skill but it’s best feature is the 1 second stun. A one second stun every 30 seconds isn’t that great though, so I don’t really recommend using this over the other choices.
Necropupper;
- Your pet summons 2 skeleton minions that has 50% of the players health and damage, lasting for 12 seconds.
ADVICE: Amazing for summoner builds. Useless for us. I don’t recommend using this at all.
Healing Friendship;
- Heals all affected allies for 50% HP.
ADVICE: This is the one. It’s BiS in my opinion as it’s a free 50% heal every 30 seconds. That seems like it wont be very good, since Screeching Stun also has a 30 second CD but isn’t used. But, there’s a huge difference between stunning enemies for 1 second and a free potion. This skill should always be taking up one of your pets skill slots.
Defensive Posture;
- Gives all allies a 25% increase to damage resistance for 10 seconds.
ADVICE: This is pretty sweet. Much like Defender it gives us some tankiness and better survivability. Unfortunately, this one is only for 10 seconds so it’s only going to be up 1/3rd of the time. Still, if you need that extra defensiveness I recommend using this when fighting hard-hitting foes.
Pass The Gass;
- Your pet releases a poison AoE that deals 125% weapon damage over time (it lasts for 6 seconds) and also has a 10% chance to fear enemies when hit by it.
ADVICE: Your pet farts. So there’s that. Anyways it’s poison and we don’t want that so this should be avoided at all costs or it will ruin our aesthetic. But really, it’s decent AoE and the fear chance is nice. As melee we’ll be constantly moving though, so enemies wont be standing in the AoE long enough to be useful to us. I do not recommend using this over the other choices.
These augment pet attacks permanently. One is a CC and the other is a life-steal.
Immobilising Strike;
- Gives all pet attacks a 25% chance to immobilise enemies for 2 seconds.
ADVICE: This is actually amazing. Your pet CC’s enemies for you every 4th attack. Not bad at all. I recommend using this when you want some extra CC.
Vampirism;
- Gives all pet attacks a 15% chance to heal the pet for 10% of their HP.
ADVICE: This is pretty neat for pets. It gives them some sustainability in fights. But, we don’t really need this as the pet is usually pretty tanky anyway and it’s simply not as good as our other options. Therefore, I don’t recommend using this.
NOTE: Some of the images are grey as I haven’t currently unlocked them. I’ll update the icons when I have them!
Endgame
So, you’ve followed the guide and you’ve spun and spun and lightning bolted your way to the max level, which would be 60 at the time of writing this. You’ve probably started to notice a few things wrong when you’ve gotten there. Why do I have 10 points in Cyclone, when I have Mountain King’s Helmet? What’s the best item for each slot? Are there any other nuances to know about?
Well, fear not. In the following sections of the guide, all titled ‘Endgame:’, I will be going over all of the differences between the levelling setup and your Endgame setup.
Endgame: The Build
NOTE: I guess the fact that this is what every endgame Brawl Skill Tree should look like at Endgame, highlights TL3’s current lack of build variety and skill depth.
Endgame: Build Options
As you can see from the above section. The build overall is really the same, it’s just utilising some neat bonuses from our Endgame Equipment, which you can find out about further into the ‘Endgame:’ sections. Here I will be going over all, if any, potential Build Options with the four spare points as well as moving a few other points around to meet our needs. I went through the process of farming Respectacles to shift points in and out of every skill, testing all of them in endgame Mapworks for a fair and reliable analysis.
- Not Recommended. So the first option we have, is to dump our 4 points into Servo-Driven Uppercut to max it out. Honestly, it looks tempting, right? I mean you can switch this out with Cyclone for boss fights for a meatier burst. Well, no. I fell for that trap and after testing it, it’s really not that good. It does hit harder than Cyclone, but, it never actually seems to land. Besides, you can only use 7 of them anyways before your heat maxes out – I’m not even going to talk about the Legendarium Affix for this, it’s horrid. This skill has such poor range and hitbox at the time of writing, that it struggles to punch thin air. Then there’s the case of swapping out your skill bar before going into the boss fight. Trust me, if you just jumped in and used Cyclone, it’d be dead in the same time it takes to swap to it. Avoid.
