The forge is unlocked at Normal Mode Chapter 31.
It goes together with the Arena event. The tokens you earn from the weekly Arena event are used in the Forge to upgrade both Hero Weapons & General Weapons.
To access the Forge, go to Collection -> Armory and click on the desired weapon. Select the Forge tab to be greeted with the upgrade tree.
Or select a hero from your roster and click on their weapon.
By the way, this is where you can see if a weapon is Physical or Magical under the Info tab).
Every weapon has its own forge that accepts two types of tokens for upgrading: the specific weapon token and super tokens. You can mix and match, so I used 500 Warlord weapon tokens + 1000 super tokens to reach the 1,500 forge level three threshold.
Super tokens can be used across any weapon in the entire forge, while a specific weapon token can only be used to upgrade that weapon. You spend the tokens to upgrade the weapon in the forge, and once used, they cannot be returned.
So what are you buying exactly?
What Forging A Weapon Does
The forge unlocks a weapon's true potential over the course of 5 levels. Like everything else in HvH, it's a grind, but every grind counts!
The first level costs 1000 tokens, the second 1000, 1500 for the third, 2000 for the fourth, and 3000 for the fifth.
All in you're looking at 8500 total weapon tokens to max out. That's a whole lot of resources, which takes 8.5 weeks to farm in the Arena for reference, but more on that later.
For now, know that levels 1, 2, and 5 each have two options. You can freely switch between both options whenever you like. So do not freak out about choosing the right one right away.
Furthermore, your choices will be saved to your loadout. I had the problem where I couldn't figure out why everything changed all the time, and it turned out to be because I saved it one way under farming and one way for DPS in my loadouts.
But you should change your forge choices for different loadouts! Different modes will require different options, just save em to your loadouts accordingly.
Levels 1 and 2 normally make the weapon stronger, with some exceptions for heroes. You want to try to pick the option that has Cooldown unless your total Cooldown is already 60%. At this point, select the other option. If Cooldown isn't an option, follow a rough priority of cooler-sounding options, projectiles, area of effect, and then something. "Cooler sounding" is unofficially, but will normally make a nice impact.
You can also use the talent system rarity as a gauge of what constitutes a good upgrade.
Level 3 is always a "Global" buff - it impacts all heroes and weapons. This is exactly like the global skills heroes obtain from level progression. The best globals on weapons include + projectiles, >=1.05x damage, and cooldown. Again, use talent rarity to judge.
Level 4 almost always improves the evolution of the weapon, giving it a very cool upgrade. This is the first massive spike in weapon damage. Levels 1 and 2 can be nice, but level 4 is when you turn a butter knife into a katana. Hitting this can completely change a hero. For example, Monk goes from being B Tier to low S Tier simply from hitting this forge spike.
Finally, level 5 typically improves on the evolution in some very cool and very powerful way. The Warlord, for example, needs this 5* forge to become the beast he is.
Which now makes for as good a time as ever to explain the Forge notation. You will see people write 5* Forge. That speaks as you'd read it, five-star forge, and is referring to having completed the entire tree.
You will also see people refer to a forge with LLL or RRR notation, which reads as the directions, left left, left and right, right, right. This notation indicates which way someone suggests you go for the levels 1, 2, and 5 options. For example, you want to go LRL for Warlord in Boss Brawl for 1.2x damage to bleed, 1.1x damage, and then Quad Strike at level 5.
It's also a fun exercise to see how much damage you get from a forge as they multiply together. 1.2x times 1.1x times 1.1 times = 1.452 damage from his first levels of forging - a massive 45% increase in damage.
As you can tell, that multiplication is why you need to upgrade the Warlord.
But before I give you ideas on which weapons and heroes to forge up first, let me explain where to get tokens.
Forge Tokens
Forge tokens are primarily earned via the Arena. In fact, you unlock the forge and the Arena at the same time on NM Chapter 31.
Each week, the Arena alternates between a base weapon and a hero's weapon. From what I can tell, this system favors free-to-play heroes, like Dark Ranger, and older heroes, like Artificer. Completing the Arena will award 3500 of the weekly specific tokens, enough to reach the 3* forge for that weapon, along with 1000 super tokens.
Quick important note, you cannot use weapon tokens for a weapon you do not own. So if you get Necromancer tokens, but don't own him, they are effectively worthless until you get the hero.
Hard Mode arena has been introduced recently, which allows you to pick from other bases and hero weapons. This allows more experienced players not to run into the issue of getting tokens for a hero they don't own.
Or for going over the token cap. Getting past 8500 tokens does nothing, which feels really bad.
However, in both Arena instances, the important part to note is that Base Weapons WILL come around in the forge. There are 11 base weapons. There are 52 weeks in the year, therefore, each will come around twice in one year for a potential total of 7000 base weapon tokens for each weapon.
