Hyper Shard 4.

Another week, another disappointment. So far Vicious Strikes is the only good shard.

I’ve been very pleased with the results I am getting from Mass Destruction in multiple defenses. So, i’d Say that one is very useful as well!

I have not earned explosive shielding guard yet, but I use shielding guard on a lot of my walls. So, by using this hypershard on an Orc blockade or LM blockade (or any wall for that matter, but I mention those as they have the highest HP of all the walls), it looks like I will get free Dmg while getting the benefit of shielding guard as well! 

I don’t see a down side here...

Walls don't get hit very often, if at all,  in most content. In mastery they do, sometimes, but Power Pylon is way better. So it's a very slight upgrade over the 3rd best shard for walls...

Mass Destruction is only good in one defense, Skyguard, due to its poor crit scaling. Otherwise the shard is worse than other options that aren't limited. Non-factor.

As I said earlier in another thread...

@Hom-Sha-Bom quote:

365 Stars:  Explosive Shielding Guard

This is a weird one. Explosive Guard and Shielding Guard are both crap. Combining them will probably still be crap. I suspect in order to be useful the numbers would have to be in the range that Trendy would consider too OP, so I'm not expecting much from this one until we actually see it.

Looks like it did turn out predictably bad.

@The Jason Order quote:

Walls don't get hit very often, if at all,  in most content. In mastery they do, sometimes, but Power Pylon is way better. So it's a very slight upgrade over the 3rd best shard for walls...

Mass Destruction is only good in one defense, Skyguard, due to its poor crit scaling. Otherwise the shard is worse than other options that aren't limited. Non-factor.

And weapon manufacturer and Poison Dart tower and Proton Beams and Flame Aura and Flame Thrower and and and I could go on. It's useful everywhere, even if you don't want to use it.

And Shielding Guard is not useful anywhere, even if you want to use it. It's not based on the actual health of the blockade. It's based on the "Defense Health" stat.

@The Jason Order quote:

Mass Destruction is only good in one defense, Skyguard, due to its poor crit scaling. Otherwise the shard is worse than other options that aren't limited. Non-factor.

I gotta say I disagree here. Put it in a Nimbus and try it on for size;)

Mass Destruction is good in multiple defenses, and is always a replacement for vampiric with a lot more damage.

Explosive shielding guard is a pretty damn good shard for mastery and you can use it on every wall. Power pylon is cool but depending on how you build you're not gonna buff a lot of defenses to make it worth it anyway.

Vicious strikes is enabling a lot of cool builds so its a all around good shard.

The crit one is honestly a little disappointing but it's a boot shard and if you didn't know, you get a lot of value from it in mastery where you have to defend lanes by yourself very often.

[[39695,users]], No. It's a question of Math. In Mastery mode, you get more damage out of Power Transfer and Crit Chance, assuming you want Range (most towers are almost unplayable with the Range shard). If you don't, speed is usually better, in that although your numbers are slightly lower, your actual in game performance is higher. Outside of Mastery, it's an extremely minor DPS increase over a campaign shard. For something that's limited to 1, it shouldn't be a 5% increase over something I can get in 2 minutes. It only shines on towers with poor crit scaling, which is basically only Skyguard. So no, it's not useful everywhere.

[[131681,users]]-Sha-Bom Yeah, not impressed. Keep in mind 500% of Defense Health is a whopping 150k Damage at Chaos 7 every 5-10 seconds. That's completely negligible at the absolute best case. The only value is the extra % chance on the shield. So it's worth, over the course of a match, probably less than half of Fortification. Not impressed.

[[175681,users]], Vicious Strikes a complete game changer, making a lot of mediocre/bad towers suddenly viable or even top tier. Boost Auras, with slow and double range is insanely strong, especially in Mastery that limits you to only certain defenses or to one of each, since it more than doubles the effectiveness of some defenses. Double Range on a Ramster on some maps lets you ignore all non boss / Lady Ork minions, since it will clear out any trash before they reach your walls. It's easily the best Hyper Shard. I agree. I'm just lamenting how mediocre the other shards are. Mass Destruction is simply a side grade for most towers, and a minor DPS increase even in the abosulte best case.

On one of the M3 maps that didn't allow auras or nodes, I used flame towers with Deadly Strikes, Vicious Strikes, and Mass Destruction for all lanes.  The added damage with the extra long range worked like a charm, allowing me to set the flame towers back out of harms way and still cover a long distance.

My hype is low.

I think mastery is a fun thing for many players, but sadly its not for me. The multi builder stuff is not my cup of tea and neither is spending more time in my inventory then in combat. I think will wait for new content, enjoy mastery guys and your "slightly better then standard shards", hopefully the thunderstruck will be super strong and fun.

I usually use Fort., Spikes, and Shields in my squire barricades (I rarely have many defenses near the barricade, so Power Pylon isn't very useful).  Explosive Shielding Guard will allow me to included Exploding Guard as well, in essence giving me 4 shard slots (Fort., Spikes, Shields, and Exploding).  Don't see an issue.