The Forge order that saves materials
Use the Forge after a run in this order:
- Equip best candidate gear.
- Check whether its damage type/affixes fit your class.
- Upgrade only the pieces you expect to keep.
- Evolve when you have the required rarity-specific ingot.
- Reforge only after the base piece is worth keeping.
- Compare the new Gear Score with the actual affixes — raw score is not the whole build.
What current gameplay confirms
Players upgrade rings, helmets, body pieces and weapons at the lobby Forge. Higher-rarity evolution requires the matching rarity of ingot; footage shows progression stopping when the required Epic ingot is missing even when lower-rarity ingots are available.
Later gear can roll build-shaping lines such as damage reduction, magic damage, cooldown reduction, attack speed, crit chance, bonus damage and life steal.
Keeper test
A piece is worth serious materials when at least two of these are true:
- Rarity is high enough that you will not replace it immediately.
- Main affixes match your class archetype.
- It fixes the reason your current run fails.
- It completes a planned Boss Rush setup.
What not to do
Do not publish or trust a universal “upgrade every item to X first” rule without a current cost table. Forge costs and optimal thresholds are exactly the kind of numbers that can change in a patch.