welcome back, everyone. So obviously, we've got Last Epoch 1.1 coming out in about 4 hours or so. For me, that'll be 2 a.m. So I don't know if I'm going to make it that long. Anyway, so there we go. So I'm in my last minute. What am I going to play tomorrow? So I was thinking about playing Avalanche, and it looks really cool. But nah, I don't do Avalanche builds. I was thinking about maybe something else. I'm not too sure. I don't like bow builds. Not really keen on necromancers. So anyway, it looks like the Forge Guard, which is one of my favorite classes in Last Epoch, actually got a huge buff. And Shield Bash, which very funnily is very close to Shield Crush, got a buff as well. So I think that's what we're going to go with. But let's have a talk about that and some of the changes that we can see and why it looks so epic and why I am

absolutely going to give that a whirl tomorrow. Okay, so first of all, let's have a look at the Forge Guard changes according to the patch notes. So these came out the other day, I think this was what the 6th of July. Um, they seem to timestamp everything, but anyway, this is the Forge Guard changes. So second Mastery bonus, the Stalwart buff now gives 10% increased armor for each hit you have taken in the last 10 seconds, which stacks up to 10%. This was 3% and had no stack limit originally, but this basically allows you to stack a lot more armor earlier on, which buffs your damage up. That's really good. Crushing Blows now does 1.1% more damage per one Mana cost, so this somewhat looks like a bit of a buff as well. Shield Breaker now adds three Mana cost to throwing skills from six, so that's cheaper to run Shield Breaker. A Steel AIS now also grants 10 armor per point. It's nonscaling 2%.

block chance has been moved to a threshold bonus, which is now 3%. Block chance, so that also looks like a buff, allows you to stack armor that we're going somewhere with this. Uh, iron atunement now has a threshold bonus, which grants 1% armor mitigation percentage. Also applies to damage taken over time, so that's pretty strong. Uh, so basically your armor now applies to dot that you take, so I would say that's pretty good. Iron reflexes now grants a 2% reduction bonus, uh, a reduction to bonus damage taken from critical strikes. Uh, again, that sort of feels like a bit of a buff. Uh, so Thorn mail now has a threshold bonus, which grants five damage reflection to attackers per 1% armor mitigation. So again, Thorn mail actually do damage if you're running a shield build and stacking a ton of armor seems like it's a pretty good play. Infinite bullwark increases armor on potion use now also applies to your minions. This doesn't really matter to the build, so I'm not.

too worried about this uh wall of salarium now swatches now switches out names with uh ospr Bane its effect now also applies to your minions so you could actually play Minion builds with this because that's one of the things where the forge guard was a bit weak uh Flawless Defender now gives 75 armor per point from 50 so that's definitely a buff and no longer has a nonscaling 3% block chance so you know 75 compared to 50 is a pretty significant increase and then scaled up by your total armor seems like a pretty good sort of way to move forwards for armor stacking uh Javelin a we're not too worried about that folded steel NRS 2% increased duration per point for Forge weapons that's not too bad actually if you're running a forged weapon minion build that actually would make a lot of sense and guardian now grants 10% increased stun chance per point from 6% and now also grants 8% increased Health uh regeneration per

point. So there's two ways that we could actually play Shield bash. So we'll talk about Shield bash in itself and the changes that have been applied to it. But basically Guardian would allow you to increase stun chance per point. So you could do 100% chance to stun, which would then allow for Shield bash to cool down a lot quicker. Or alternatively, we could run something else, which we'll talk about in a moment that's been added into the game that will allow you to have absolutely no cooldown whatsoever and to be able to perpetually hit with Shield bash and then scale that up using armor to apply damage. Okay, so why Shield bash? What is the appeal of Shield bash? Well, let's dig into this one. So first of all, with the introduction of 1.1, they've actually added in a new skill node called Flurry of Blows. Basically, this means that The Shield bash no longer has any cooldown whatsoever but cost Mana, which if you manage that Mana should be no real issue.

at all, uh, there's no longer any guarantee to stunt or ignite, but who cares when you can hit really, really quickly, okay, so the second, you know, that's been added is Shield storm, which now means that once you've selected it, you can scale up the speed of your Shield bash based on the amount of block chance you have, up to a maximum, which is set at 50%. Basically, what this means is now that you can hit without any cost, you also need a way to scale it so it's utilizing Shield defense to buff up the shield attack damage, which I really like. It's very similar to shield crush and Poe as far as scaling damage off armor, and this makes it even more appealing. So, it can actually be a really fast hitting skill, and that's now baked into the actual skill configuration as it is. Okay, so maybe now we need a way to scale up flat damage right on the skill itself. Well, indomitable force is being added, so Shield bash now has added melee damage.

based on your block effectiveness so block chance gives you increased attack speed up to 50%. You also get increased attack damage based on your block effectiveness. And then you can scale this up using armor, which is built into the forge guard class itself, which means you've got a Holy Trinity of ability to be able to stack up damage with absolutely no real downside. And so you're actually increasing defenses, you're increasing your offensive capabilities, which is everything that I love about playing this build. And finally, we're getting a new axe that looks like a shield, so we can now almost double wield shields. And it's called Monument of Protection. I've got it on the screen there, so basically it provides a huge increase to block effectiveness, which buffs Shield Bash and also adds base damage to Shield Bash as well, which is pretty significant in every possible way. It buffs up Shield Bash and would make your build absolutely nuts. Okay, so that's pretty much the major touch points of why Shield Bash is just

going to be absolutely awesome, and I'm super excited for it. That's what I'm going to be playing tomorrow. But, yeah, if you want to see more videos like this, don't forget to like and sub to the channel. Also, check out the Twitch. I'll be streaming on Twitch tomorrow with this as well. And, yeah, if I get it off the ground and working really well, I'll put out a small build guide on it too. May not be an absolute expert at last Epoch, but the game mechanics are pretty accessible and pretty easy to get your head around. And I've got a few hundred hours in the game now too, which is great. But, yeah, anyway, I'll see you guys online tomorrow and have a good one.

Big Buffs for Forge Guardian & Shield Bash in Last Epoch 1.1: Harbingers of Ruin!

Big Buffs for Forge Guardian & Shield Bash in Last Epoch 1.1: Harbingers of Ruin!

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