That means that you should never spend more than 1500 super tokens on base weapons, and ideally not really spend any. Play long enough, and those will get forged all the way up.
You can grab Bomb and Fire Orb tokens, the two strongest base weapons, from the Hero Clash at some point. That revolving weapon mechanic will allow you to grab 1000 for 25,000 hero clash tokens.
That's one of the few other places in the game where you can buy weapon tokens without spending real money. The only other option to get them is via event exchanges for weekly events.
So, where should you use super tokens? Put them towards these special and hero weapons as best you can.
Best Weapons For Forge Tokens
At a high level, I suggest putting tokens into Special Weapons, then Hero Forges, and lastly, by a decent margin, base weapons.
Special Weapons will help all heroes, Hero Forges you can use to make a main hero, and you'll get base weapons reliably from the Arena, so don't use supers on them.
One very good use of forge tokens is upgrading special weapons. You can sometimes grab special weapon forge tokens from events like Wheels and Mines, or the shop in Hero Clash, but that's it.
Unless you're willing to whip out your credit card.
That makes super tokens from the Arena the most reliable method of forging up weapons.
However, it's one of the best investments you can make, so you don't want to waste tokens!
Better Weapons To Forge
Five-star special weapons rank among the best in the game. While all of them are good, I'll focus on what I think are the top 3 now:
- Mighty Borer
- Dynamite Slingshot
- And Scrap Hammer
Mighty Borer is the best, overall, jack of all trades special weapon. The first two forge levels amp up its damage, the 3* forge is a nice global buff to damage, but then 4* and 5* are where it comes online. The 4* forge actually adds the slow to the evolved and base borer. That additional slow is huge for the disruption and status effect application.
And then at 5*, Homeseeker essentially doubles its damage. The ideal forge is LRL, but changes based on the game mode. It follows a dependable and fantastic upgrade path as a model for other weapons.
Dynamite Slingshot offers one of the only chances to grab Expose in the game at 2* forge. Expose increases the damage horde take from all sources by some percent, in this case 10%. Stronger versions come from Cow Whistle 5* and Druid's 5* forge.
Dynamite's 4 and 5-star versions help with progressing through Hard Mode, Nightmare Mode, and Arena. They massively amp the damage.
And Scrap Hammer, like Borer, has its unevolved weapon benefit from all five forge levels. That makes it a 1-point wonder for any mode where you need to keep Horde off, but can still pump DPS fully evolved. It falls below the other two because it really needs that 4* and 5* star, before that, it's very weak. Which means you can't really use it until you have 5,500 tokens.
Better Heroes To Forge
On the Hero Side, the best forges either have multiplicative damage all the way up or improve skills over weapons. I have Warlord as the single best forge user in the game. I talked about it in the Intro, but he feels awful pre-forge. I barely use him for anything up to this point.
However, I just hit 3* forge this week, and I can finally now start to feel him come online. With his four and five stars, he puts out so much damage that you actually start gearing him defensively.
Other heroes who fit the mold of giant DPS monsters via 5* forge are Artificer, Oracle, Assassin, and, when it comes to Boss Brawl, Druid.
Next up for Heroes, I have a sleeper OP, Santa. I love this hero. He's basically my favorite in the game. The great thing about Santa is you only need his 3* forge. That's 5000 tokens in saving, but that 3* is just absolutely huge.
One of the only places to get an increased gold key chance, five percentage points will take you from 15% to 20%, a massive 33% increase in Gold Key Chance.
Let me show you how many runs that will save me getting to heroic. 750 runs! And it saves you more the earlier you get him.
750 * 15 minutes = 11250 minutes = 187 hours of gameplay saved!
If any forge options improve a skill of the hero instead of the weapon, that's likely a very strong choice.
The last hero I'll talk about now is Knight. He's not someone I would necessarily recommend throwing Supers into because he comes around a lot in Arena. But he's a great example of a hero who just takes a giant leap forward at 4*. His Runesword adds Knockback to his attacks. Combined with the area of effect of earlier parts of the forge, he ends up swinging with half the screen's worth of lawn mowing, knockbacking action.
Before that, he could not complete Arena, but after it, he can. Before that, he will struggle with late Hard Mode, after that, he's easy mode. Before that late-stage nightmare is a no-go, after, he can beat some of the hardest chapters.
Other heroes that fit this mold are Monk, Dark Paladin, and Necromancer. All excellent Heroes who unlock their full potential at 4* and 5* forges.
Beyond that, you could think about putting 1000 or so super tokens into Fire Orbs & Bomb, or getting tokens from Hero Clash. Their tokens will come around in the Arena, but getting them to 4 stars is a huge power spike for any hero, in almost every game mode. I still use them to this day, one year in.
