Notable Passives:

1. Fearless [8/8] - +8 Vitality and 80% increased Health Regen. This is a solid "travel" passive that lets us unlock what we really need from this tree while increasing our overall survivability quite significantly. 
2. Armour Clad [5/5] - +75 Armour, -10% Damage Taken From Nearby Enemies. The damage reduction that this provides is hard to pass up in any Sentinel-based build. 
3. Valiant Charte [5/5] - +35 Health and 35% increased Cooldown Recovery Speed of Movement Skills. This lets us increase our mobility by quite a lot which comes in handy in a multitude of situations. 

Forge Guard Skill Tree (54 Points)

Notable Passives:

1. Weapons Master [9/10] - +9 Strength, +27% Increased Melee and Throwing Atack Damage. Smelter's Wrath counts as a Melee Skill, so this passive will increase its damage. 
2. Fresh From the Forge [10/10] - With this passive maxed out, every 3 Seconds, our next melee attack deals an additional 40 Physical and 40 Fire Damage. This doesn't work on Movement Abilities. This pairs very well with the build's damage sources. 
3. Crushing Blows [6/6] - 18% Increased Mana Regen and 3% Increased Damage per 1 Mana Cost for Melee and Throwing attacks. The more mana an Ability Costs, the higher benefit will it receive from this passive. Smelter's Wrath costs 45 Mana (with the Detonation selected), which is quite a lot. 
4. Might [6/6] - 12% Increased Health and +6 Strength. Percentage-based HP increases are good to have as they scale very well. We also need this to get to the Lethal Strikes passive. 
5. Infinite Bulwark [6/6] - 100% increased Armor on Potion Use and 100% increased Chance to Find Potions on Potion Use. If you like your potions, this is a must-have passive. 
6. Liquid Iron [5/5] - 15% extra Physical Resistance and 15% Less Damage Taken from DoT attacks. These effects are doubled for a while after we during a potion. 30% Physical Resistance on demand is amazing to have on this build. 
7. Lethal Strikes [6/6] - Increases Melee Critical Multiplier by 60%. Everybody likes high Crits. This gives us high Crits, so we take it. 

Notable Passives:

1. Abyssal Endurance [10/10] - Increases Health by 80, increases Void Resistance by +40%, and increases Physical Resistance by +40%. This is a very powerful defensive Passive - we take it to greatly improve our staying power against both physical and void damage. 
2. Temporal Corruption [6/6] - +12 Void Damage. This Passive makes our Attacks and Spells deal additional Void Damage. It also does some things to Smite, but we don't use that Ability. 
3. Void Blades [8/8] - Increases Melee Void Damage by 24. This offers a solid increase to the build's offensive power. 

Notable Passives:

1. Defiance [8/8] - +8 Attunement (each Attunement point grants 2 mana and improves skills that rely on Sentinel's innate magic) and +24% Elemental Resistance. We're interested in the Elemental Resistance portion. 
2. Valor [7/10] - +105 Health and 35% Increased Healing Effectiveness. A nice survivability increase to end off with. 

As you can see, for this build we focus on maximizing Smelter's Wrath Damage by stacking Void Damage and Melee Damage increases. We do this because the Eternal Eclipse, our Unique Two-Handed Sword of choice, allows us to scale with Melee Void Damage. We also highly emphasize survivability as Smelter's Wrath requires us to stand still while it charges (which can be rather detrimental to our health). 

Smelter's Wrath - Allows Forge Guard to charge a powerful Nova-like attack that deals Fire and Physical Damage to everyone around Him. Charging for longer increases the range and power of the Skill. The max charging time is 2 seconds, but can be reduced by 50% with Blacksmith's Breadth (and we'll want to charge it to max to guarantee a Crit with Vulcanic Mastery mod). This is the main offensive Skill of this build and everything else is tailored around it. We've done everything to increase Smelter's Wrath's damage so that it one-shots almost every enemy. Use it after activating Abyssal Echoes. 

Important: You'll need a Helmet with +4 to Smelter's Wrath to use all of the mods mentioned here. If you don't have one, make sure that you take Detonation, Tempering Blows, Blacksmith's Breadth, and Vulcanic Mastery with your 20 Points. 

