There are a lot of different shards to equip in this game, to the extent that I probably haven't tried even half of the ones that I currently have. So, I just wanted to get a feel for what people are liking in case there's something awesome that I haven't been paying any attention to.

Here's some of my favorites so far:

• Riga Storaema - Very powerful against ground based enemies. Once you increase the rank on this spell a few times, it will fill the entire screen with columns of fire and hit anything in front of you multiple times.
• Riga Dohin - Solid directional attack that similar to Riga Storaema will stay in place long enough to get multiple hits. Also, this is one of several shards that seem to only be craftable and can't be collected from an enemy - it took me a while to even notice Johannes had shards he could craft.
• True Arrow - This is the directional attack I was using up until I got Riga Dohin, and I may actually go back to it. It's basically just an arrow shotgun that can do enough damage to take out most flying enemies pretty quickly.
• Familiar: Silver Knight - You get Silver Knight from collectibles around the castle rather than getting it from an enemy. None of the other familiars that I've tried has even come close to being as good. Attacks often and does decent damage and will occasionally deflect attacks.

True Arrow is pretty much the GOAT until you get Chaser Arrow. Welcome Company (portraits that swirl around you) does insane damage, lasts until you scroll to the next screen, and only costs 40 MP. The other thing it does is make it really easy to find hidden walls/floors/ceilings. You just activate it and run around, they automatically damage anything around you so walls get instantly revealed.

The book familiar does decent damage, but the main thing it does is grant you a strength buff that increases with grade/rank. Right now the buff gives me 13 strength. The fairy familiar is also decent, she reveals hidden walls and heals you if you have fairy potions. Silver Knight is the best from a pure damage dealing standpoint, but he doesn't provide any utility.

The RB/R1 shards have been lackluster so far. I've got 4 of them, and none of them are worth the MP. I could imagine the one that gives you a stat increase being decent in the late game if you rank it up, but right now it only gives like 5 strength/intellect and costs way too much MP to maintain, even if you feather it.

@doctordonkey: Yeah. I also haven't found an RB shard that's really worth it.

All of the RB options are terrible so you never have to feel like you have to make a choice for Accelerator.

True Arrow, Silver Knight, and Head Flail have stayed with me since getting them and I haven't really seen a reason to switch to anything else.

Except for the one where you can summon a lady in a black and red outfit who shreds out a metal tune on the guitar. I might upgrade that as much as possible and use it for shits and giggles.

I don't know if I've ever had a good one. I hate messy underwear.

Oh.

Ohhh.

Alchemic Bounty breaks the game entirely (especially version 1.00 with an item dupe glitch). Even on the newer patch, you'll still get a ton of materials to sell/use.

Head Flail is pretty good for some AoE damage, hits enemies in front and behind if you upgrade it a couple of times. True Arrow also good bang for your buck, and i really like the 'lighting strike all enemies on screen' for quick mob clean-up.

In regards to RB/R1 shards. Bunnymorphosis is good early on because the bunny has it's own stats and that includes a seemingly high luck stat, so it's good for farming items in the early to mid game before you can boost your own luck too high.

I am also using Riga Storaema. It is also greast on large bosses as they can get hit by multiple pillars.

The other I use is the Heretical Grinder which is a directional shard that summons a sword that spins from your hand and allows you to move it around 360 degrees. Upgrading it increases its coverage. The strength of it is its dmg. It hits constantly very quickly aslong as you hold down the button. Though if you get hit it will interrupt you.

Riga Storaema is pretty much the best in the game as far as I'm concerned. It is beyond busted against large enemies where it can hit multiple pillars in one go, and still pretty good against other grounded enemies.

True Arrow is good for how much damage it does at a distance, basically a shotgun you get early in the game.

The only one I haven't seen in this thread yet is Teps Oceus which is a homing chain lightning attack. I use this very actively to clear the screen of annoying small enemies like bats, toads and medusa heads. You can use it through walls, it hits multiple enemies and you don't have to aim it!

EDIT: @doctordonkey you probably know this already by now, but the Silver Knight actually does have utility. He will block attacks for you if you hide behind him. It's very useful for bosses that do long lasting large streams of attacks like breaths or blood...

@tobbrobb: I actually didn't know that, that's cool. I just stuck with the book for the entire game because of the strength buff it grants you. Although at some point, it really doesn't matter what combination of shards you use because you become so ridiculously powerful. The crafted shards in particular are basically the "grand magic" of this game and are absurdly powerful.

I also rescind my previous post about the R1/RB spells. Bunnymorphosis and Shadow clone are ridiculoiusly powerful.

@justin258: Upbeat Heat! There's a mod that replaces the song she plays with a metal cover of Bloody Tears: https://youtu.be/383dCbazwFo.

The shard that broke the game for me was Tis Rozain, the light beam. I stopped using weapons after upgrading that and ran around zapping everything.

OK, that's just the fucking best, I really, really wish that had been in the main game. Konami wouldn't have let that happen, but man, that would have been great.

I also favor the bunnygirl formchange over other RB moves, but part of that is because it's a toggle whereas the self-buff and shadow clone require you to hold down the button. I wonder why they did that?

@superjoe: I'll echo the support for Tis Rozain. I didn't discover how good it was till around the last 6 or so hours of my game but once I did it felt like nothing else matched up. It's so satisfying to use, does a ton of damage and it looks awesome as well.

I'll also say that while it's not the greatest shard, "Fire Cannon" from the cannon enemies on the boat is pretty great and not at all balanced for when you can get and upgrade it.

It does more damage than True Arrow and seeker arrow against all enemies that don't have fire resist, you can upgrade it to rank 7 within the first hour or two of the game(allowing you to quickly get to 5 projectiles launched), but best and possibly most important of all it costs a whopping 18 MP to use which trumps everything else you could use for the first 8-10 hours of the game(and even longer depending on your luck). It's the spell I used for about 90% of the game right up to getting Tis Rozain. It's only real downside is that it has a fairly short range.

I've been rolling with Riga Storaema as my triangle, then Heretical Grinder for the early game followed by Chisel Barrage once I got it on the trigger.

For RB, I've generally been sticking to Heal, although Accelerate is pretty fun once you get it. It's late game though.

For a summon, I use the Dullahammer Heads, because you can get a ton of them going at once, and they do fairly good damage.

Edit: Also, just got Feral Claws for RB. I haven't played around with it yet, but it looks like it might be really good if it gets upgraded.

Just got the passive for reducing mp cost it's quite a game changer.

Before I just use shards that have low MP cost and can shoot forward or at an angle to cover blind spots. Seriously the water one you get at the very beginning, the fire cannon, and the arrows are what I use majority of the time until Welcome Company rolls around and only use it to deal with pesky bats and frogs that are often at difficult to hit angles. Now I am trying out shuriken which seems to be an upgrade.

I find a lot of the damage once per second shards to be quite lacking, your attacks have way better dps once you get the passives + skill going. The rapid fire ones seem to be better.

Bunny, heal, stat buff, and even the shadow clones are all actually pretty good. Bunny is really strong early on because of high attack rate. I use the stat buff to basically face tank bosses. Now with the the mp reduction the heal can pretty much be constant.

The summoning monsters red shards are pretty good since it seems like you can have multiple types of them at once, the giant rats are big enough to be consistent damage.

I just stick with the sword as familiar since I want to level up the equipable sword.