When should you forge weapons?

[TigerBlood]

Protection is good against normal troops, but once squads of enemies start using armour piercing or negating attacks, its effectiveness is greatly reduced. You're unlikely to encounter massive squads with these sort of attacks, early game, unless you're up against an opponent using certain bless strategies.

I'm fond of regeneration and reinvogoration on thugs. Iterative probability proofing vs. critical hits in order to better protect a gem investment. Reduces affliction chance too.