- Not Recommended. We could max this out. But why? It’s got lower DPS to Cyclone, has poorer AoE cleave and isn’t as cool as being a spinning metal death machine. I tested it, too. I mainly maxed this skill for when I didn’t want to deal with the Early Access clunkiness that Cyclone sometimes feels like when it’s not co-operating with my mouse clicks. Refunded the Skill Points almost immediately after.
- Highly Recommend. This is seemingly the only worthwhile option to me. Which is crazy because it’s really not a good skill. When maxed, with BiS gear, this is the weakest Vent Skill in our arsenal. BUT… and it’s a big but, it’s ranged. Wait what? Why would we want a ranged skill? Easy. Mapworks brings back older Act mob variants including… you guessed it. The Plaguebearers, The Blazing and any other Forged-Killing Elites. If you check out the Tips and Tricks section further down the guide, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
So, you followed the guide but didn’t want to use the best and coolest Relic that is Electrode? Fine. I’m not mad. You wanted to be a fire wielding, flaming sword smashing robot, I get it, that’s cool too (just not as cool :P).
Here’s your one option which is…
- Not Recommended (right now).What you do is take out the four points in Shotgonne Blast. Put them into Vent: Coal Launch. Then, dump your four spare points into Vent: Furnace Blast. That gives you a 50% damage boost to burning targets. That sounds amazing if you’re using a burning weapon and/or you’re running Flaming Destroyer. The only issue is at the time of writing, I’m pretty sure these bonuses are bugged and you don’t actually receive the 50% boost. Which is a shame, because I’d otherwise be pretty tempted to swap to it, too.
NOTE: The Shotgonne Blast Tier 2 bonus is very minimal and kind of relies on you already having some Heat Dissipation bonuses on your gear. I’ve barely noticed even having it. You can effectively remove these points regardless of running a Fire/Burning build to place them elsewhere, not sure where you’d put them though since we already have everything that’s useful to us.
Endgame: The Legendarium
This section will cover the Endgame setup and options regarding The Legendarium. Yes there was a Boss Nuke Setup earlier in the guide, but that was under the assumption you were levelling through content and didn’t have some/any of the Endgame Legendary Affixes.
TIP: If you have Elites/Bosses against a wall, it’s much easier to hit them with both of the bonus damage waves.
Endgame: Pet Skills
– Once at the recommended Defence stats for Endgame, you will be running Deadly Strikes permanently. Along with the 50% heal being BiS and the Battle Cry, too. That leaves the 4th slot open for personal preference. The Screeching Stun grew on me and I’ve decided to use that personally.
Endgame: Stats
Before we get into the actual equipment you’ll be using, this section will cover what your Stat Sheet should look like when you get to the Endgame.
Defence
40%+ damage prevented
40% Block Chance
Attack
4k+ Damage (NOT DPS)
10% Crit Chance for Brawl Skills
50%+ Shock/Burn Chance
10%+ Stun Chance
1s+ Stun Duration
40%+ Crit Chance
200%+ Crit Damage
+4+ Bonus Bolts
Cannon
N/A. Nothing for cannons are useful to us. But if you can get a Chest Cannon roll with % Brawl Skills Damage, you are very lucky and will likely never replace it.
Skills
+45% Duration Bonus (Power Projection)
+40% Damage Bonus (Relic Active Skill)
35%+ Brawl Skills Damage
-45%+ CD (Vortex Bomb)
-30% Resource Cost (Cyclone)
- Defence. The minimum is 40% as this will prevent getting one shot by something, anything lower and you can die instantly to various attacks and hazards. Also, Power Projection will buff you to around 60% making it almost hit the cap. Relying on Power Projection to hit high Defence stats isn’t recommended, since it’s only got around 50% upkeep. Ideally, you want to push this as high as possible, especially if you play HC. Getting to the 67% hard cap is not easy at level 60 though and you’ll probably have to sacrifice some other stats to get there. Relying on Power Projection to hit high Defence stats isn’t recommended, since it’s only got around 50% upkeep.
