I'm all for the way of the "plant bomb, make ring of death, ring goes boom" method of doing things, but I know that the shard lines are missing a lot of their potential (not just because of the invincitinks, the little buggers.) So, what I'm proposing are two ideas that I believe may or may not bring them into a more useful light, while at the same time not overpowering them or making them even more useless in the process. Personally, I'm leaning more towards option #2.

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Option #1

Standard detonation like we have now that spreads the shards in the same fashion. Initial detonation causes damage. These "non-damaging" shards would instead now act like the shards from the Tortoguns, but would not be treated as solid objects. Enemies in PvE would ignore them and treat them like they weren't there, allowing kiting to happen easily. Targets would be able to pass through them, but they would still cause damage when touched. Any status variant would not trigger the status unless the shards exploded.

Option #2

Standard detonation like we have now that spreads the shards the same fashion. Initial detonation causes damages. The shards would stick in the ground like normal, but would do nothing if untouched. After X amount of time of nothing touching them, they would crumble away. If these shards are touched, however, they would stick to the target and become "active." These shards would then detonate a short time after being "activated," causing what could potentially be a chain of explosions.

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I feel this would bring them not quiiite up to par with other alternatives, but would at least make them far more useable. I love the Shard lines, both the old and new mechanics, and I would like to see them used more often. In Lockdown, it would give bombers other options to deal with statuswalkers. I feel they would sort of balance themselves (even without invincitinks) due to knights naturally having invinciframes. Then again, if we're to look at option #2, depending on the timing between getting shards stuck, the explosions could possibly bypass the invinciframes and turn the shards into a greater area denial tool than they already can be.

That's about all. Thoughts, opinions and suggestions are welcome.