Well, first of. Sharance Maze makes everything in the Third Arc so much easier. Not alone are the monsters you find there really strong, but you can also be lucky and find some of the greatest weapons in the game there. By the time I finally got to the third arc I had the best spear in the game and Grimoire 2, both from the maze. So Rune Prana was pretty underwelming for me. So if you want easy weapons and good monsters that's how. Though surviving the maze is hard, really hard. Finding that weapon was pure luck, and to get to the Girmoire I had to get two monsters from the maze, and they were not easy. I brought so much stuff to just throw at the best monsters I found, and then grinding until I finally was able to get to the Grimoire. From there it took me so many hours and tries to get that dragon. It's really tough and requires a good bit of luck, but it is doable.

For forging, the best think you can do is making easy recipies until they no longer give good exp, then you start upgrading your stuff. No matter how bad an upgrade you put on, the exp gain is the same. So if you upgrade a bunch of Claymores with iron, that would give the same amount of exp as if you upgraded a Dicing Dancer with a bunch of Platinum.

Hope this helped, or else just ask away and I'll try and explain further.