- Damage. Honestly you can push for 6k, 10k or 100k Flat Damage if you want. I’d like to point out how unnecessary it is. Once you have a 4k base damage weapon, bosses will be deleted off the screen in 3-6 seconds. I’ve tested with both 7k DPS and then again with 12k DPS and the bosses still die in the same 3-6 seconds. It really doesn’t matter once things die in a few hits, it’s simply about how fast you can engage the boss and click your button. I recommend focusing on other things as soon as you hit 4k.
- Shock Chance. One of the better things to focus on would be hitting 100% Shock Chance on targets. Shocked enemies take a free 4k damage and are stunned for 1 second 1/3 of the time. This will go off every second or so when Cycloning, increasing your DPS way more than getting an extra 1k Flat Damage would.
- Stun Chance. A nice to have, really. If you get your Shock Chance to 100%, enemies will be stunlocked forever anyways and you can focus on other things. 10% is a recommendation based off of the fact that your Shock Chance isn’t at 100%, to make sure things are stunned.
- Crit Chance. Really, you only actually need it at 30%. You get bonus Crit Chance from Tier 2 Bonuses and then you get 50% Crit Chance anyways from Electrode when you activate it. Thing is, you’re not always under Electrode’s buff so I’d recommend getting this to around 50% for a solid chance to crit all the time. If you’re really picky, you can avoid Electrode’s Brutal Intent and instead max out your Violent Burst.
- Crit Damage. How nice would 300% be? Well, you can try to get there. If you aren’t bothered about your Crit Chance being high for regular fights and want to rely on Electrode it makes it easier to get there. Otherwise 200% and anything above is more than enough.
- Bonus Bolts. The more the merrier. This is mostly just down to stat rolls on equipment though. I wouldn’t really seek them out but they definitely help with AoE DPS.
- % Brawl Skills Damage. Honestly I’d love this to be higher. My character is sitting at 38%. It’s hard to come by though. If you can get it on your Main Hand and your Chest Cannon, consider yourself lucky. I’d love to get this to 50% if I could but otherwise 35% is solid.
Endgame: Stats – Acquisition
This section covers the best way to hit the Minimum Requirements for Stats at Endgame through BiS rolls on different Equipment.
- Primary Stat Roll. Make sure that every piece of your Equipment rolls flat defence in the primary slot. The higher the better. You want to push for 5k Defence on your chest, and then around 3-4k defence on all other Equipment slots. Or, just aim for a total of around 20-25k defence from your armour. If you can get a Secondary Stat roll as Defence too, this will help push you beyond the 40% minimum requirement.
- Shields. You want to get around 10k Defence on your shield if you can. Most shields can get up to 7k on their Primary Stat Roll and then hopefully you get some bonus Defence as one of the Secondary rolls too.
- Enchants. Earlier in the guide, the Enchants section will cover this.
- Any max level Rare or Legendary. Really, that’s all there is to it. I wouldn’t worry about getting any higher than what’s already on the weapon as mentioned earlier.
- Weapons. You want to try to get your Main Hand Weapon roll with as close to 50% Shock Chance as possible, as well as having the highest % Weapon Damage possible. Anything above 30% Shock Chance though, I’d take anything that offers me higher % Weapon Damage.
- Enchants. Earlier in the guide, the Enchants section will cover this. I will say that you want to do this only when you have 40% or higher Defence.
- Weapons. Your Main Hand can hopefully roll this in one go, meaning you don’t need to try and get it from anywhere else. Remember this is just until we have 100% Shock Chance. Afterwards this isn’t really needed.
- Weapons. It can roll on your Main Hand but I feel like this is a waste of a potential better roll, since you can get more than enough Crit Chance from your gear.
