Anyone who doesn’t run the zero cost shard gen is either stupid or just incredibly unlucky to have gotten one.
If anything RIP exp curve.
Or, you know, doesn’t have to rely on one. Part of using strategy in a match is using your shards efficiently. Just because someone doesn’t need a shard generator, unlike you, doesn’t mean they are stupid.
I used one on Mellka for awhile, and then decided I could use that spot for something else. Yet I still managed my shards properly.
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If you play well enough you don’t need to buy any robots or turret early game
Me and my mate always run full legendaries without any shards item and we have like 90% win in pvp… because after 15min we are just invincible… and whenwe all are full stuff we can spam those robots… but mercenaries are better and free
The key is the map control, we always go and steal enemy crystals and mercenaries we never had any problem playing like that
We always laugh about team with full white items or those player who rush the Laser Turret when the game start, because they will have so many useless shards when the game ends
ofc we can play without them but they are very strong, Vow of Vengence + Vow of Fury + Boots of Brutes = +50% more DPS and perma slow… if you take them purple you loose so much… so yes it’s worth
You just need to play a bit more safe early game but keep pressure to not let them take any crystals or mercs
In some parts of the world (or anyone who has an Android phone), there’s also this mobile game that just came out that forces people to go outside and go for walks while draining their battery life. Given how much it has blown up over the weekend, I would feel it would have a much bigger impact to the Battleborn queue times (in all modes) during the Lootpocalypse than a higher legendary drop rate. 
The last few weekend events have been arguably more beneficial to PvP players so it is only right PvE players get some love too.
I suspect Gearbox is using this to test the boss drop behaviour more so than straight up making players happy as there have been reports/beliefs from players that boss drops are inconsistent (rather than RNGJesus just trolling them) and to me the best way to test this is significantly boosting the drop rates for a period of time to get a better sample size of data. Don’t get me wrong, I really want the drop rates to stay as they are now and absolutely love the idea of a Lootpocalypse (where were you back when I played Borderlands 2…
), but the developer in me thinks this is the main reason why we are getting showered in orange right now 
I totally plan to not work on any more Battleborn projects this weekend and go all out in completing my Legendary collection (or at least what I can get from bosses), that will serve no purpose other than being complete, shiny and badass.
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Only time I use 2 is if I’m running Miko
I’ll do 0 cost shard, Miko lore, and Song of Vigor
Following others around I pick up shards from minions so I get them both relatively fast
With Biosynthesis and SoV, those around me get a pretty decent Hps even when they aren’t beamed
I run 2 Legendaries and a Purple in all 9 of my loadouts across 9 different characters.
It’s really not hard to get shards and I base when/how I activate my gear on how the match is going. That’s kind of the point…
I’m not calling anyone stupid, but why not run an uncommon shard gen with a penalty. It’s only 420 and you don’t waste a third of your loadout just on shard gen. At least you get one additional bonus. It takes almost no time to get 420 shards on any map.
I actually sold all of my zero cost gear because I couldn’t see wasting any slot on just one bonus.
It’s only really needed in Capture where it’s almost impossible to grab enough shards. I hardly even needed a shard gen in Meltdown - and then again it would probably only be Quatermastery Bin.
There’s a zero-cost shard gen piece? I must have been super unlucky…
Because over the course of a game its 3600 shards that you didn’t have to pick up.
You times that by 5 and well that’s 18k shards your team didn’t have to pick up or find. Even if you use them just for buying buildables you are massively ahead on the exp curve compared to someone just saving up for a legendary.
…I have more than 500 hours into Advanced PvE but last night some friends coaxed me into PvP.
After agreeing I realized the 4 loudouts I have were all shard+legendary builds and to activate anything for Galiliea I’d have to rob from my team. Granted we share 20%, but still, I only allowed myself to activate one each match.
You made some very good points there G. 
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Any white piece of gear with a penalty (the attributes listed in red) will have a shard cost of 0, including shield generators. People often try to find one with a penalty that doesn’t apply to their character (like giving Alani a penalty to reload speed or recoil redux, which have no effect on her) so that the only effect is the benefit.
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No, it’s only 420 shards more than an uncommon shard gen with a penalty and you get the extra bonus.
The whole point about deciding between running a Common or Uncommon Shard Collector is how quick you can get your hands on Shards in the map.
If you manage to grab 420 Shards in the first 2 minutes, you’ll only lose about 252 of the ~3780 Shards you could generate over a whole round. That’s only a small percentage of your total possible Shard Generation, for which you could get another Bonus on your Shard Collector. Both options have their benefits 
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Good point, I totally missed that aspect.
I’ll be playing PvE only as I need to take a break from Battleborn’s PvP for a while.
This is probably a good indicator of how the entire playerbase will behave (sans those who absolutely will not play public/story modes for one reason or another). As soon as our group of friends all reached CR100 in story mode, everyone turned to PvP for a new challenge. When the shine wore off, we started playing a couple of story missions a night, too.
I use “everyone” and “we” loosely, as we didn’t all follow this pattern to the same minute, but the pattern emerged nonetheless.
GBX has and will heavily influence this pattern with special events and many who have forsaken one mode or another (or the game entirely) will be enticed by patches, DLCs and new BB.
This keeps it fresh for me. Maybe the timing hasn’t always been in my favor, but I haven’t been disappointed for more than a couple of days at a stretch before things picked up again. Here it is, July, and the next big thing is around the corner. I’m just hoping we have the bandwidth left over to download it.
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Totally agree.
That’s the key. “Keep it fresh.”
While continuing to tune up the game and add all the little special events and goodies.
PvP is fun but a guy like me has to know his limitations.
I’m not a fast twitch artist by any stretch (age does that to you by the way…dammit)…and have to rely on understanding mechanics, weapon systems, terrain, etc.
And some times I have it down perfectly …the right build, tactics and equipment and know the map like the back of my hand.
Only to have some fella or young lady with much faster reflexes wipe the floor with me…LOL
I can still out shoot their ass on a REAL rifle or pistol range…any day of the week. But that counts for squat game wise.
So I enjoy going back to PvE every now and then and the Loot event coming up is really timely as PvP has kind of lost its attraction to me right now.
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Bah! I say and Humbug!
Just because we weren’t born with a mouse in one hand and a console controller in the other . . .
Two thumbs up for knowing your own limits though. 
Of course everyone knows their limits until they sail past them, but that’s another thread for another forum.
Now, take your new-fangled gadgets and get off my lawn!
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Also when you load in the game you can generate prolly 70ish shards just waiting in the base.