1. Bolster [1/5] - This gives us some additional Armour and Fire Resistance while channeling, which is nice but not mandatory. If you need points elsewhere, you can easily skip this. 
2. Whetstone [3/5] - +6 base Physical Damage. 
3. Valiance [3/3] - 60% More Damage against Rare Enemies and Bosses. This is a must-have mod. You won't believe the damage numbers you'll see on your screen... 
4. Forge Scale [3/5] - This gives a 30% Armor Shred Chance per Second of channeling. This comes into play if something survives your first Smelter's Wrath. 
5. Detonation [1/1] - Changes Smelter's Wrath attack pattern to a Nova, making it hit a wide area around you. 
6. Blacksmith's Breadth [5/5] - 50% increased Charging Speed. Using Smelter's Wrath without this maxed would be painful. 
7. Heavy Strike [2/5] - Increases Damage per each second spent channeling. This has a negative synergy with Blacksmith's Breadth but we need it to get to Tempering Blows. 
8. Tempering Blows [1/1] -  This makes Smelter's Wrath synergize with Ignite Stacks, which allows us to bump up its damage by pairing it with Abyssal Echoes. 
9. Vulcanic Mastery [1/1] - With this, a fully charged Smelter's Wrath is a guaranteed Crit. We can't stress enough how amazing this mod is! 

Volatile Reversal - Volatile Reversal - When used, this ability returns you to a spot where you were 2 seconds ago, reverting any changes to your current health and mana that have happened since then. For the purposes of this build, we've set up this skill in a way that gives it a wide Damage-increasing effect and reduces its Cooldown. We'll also benefit from increased movement speed after using it, but we don't regain HP anymore. 

1. Incipient Void Rift [1/1] - This makes you create a Void Rift at the place where you use Volatile Reversal. If you didn't move much for the past 2 seconds, you'll make 2 Rifts in one place now! 
2. Terminal Void Rift [1/1] - This makes you create a Void Rift at the location where Volatile Reversal returns you to. Void Rifts deal Void Damage. 
3. Dark Expanse [3/5] - Increases Void Rift's AoE by 120%, which makes them much more reliable. 
4. Harbinger of Dust [3/3] - Increases Damage Taken by Enemies, from Void Rifts, by 30%. 
5. Time Sap [2/3] - Restores 6% of Volatile Reversal's Cooldown each time you Kill an Enemy with it. 
6. Catching Up [3/3] - Increases your Movespeed by 36% after casting the Volatile Reversal. Speed Boost's duration is equal to the length of time you traveled back. 
7. Timelost Vitality [1/1] - Removes the Health Restoration from the Skill but increases its Cooldown Recovery Speed by 200%. We have other Healing sources, so the drawback of this one is negligible while the benefits are immense. 
8. Warped Time [3/3] - This gives us a 30% increased Attack and Casting Speed after we use Volatile Reversal, for the duration equal to the time we traveled back with it. 

Abyssal Echoes - Thanks to Fiery Chasm, Screaming Rifts, and Shrieking Echoes mods, this amazing ability allows us to stack multiple Ignites very quickly and efficiently. Moreover, Abyssal Echoes is great at Shredding enemy armor. As a result, Smelter's Wrath's damage skyrockets when we use it after this one (as it benefits from both Ignite Stacks and Armor Shredding very much). 

1. Ripping Corrosion 5/5] - Allows Abyssal Echoes to Shred enemy Armor. This synergizes extremely well with Smelter's Wrath. 
2. Tides of Rust [2/5] - Even more Armor Shredding. 
3. Fiery Chasm [4/4] - +200% Ignite Chance. This synergizes with Smelter's Wrath's Tempering Blows mod and results in an unbelievably high damage increase. 
4. Void Purifier [1/1] - Changes Abyssal Echoes' Damage Type to Fire and adds a Healing effect to it. This is a solid survivability mod that is much needed for this build. 
5. Vorpal Explosion [1/1] - +80% Damage. Simple yet effective. 
6. Screaming Rifts [1/1] - This allows us to create Abyssal Rifts at the cursor location, which makes Abyssal Echoes much more flexible. It also casts Abyssal Echoes 3 times at the chosen location, which allows us to really bump up that Ignite Stacks! 
7. Shrieking Echoes [2/2] - This adds 2 more Abyssal Echoes casts, which equals even more Ignite Stacks! 

Sigils of Hope - Summon a Sigil that will orbit you, increasing your and your HP regeneration by 25% and causing you to deal additional Fire Damage with attacks and spells. Thanks to Decree of Fire and Sigils of Despair (pairing these two provides us with a nice Void Damage increase), this ability synergizes very well with our Smelter's Wrath. 