- Armour. The easiest and best way to get it. You want a minimum of 10% crit chance on your equipment slots and I recommend a total of 3/6 armour pieces having it, extra is a bonus and less is possible but this is a nice middle ground. If you really want to push min-max potential, with Deadly Strikes up you only need two item’s roll with 14% Crit Chance to hit the 40% minumum, or even the 30% minimum if you’re going for Electrode reliance. This means more Crit Damage potential.
- Armour. You want the other 3/6 armour pieces to have Crit Damage. You also want a minimum of 30% crit damage per piece. If you’re min maxing as much as possible, then this would be 4 pieces.
- Weapons. Your Main Hand weapon can roll additional bolts. It’s fairly rare though and usually at the expense of your Shock Chance or some other bonus.
- Offhand. You can and should get at least 3 bolts on your Offhand. This can be increased to 4 by making the shield Lifebound.
- Weapons. If you’re a very lucky person, you can roll this on your Main Hand. That would be perfect but it’s unlikely you’ll get this and other desired bonuses on the same weapon.
- Chest Cannon. The only reason we even have one equipped is for this bonus and Relic bonuses. Aim for 15% or higher. I’ve seen rolls up to 20% on both Weapons and Chest Cannons, also making an item Lifebound further increases it. I do not recommend lifebinding a Chest Cannon if it has % Brawl Skills Damage on it, though. As it’s super rare and already BiS.
Endgame: Equipment
All of the ‘Endgame: Equipment’ sections will show you what is BiS for your Forged.
Hint/TL;DR: It’s the Mountain King’s Set 😛
– This is what your Equipment Sheet will probably look like at Endgame.
Endgame: Equipment – BiS Helmet
– The two extra points towards Brawl Skills (with the set bonus) is what allows us to have every Tier 2 bonus.
Endgame: Equipment – BiS Shoulders
[Mountain King’s Shoulders – No Image Yet]
– This is the BiS Shoulders. Again, it can’t be beaten.
– This gives us 4 Exploding robots when we use our Relic which gives us a substantial DPS boost.
Endgame: Equipment – BiS Chest
– This gives us +2 to Barrage skills (with the set bonus). This further contributes to having all Tier 2 bonuses.
– This piece, now gives us our Set Piece Bonus. Since all 3 so far are BiS, you will now have permanent access.
Endgame: Equipment – BiS Gloves
[Arc-Powered Gloves – No Image Yet]
– This is a good alternative if you’re running Electric Mapworks and want to be extra safe. Gives you a solid 5 second of invulnerability against most if not all potential damage on those maps, functioning as a Cheat Death Skill Passive.
Endgame: Equipment – BiS Hatch
– This give us a guaranteed (with the Set Bonus) Sonic Pulse. This is amazing for debuff upkeep. Also, if you wanted it frees up a slot on the Hotbar for something else, such as Fracking Strike.
Endgame: Equipment – BiS Locomotion
– This gives us 50 heat immediately when we vent. This is either a blessing, or a curse. It has some nice or not so nice synergy for us, such as;
- Allows us to have a spammable Fracking Strike. Honestly the only reason it’s worth using is in conjunction with this Set Bonus. A permanent, ranged Vent Skill is pretty cool. We can effectively fight at ranged in really dire situations. For example, it’s amazing for fighting the Plaguebearers when you don’t want to risk dying.
- Makes Cyclone a bit difficult to use. Unfortunately, at the gain of a spammable Vent, we then end up losing our Primary DPS Skills ability to be held down. After our initial burst, we’ll be locked at a minimum of 50 heat. This means after a second or two of Cycloning our heat will be max again. It’s best used when you run two separate Vent skills for big burst. One good thing is that right now, we can actually have things dead already before having to worry about heat issues.
