A personal favorite build of mine which uses [Blood Forge] and Gloom to breeze through content. I know what you're thinking about [Blood Forge] but I like it.
Why Gloom?
Gloom is the best form of self healing in this game seeing as Blood Altars are finicky, slow and annoying and Fire Blast requires you to use Flame Blast and while that is a good ability, the huge amount of slow you can get on Gloom is enough. I'm running base range because I ran out of mod space basically. As a healing source, it allows you to use bloodletting as much as you want to max out on Energy and reload with [Blood Forge].
Mods
[Steel Charge]: I don't want to use more forma. You could use any aura honestly, probably best to use [Corrosive Projection].
[Primed Sure Footed]: I love using explosive weapons at [Point Blank] range.
[Adaptation]: Mostly just because it's an easy form of damage reduction. Honestly, you're probably better off with [Stretch] here.
[Natural Talent]: This lets you cast Bloodletting way faster and since you'll be casting it a lot, it help. If you really want to make your gloom have 95% slow, you can drop this for [Augur Secrets].
[Blind Rage]: More power strength for more slow and the efficiency actually doesn't hurt bloodletting too much.
[Transient Fortitude]: See [Blind Rage]. Using [Umbral Intensify] and dropping [Primed Continuity] for [Augur Secrets] lets you hit 93% slow which sounds fun. You do lose a bit of duration but it doesn't really do anything for you in the first place.
[Quick Thinking]: Since you can so easily cap out on energy, this makes your effective HP really hugebig.
[Blood Forge]: Likely the most controversial mod since you could just use some synth mods on your companion and melee a bit to reload but Synth mods don't work well on weapons which have very small clip sizes. Weapons that have small clip sizes tend to be explosive weapons that I like to use at close range. Being able to spam weapons like [Kuva Ogris] with impunity without needing to do the long reload is nice.
[Primed Flow]: More energy is more energy restored by Bloodletting and thus fuels [Quick Thinking].
[Primed Continuity]: Too balance out the negative of [Transient Fortitude] but it's not really necessary.

Several of these mods can be easily replaced for more power strength (until you hit 95% slow on Gloom) or range. Armor doesn't really do much for you since everything is moving hella slow. Hilariously, you do not want ANY health mods since having lower health reduces the amount of health used by Bloodletting which lets you mash bloodletting more easily.
How to play Gloomforge [Garuda]
Start every mission by Bloodletting twice for energy and turn on Gloom. Reload using Bloodletting and just never stop firing. [Dread] Mirror and Seeking [Talons] kind of rarely see play since you have to slow down to use them. I only keep [Dread] Mirror due to the rare circumstance where I almost made a jump and there's an enemy where I want to go. Seeking [Talons] is Garuda's best ability by far but you only really need it in Steel Path. Gloom will let you stand a bit away from a Kuva Lich/Sister of Parvos and just shoot at them until they die. Weaknesses include being oneshot by high level [Disruptor] ancients because they still exist in this game. Gloomforge is a rather edgy name for this build huh. I normally use this build in basically all non-defense/Eidolon/Orb related content, including Steel Path. I would use this build with weapons with long reload times and small clip sizes but you could honestly use it with anything. Sadly [Garuda]'s [Talons] are kind of meh, I tend to just use [Karyst Prime] instead. I would pair this with a Vulpaphyla since your companion will likely die a lot since you don't have any health mods for Link-Health.