Strongest early game shard?

[Gerbilios]

My vote is cast on Gale Crawler due to how it words, how early you can farm it and how low its cost is.

[Sobek]

I personally really like Head Flail. It can be spammed fairly quickly. It can even hit things behind you. I used it quite a lot throughout my first playthrough.

It's dropped by the Dullahammer on the ship at the beginning.

[dustin1280]

Heretical Grinder
Flame Cannon
True Arrow
Welcome Company

[Krion]

True Arrow, Head Flail and Dullahan Head familiar if you're playing the game on hard.

[Zero]

Originally posted by dustin1280:

Heretical Grinder - Super OP
Flame Cannon - Regular OP
True Arrow - Super OP
Welcome Company - Super OP

These.

And the Carabosse (faerie) familiar. She will literally heal you back to full health during close fights. And block attacks if you get behind her when she creates her glyph before firing from it.

And Bloodbringer - the angriest sword familiar ever. The thing will yell in anger while cutting sparks across the ground, even when there are no enemies in the area.

[Gerbilios]

Originally posted by ant0ni00:

Originally posted by dustin1280:

Heretical Grinder - Super OP
Flame Cannon - Regular OP
True Arrow - Super OP
Welcome Company - Super OP

These.

And the Carabosse (faerie) familiar. She will literally heal you back to full health during close fights. And block attacks if you get behind her when she creates her glyph before firing from it.

And Bloodbringer - the angriest sword familiar ever. The thing will yell in anger while cutting sparks across the ground, even when there are no enemies in the area.

the awkward moment when one gravitated towards these day1 with no guides etc. Although captain Pork aimed shard works situationally

[Shrek 2 On DVD]

Originally posted by Krion:

True Arrow, Head Flail and Dullahan Head familiar if you're playing the game on hard.

Dullahan Head on hard can get to rank 9 on the boat. Don't even need to upgrade the alchemy level and this thing carries the first 4 boss fights easily.

[BBQ]

Originally posted by ant0ni00:

And the Carabosse (faerie) familiar. She will literally heal you back to full health during close fights. And block attacks if you get behind her when she creates her glyph before firing from it.

I think you will most likely already know that, but just to make sure, and for everyone who reads your tip, to not get a bad surprise. Carabosse does not heal you out of thin air. She uses up items from your inventory (if she did heal you for full health she might have used up one EX-Potion or fairie equivalent). So make sure you have your supplies when you need em. Just saying.

[Vicious]

Originally posted by Lunch Lady:

Originally posted by Krion:

True Arrow, Head Flail and Dullahan Head familiar if you're playing the game on hard.

Dullahan Head on hard can get to rank 9 on the boat. Don't even need to upgrade the alchemy level and this thing carries the first 4 boss fights easily.

Wait does hard have different enemy placement? There are no Dullahan Heads on the boat in normal unless there's somehow an area I overlooked?

[Shrek 2 On DVD]

Originally posted by Vicious:

Originally posted by Lunch Lady:

Dullahan Head on hard can get to rank 9 on the boat. Don't even need to upgrade the alchemy level and this thing carries the first 4 boss fights easily.

Wait does hard have different enemy placement? There are no Dullahan Heads on the boat in normal unless there's somehow an area I overlooked?

Hard add extra enemies alongside the original enemies. In the area of the boat where you have to move the box to get to the top level there's infinite Dullahan head spawns. They're the basic ones so they don't "stone" you but they are also the familiar shard variety. Which makes it the earliest in game familiar you can Rank 9. You can alchemically upgrade them by the time you're done with the 2nd boss I believe. Which gives you a permanent ever growing familiar with 5 attacks at any given time so long as it's 9. It does blunt damage too so most enemies are somewhat "weak" to it. It homes in and even when they disappear (which is a visual bug) they still do their damage after the internal cooldown is done. First boss doesn't stand a chance, neither does Cathedral hand.