NOTE: The heat problem can actually be sidestepped. Earlier, the Legendarium Honourable Mention section included Raging Beater. If you use this instead of the Hatch or Unstable War Arm (I’d probably take it over the War Arm) you can actually vent all of your heat, resetting your rotation.
Your New Rotation would be along the lines of:
- 1.) Power Projection. (to buff up)
- 2.) Localised Storm. (to apply our debuff)
- 3.) Ramming Robot. (to engage)
- 4.) Cyclone. (until max heat – it could be dead by now)
- 5.) Vortex Bomb. (It’s probably dead by now)
- 6.) Fracking Strike. (I mean it’s definitely going to be dead by now, I’m sure)
- 7.) Ramming Robot. (and then it repeats. – It wont. The guy is dead.)
[No Image Yet – Arc-Powered Treads]
– This could be used in place of Mountain King’s. Especially if you don’t feel like dealing with the heat situation above.
– At one point this would actually have been BiS. It gives you a 10% chance to reset your Relic Active Skill. AMAZING. Only it’s not. The recent patch changed how Localised Storm works, it’s now a temporary passive that causes lightning strikes. Not only that but it’s now got 100% upkeep making this Legendarium Affix completely useless.
NOTE: Yeah. You read that correctly. If you missed it mentioned earlier, the Electrode ACTIVE Skill has been replaced with a TEMPORARY PASSIVE. That makes no sense to me whatsoever. It used to be an epic lightning storm and now it’s still got the cool SFX but it’s just… not the same. So, Electrode has lost some cool points there. The one good positive is that it’s just as powerful if not more powerful since it’s less random and doesn’t spread from the mobs.
Endgame: Equipment – BiS Weapon
– The weapon in the image is just the weapon I happened to have at the time. The other possible names would be;
- Curse Killer. (A sword)
- Imperial Duelling Pistol. (A… pistol)
- Ritual Finale. (A mace)
Endgame: Equipment – BiS Chest Gun
– If you can get a Chest Gun, with % Brawl Skills Damage and you get even 1 Enchant Slot, you are very, very lucky. This can get you, as seen from my example above, a 60% Relic CD Reduction. That dropped my Relic to a 60 second CD.
NOTE: You never ever need to Lifebound your Chest Gun. I think I’ve already said this earlier. But I can’t stress enough that this is already amazing and it’s really not worth losing for an extra 2%. Oh and don’t worry about the knockback since every other Chest Gun stat doesn’t apply to your Main Hand Weapon.
Endgame: Equipment – BiS Offhand
– Two Enchant Slots would be perfect for the absolute BiS.
NOTE: It appears that Dwarven tech has came a long way seeing as The Centerwing has lost it’s Legendary status. No matter, it’s still considered the best in my eyes. (This is for the TL2 fans, lol)
Endgame: Equipment – BiS Pet Collar
[No Image Yet – Dryad’s Neckband]
– The definite BiS Pet Collar. Gives us some neat sustain from our pets.
Endgame: Equipment – BiS Pet Tag 1
Endgame: Equipment – BiS Pet Tag 2
[No Image Yet – Clockwork Token]
– This is the BiS Pet Tag for our second slot. It lets our pet help out with DPS, not that we need it.
Dun’djinn Guidance
Tips & Tricks
In this section of the guide I will share any tips and tricks for build specific scenarios and also general gameplay. I will add to this section any other useful tips that other people give to me in the comments.
- Avoid / ignore elite mobs and packs completely in the early game. By early game I mean the first 10 levels or so. At the least, until you have your Tier 1 movement skill (for this build is level 6), to make sure you can get out of harms way if needed. I mean you can really ignore these mobs for the entirety of Act 1 as the TTK versus rewards isn’t worth it at all, which is unfortunate. They’re also the most likely things to kill you.