1. Iron Sigils [5/5] - Increases your and your Armor by 160 per active Sigil. This can and will improve your survivability quite significantly. 
2. Enduring Hope [5/5] - Makes your Sigils last 10 seconds longer. With this, Sigils of Hope's effects will remain more powerful for significantly longer. 
3.  Tetragram [1/1] - Increases the maximum number of Sigils by 1. Sigils of Hope's effects scale with the number of active Sigils, so this is a must-have. 
4. Empowering Sigils [5/5] -  Grants +30% Damage per Active Sigil to you and your allies. This is a solid offensive boost, definitely worth taking. 
5. Last Wish [1/1] - Killing an enemy gives you a 6% chance to summon a Sigil. This is a great source of additional Sigils (and each additional Sigil improves the effects of Sigils of Hope). 
6. Decree of Flame [3/3] - Adds Fire Damage per Active Sigil. 
7. Sigils of Despair [1/1] - Converts Fire Damage provided by Sigils to Void Damage and increases Void Damage per Active Sigil. Eternal Eclipse makes this mod unbelievably good for us. 

Lunge - This is a Dash ability that can be used to close the distance to the chosen enemy, but not only that. With the featured setup, it also makes us Invulnerable while Lunging, it kills all enemies that are below 15% HP instantly (which makes it great as a finisher), and restores a portion of our Health whenever it's used. Thanks to the Double Strike, we can also use it two times in a row before it goes on Cooldown. 

1. Dawn Charge [5/5] - Restores 40% of your Missing Health when you use Lunge. This works extremely well with Double Strike. 
2. Unstoppable [1/1] - Grants Invulnerability while Lunging. This lets us avoid certain death when we overstay our welcome somewhere... 
3. Initiate's Onslaught [2/5] - Increases the Damage by up to 100% and AoE by up to 40% of the Lunge's final Hit, based on the distance traveled with Lunge. You must travel at least 10 meters for the maximum benefit. 
4. Cull the Weak [3/3] - Lunge instantly kills enemies that are below 15% HP. This effect doesn't;t stack - if you have more similar effects, the higher one is always chosen. 
5. Ambuscade [2/5] - Lunge deals 60% more Damage to enemies above 65% of max Health. 
6. Double Strike [1/1] - Adds an additional charge of Lunge at the cost of a 15% increased Cooldown. 
7. Endless Will [1/2] -  Some additional Healing and Cooldown Recovery. 

Stat priority:

For the purposes of this build, you should focus on increasing your Melee Physical and Melee Void Damage as these two affect your Forge's Wrath power. Survivability is also very important as you can't go around the 2-second channel time of the Forge's Wrath. Critical Multiplier is very valuable to you as well because Forge's Wrath is a guaranteed Crit. Because it's a Guaranteed Crit, you also don't want any Crit Chance. Also, adding some Life Leech and Ignite Chance to the mix is always nice. 

1. Melee Void Damage
2. Melee Physical Damage 
3. Critical Strike Multiplier 
4. Life Leech 
5. Ignite Chance
6. Health 
7. Resistances 

Recommended Unique Items: 

Eternal Eclipse - This build would not exist if not for this 2-Handed Sword. It adds +207 Melee Void Damage to your Next Fire Melee Attack every 2 seconds, making our Forge's Wrath effectively synergize with all kinds of Void Damage effects. 

Titan Heart - This gives us some much-needed damage reduction (15%) as we are wielding a 2-Handed Melee Weapon with a Forge Guard... 

Siphon of Anguish - This great Unique Ring offers Melee Damage Leech and Void Damage Leech, both of which are much appreciated in this build. Moreover, it provides a 27% chance to apply Doom on hit, which increases our Damage. 

Idols:

• Grand Solar Idol (3x1) - These are amazing for the build as you can use them to stack Melee Void Damage. You should have 4 of these (you can't fit more if you also use Throne of Ambition). 
• Throne of Ambition - This is a Best in Slot idol that will greatly increase your power level in fights against bosses. 

END NOTE

This is the beta version of our "The Detonator" Smelter's Wrath Forge Guard build for Last Epoch. We didn't have much time for testing, but this build shows a lot of promise, scales quite well, and outperforms many other End Game setups. Obviously, as the game gets new content updates, we will be updating this guide regularly, though it may be impossible to be done after each Patch.