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MetalShards

People keep asking about shards, so here's a quick rundown of what's known so far...

What are shards? Shards ("<color> metal shard" to give them their proper name) are an item you can add to a sword, just like dust except that you can only add one shard during swordsmithing and one during expertising for a maximum of two (making the final sword "dual sharded").

What do they do? Visually a shard adds a colored "trail" to the trailing edge of the weapon you added it to which becomes visible when you move between squares and when you attack (the trail will follow the path your blade takes).

Each shard adds 5% damage to the sword by improving its damage stat, which is the same as one level of guild fighter spec. Technically two shards should give a 10% damage boost but I believe the final result is closer to 15% (purely rumor, I don't yet own such a sword).

What colors do shards come in? Shards come in a variety of colors White, Yellow, Orange, Blue, Purple, Green, Red, Aqua and Pink. As far as I'm aware the only difference between the colors is the colored effects they produce.

Where can I get a shard? The primary source of shards is players using Dismantle Guide on good swords and getting lucky. A secondary source of shards is buying them from other players, although the prices are all over the place, generally being anywhere from 30m-50m upwards.

Yes shards come from dismantle, but not every sword is able to produce a shard, and even those that are able only have a small chance of actually producing one. Much of the "rules" behind getting a shard are currently rumor and conjecture, the only solid things we've been told are;

1. The weapon needs to be a special age (we assume fully aged).
2. The dismantle process needs to return dust.
3. Even if those two steps are satisfied there is still only a 5% (20:1) chance of a shard appearing when the sword is dismantled.

Currently people seem to assume that the blade needs to be made of vizorium ingots or better and be dusted with 50-100 blues and 50-100 red or white, and then fully aged - some also suggest that the sword needs to be expertised and fully aged again.

Anything else to know about shards? They add the same amount of TD as a dust for smithing purposes, and the visual effects don't carry over between GS and Expertise - if you want the "trail" on the expertised stage then you need to add another shard / the shard into the expertise materials.

-Rika