- You can skip most of the trash mobs and still be over-levelled. At least at the time of writing this guide, you can not just ignore elites but about 80% of the maps mobs. This is in part due to the obscenely high spawn rate for mobs and the generous exp gains. I ran straight to the end bosses for the quest objectives for the entirety of Act 1 and stayed at least 1 level above the different areas levels. This can be quite boring though,
- The early game is ROUGH. Quite painful in fact. Before the HP nerf to ridiculous it was even worse. My first character, a Sharpshooter who has an easier time to begin with. Took 15 hours to beat Act 1, because I cleared every map and killed all the elites, too. In comparison, my second character (the Forged), managed to beat Act 1 in just under 4 hours. That’s a HUGE difference. Echtra if you ever see this, doing 1 damage to mobs with 900 HP isn’t fun. In fact, the first 3 hours or so is probably the worst part of the entire game. You know, the MOST IMPORTANT part. Hooking people into the gameplay loop is super important, it probably explains a good chunk of the refunds and it’s a shame because it really picks up in the fun factor once you get some gear and a few levels behind you.
- Always keep your second best item in the stash. This one, with the way lifebound items function at the time of writing, having a second item for EACH item slot in the bank is a godsend. Plenty of times have I thought ‘I haven’t died in ages, no point holding onto this former weapon of mine’ to then die 2 minutes later and have to either gamble, or in dire situations when my cash is low, use anything I can find until I get new gear. Same goes for equipment, dropping from 60% defence to 10% because you no longer have a pair of shoulders, helm or gloves isn’t good at all. Do note, there could be changes to lifebound items in future updates.
- Powerlevel your relics with your highest toon. I used my Sharpshooter to get Electrode to level 20 in around an hour farming the last 2 or 3 areas of Act 2. This will be even more efficient once we have access to Act 3. It’s amazing for giving us a little power boost in those harder early levels. I had my stunlock potential at max from the get go. (I’m lying because I actually completely forgot to equip it until level 7 or so – don’t be stupid like me, equip it as soon as you have access to your Fort).
- Give unneeded Respectacles to Alts. This seems like common sense, but often as soon as I loot a Respectacle, I automatically consume it on the character. This is in part due to an old bug that would cause them to be Lifebound and I didn’t want to lose them. Throw them in the Shared Stash instead, this allows your level 2 to go to the fort and immediately move their level 1 point if they wanted to, or just have some ready for when they get +1 bonuses in the midgame.
Potions, potions and more potions. Trust me, as a melee you want to keep stacked up on potions, most of you early game cash will be sunk directly into buying these life savers. (and as a general rule, never engage in a boss fight with less than 5 potions, trust me you’ll need them). Oh, do yourself a favour and take Godsbeard’s, too.
Move. Honestly, just move. Standing still in this game is a terrible idea on Painful or Ridiculous. Maybe us melee should get built in base defence like we did in TL2… please? 😛
Keep an eye out for bugs. Specifically for the Forged, your Cyclone skill can bug out, becoming temperamental or at worst not work at all. You can also get stuck inside mobs fairly frequently and if you’re not paying attention it will get you killed. Hopefully these bugs will be ironed out over the course of Early Access.
Ignore Chest Cannon bonuses. At least ones that give +% Chance bonuses or any flat damage. This is because the Chest Cannon is separate from your Main Hand Weapon and so the bonuses don’t actually affect your DPS when in melee. Things like +% Chance to Stun or Shock that are on Chest Cannons wont actually give your attacks those bonuses. BUT, general stat bonuses do apply, such as +% damage with Brawl skills. This makes the Chest Cannon purely a Stat Modifier in terms of it usefulness. I was still using a level 10 Chest Cannon at level 34 because I never found an item good enough to replace the 15.5% damage increase to Brawl skills it had (it only had around 30 damage).
Always check what Elite mobs Affixes are. I’ve been breezing through mapworks, deleting entire screens of mobs and laughing my way to the Gambler. Until I get too complacent. I’ve died three times now due to my own inability to make sure it’s safe to actually get close. Acidic End mobs, or even Explosive (although those are easier to spot) can insta-kill you if you kill them all close to each other and the pools overlap. I’ve ran in to pick up my sweet loot and then died immediately not paying attention to the green poison on the floor. Damn poison mobs. Lol.
