Advice on upgrades to drop MTB weight

Agree that tires are definitely an easy place to save weight. There are definitely lighter options than the Forekasters that will likely work well. Which tires exactly will depend a bit on where you ride. The XC Tire Thread has some good discussion on that. I also agree it’s worth looking at droppers. The Fox Transfer and BikeYoke Divine are both light options, but $/g that won’t be as big a gain as tires. Those wheels are reasonably light, so probably not much to be gained there.