Build Showcase
Options & Settings
This section of the guide offers insight into the game options and keybindings I use when playing with this build, for those who are just curious or in case any of the setting affect how the build plays.
– As you can see, I have everything but three options enabled.
NOTE: Just for clarification the top half of the options menu isn’t shown as it’s purely just audio settings.
As much as I’d like to pretend I have some fancy keybind setup that allows me to perform finger gymnastics with ease, I actually tend to stick to the default settings.
NOTE: This could change in the future Relic Subclass update, as the number of skills you can slot onto your hotbar is increasing from six to nine (Relics are included in using up one of those slots, so technically two new hotbar slots if you plan on having you Relic permanently take up one of them).
Closing Thoughts
I really hope you like this build and I hope it stays a viable one throughout development as I personally have had a blast playing it.
On the other hand, I can’t really recommend playing this for your first playthrough. Mainly because the early game can be rather frustrating and turn you off the build. As of writing this guide the Sharpshooter and especially the Dusk Mage are far, far better choices in terms of DPS potential and survivability. But for those who are determined to play the Forged and also play a melee build, I respect you and won’t stop you from doing so. You’re like them guys that roll a Warrior as their first toon in WoW Classic – a painful experience but worth it in the end.
I have no idea if this build is remotely ‘meta’ or if there even is any meta builds this early into the game. But, even if there was any I can almost guarantee it isn’t melee, so it’s not important. *shrugs* … What I will say is that at level 36, my Forged that uses this exact build takes down Phase Beast Bosses in less than 10 seconds.
Footnote
– Phew. Finally finished. Boy did I not expect it to take that long. I assumed it would be like 1 hour and I’d be finished but, add a 0 onto that and change it to a 2 and we’re much closer. It was fun to do, throughout writing it I was thinking that maybe I’d really put too many words into it and could’ve made it far more concise with little to no annotations, but, that would’ve been a boring guide to look at IMO.
– Since it is as long as it is though, I did use bold text to highlight the most important parts throughout the guide, for those that want to just skim read and get the gist of the build.
– I’d be super grateful if you could give this guide a rating based on your experience. Hopefully you enjoyed the guide enough to give it a thumbs up! 🙂
– Disclaimer: None of the images used in this guide have any art assets that belong to me and are used purely for a visual aid in what I’m talking about.
– I’d also like to mention that most of the images relating to the Skills, Relic and Legendarium came straight from a handy website skill calculator (probably why the tooltips for the Affixes are actually different to the in-game versions). This website lets you make your own builds whenever you want and also shows you the max level versions of skills and relic passives so you know whether or not to invest in them. The website is below:
[link]
– Fun fact: There are 108 images used in this guide.
– Since it is early access, I have made several feedback tickets on Nolt. I would appreciate it if people checked them out and gave them an upvote (or downvote if you disagree). The number for my tickets are:
(Nolt Website: [link]
#960 – Loot dropping underneath the map
#969 – Chat Features
#972 – Monument bonuses and Buff Timers
#1014 – Potion Stack Size
#1015 – Consumables Hot Bar
#1016 – Alchemy Table for Forts
#1021 – Make Players Return to Mapwork Entrance when they leave
#1022 – Legendary monsters, reduced spawn rate but better rewards
#1081 – Inspect player functionality
#1082 – Pet pickup keybind
#1146 – Sharpshooter Balancing (Precision skill tree)
#1148 – Scale content to lowest party members level
#1238 – Dedicated Fort waypoint (meaning in each act, could have been worded better)
#1254 – Fort decorations – boss trophies (banners) (idea)
#1305 – Area specific side/mini quests to promote exploration
#1323 – Keep the old lifebound mechanic but lower drop rates
#1325 – A holy/light damage type and holy themed relic idea
#1327 – Legendarium QoL UI elements
#1528 – Anvil/Workbench for Forts (endgame crafting idea)
#1529 – Scalable Props and/or extensions for forts
#1840 – Add Dun’djinn shield to EXP bar
#1843 – Separate ‘ladders’ for solo and group play in Dun’djinn
#1847 – Scale Dun’djinn to player(s) level
Coming Soon™…
URL Links
Here are some bonus things attached to the bottom of the guide.
[link]
– Here is a link to my Sharpshooter guide, which I wrote after this one. It focuses on Bleeding damage and the Heartseeker skill. Feel free to check it out if you’d like! 🙂
[link]
– Here is a link to my Enchanting Guide. This guide is more in depth than the Enchanting section in this guide and covers all available recipes in the game.
As much as I’d love to keep writing build guides, I’m going to take a break for a bit. Mainly since I’ve been spending more time writing about the game than playing it lately, haha! It’s been fun though… But anyway, until I write more in depth build guides in the future, here’s two more Forged builds you can try out:
[link]
– This build is my ‘Molten Forged’ and it focuses on fire damage from/with Flaming Destroyer. If you follow the link, it uses Cyclone – much like my Forged guide above. But, if you swap out Cyclone for almost any other of the skills you can completely change up the playstyle but keep the fire damage theme, a good second choice would be Shotgonne Blast.
[link]
– This build is my ‘Poisonous Robomancer’. It’s a summoner build that uses Bane. If you follow the link, you’ll see it uses Poison Dart as it’s primary Damage source outside of pets. But, if that’s not to your taste, you can take out the last 4 points in Poison Dart and add them to any of the following: Rapid Fire, Slug Shot or Fracking Strike. It’s worth mentioning that Bane is due some changes in the upcoming patch, so I’m not sure how viable it will be afterwards. It probably should be fine since most of the changes are to the Relic Active Skill, which isn’t the focus of the build anyways.
TIP: For you theorycrafters and build testers out there. Here is my formula for a solid, reliable build that will take you through any content: 3x – 10 point skills and 5x – 6 point skills. That’s it. Max out 3 skills and then use the rest to supplement your build or for their Tier 2 Bonuses.
Version History
[Version 0.5 – 25/06/20] – Pet enchant sections are incomplete. But after 5 days of trying to get this thing finished I have chosen to ignore the fact that it’s still not done yet.
[Version 0.6 – 25/06/20] – Pet enchant sections complete. Edited some other sections adding missed content. So as it turns out the giant [INCOMPLETE] text was getting to me, lol.
[Version 0.7 – 28/06/20] – Added extra information in the Tips & Tricks section, added the Url Links section to the guide and fixed some misinformation in some of the Legendarium sections.
[Version 0.7.1 – 29/06/20] – Clarified some info on Chest Cannons throughout the guide.
[Version 0.7.2 – 02/07/20] – Removed the ‘fixed misinformation’ from the Legendarium sections as the new information was in fact misinformation, lol. The Arc-Powered Hatch is available and I got a hold of some Shoulders to confirm their existence. Bigger guide update soon.
[Version 0.8 – 04/7/20] – Huge update here, added all of the Endgame sections. Some are still not yet complete but will be updated when possible. Added new things, edited and removed others entirely from older sections in the guide to reflect the Act 3 patch.
[Version 0.8.1 – 06/07/20] – Updated Footnote.
[Version 0.8.2 – 25/7/20] – Added Options & Keybindings section. Clarified the levelling sections of the guide as some readers read the beginning sections and saw them as incorrect/were confused about the choices. Added some incomplete sections for when I next update the guide after the Relic Subclass patch. Updated footnote.
[Version 0.9 03/8/20] – Removed all the Enchanting Recipe sections from the guide. Added a link to my Enchanting Guide in the URL Links section. This helps to remove some ‘bloat’ from the guide as it’s already quite long. Added a few missing Sections (their titles at least).
[Version 0.9.1 14/10/20] – Began updating the guide to be accurate with the 1.0 launch, the first few sections for now.