Pact Shards

Pact Shards () is a new mechanic introduced in The Last Divinity (DLC).

Pact Shards can be collected in DLC exclusive overworld events, primarily Divine Temples. They can also be obtained via Divine Boons, Divine Hoards, and certain other special events. Outside standard runs, there are Mutators that add shards.

The more Pact Shards you collect, the harder the enemies you face will be. Collect 100 before the end of the run to unlock a final battle.

As you gain more Shards, more enemies before the boss will be upgraded, and the boss itself will grow stronger. This includes bonus , , Status Effects, and abilities.

## Sources of Pact Shards

### Overworld Events

Limbo will have either Divine Boons or a Divine Hoard. Subsequent rings will randomly contain either a Divine Temple, Divine Boons, or a Divine Hoard.

If a player hoping to fight The Last Divinity reaches Ring 8 and realizes they will be unable to reach 100 Pact Shards using the Divine Event in that ring, they may consider choosing the path that contains the Hellvent and duplicating either a unit infused with an essence or a spell upgraded with Divine Temple spell upgrades in order to make up the difference.

Notes:

Duplicating a unit using the Fissure Concealed Caverns event will not add any Pact Shards, however the ability to purchase duplicates from the shop (enabled by the  Buying Power Mutator) will.

### Other

The Hero's Burden Mutator adds +15 after each battle.

In addition to the normal sources, there is a Concealed Caverns event that can occur in Ring 3 in which Malicka will offer to allow the player to heal their Pyre in exchange for 5.

If this event appears, Malicka will appear again after every two fights to offer to restore your Pyre, generally at the rate of 5 per 10 restored, each event offering more than the last. If this event is encountered, Malicka will continue to appear regardless of whether the player ever heals this way.

Encounters:

* Concealed Caverns in Ring 3: Restore 10 for 5
* After the Ring 5 fight: Restore 20 for 10
* After the Ring 7 fight: Restore 30 for 15
* 100 or more: After the Seraph fight: Restore All  for 20

## Shard Costs

Every Enemy has Shard Costs, or Shard Upgrade Costs, associated with it. Each Battle, random enemies are upgraded to their ★ Version until the spent Costs approach the available Shards the player has taken.

Some additional rules that are worth noting:

* Enemies contained within a boss wave are excluded from shard upgrades. Flying bosses are not a part of any wave, and the waves containing the minibosses in the Last Divinity fight do not count for the purposes of this rule.
* As enemy pact shard upgrades are determined at the start of combat, Lightwings spawned by Seraph and other such units will never be upgraded to their pact sharded variants.
* Due to the way the list which controls the order in which enemies will be upgraded is constructed, the game attempts to upgrade one unit per each wave per iteration, resulting in a generally even distribution of pact sharded units across the waves. Anomalies can occur if there are not enough pact shards to upgrade a heavy unit, but enough left over upgrade a support unit in a later wave.

Table of Enemy Shard Costs

## Threat

*For Strategies related to Threat Levels, see Threats*

Before each Battle you will see a Threat Level indicator , which is filled with Threat Icons . This indicator shows a the Threat Level in 5 stages, ranging from 0 to 4 :

* None
* Low
* Medium
* High
* Extreme

This Threat Level is only an indication for the player of what challenge to expect from the Battle and has no direct influence on the difficulty.

## Reasons to take Pact Shards

There are several reasons to take Pact Shards. The reason to take a given amount of Pact Shards may indicate when in a run and how many Pact Shards to take.

* **Increasing Chance of Winning:**

The Benefit of taken Pact Shards can sometimes outweigh the negatives. Infusing of a unit to build an incredibly strong synergy, upgrading a spell your strategy centers around to carry your run or even allow for an infinite falls into this category. When Multistrike is important for the run and available in the shop, but the money can only be obtained by the Divine Boons, the added benefit often far outweighs the penalty of the added difficulty. One key thing to remember is that some champions perform better in lower amounts of Pact Shards, Champions like Tethys Titansbane who has a very low health total and thus gets punished much harder by added sweepers or spikes or Champions with rough stat boni but no inherent scaling, such as Burnbright Rector Flicker or Monstrous Penumbra benefit from playing a game with low amounts of Pact Shards. Fire Light Little Fade on the other hand benefits a lot when you are able to increase the strength of units with infusions and can copy them, while not being particularly negatively effected by higher amounts of Pact Shards.

* **Unlocking The Last Divinity:**

Fighting an extra boss at the end of a run can seem like a negative, but fighting The Last Divinity allows for several Unlocks, such as the Divinity Stamp on cards and many Logbook entries. When aiming to fight The Last Divinity for these unlocks, it is crucial to plan the run ahead to get to 100 shards, thus taking artifacts and coins from the Divine Boon can seem like a good choice to reach 100 Pact Shards. It is important to note that dying to The Last Divinity also negates unlocks you would have gotten by defeating Seraph.

* **Increasing Score:**

A run that fights the Last Divinity has a much higher Score threshold than a run that doesn't fight the Last Divinity and a higher number of Shards can help increase the Score even further, however added difficulty might also penalize score, either by making flying kills harder or by resulting in increased Pyre damage. These things have to be considered when increasing Pact Shard amount rapidly. It does not matter when the Pact Shards were taken, so taking Pact Shards in a later point in a run can be helpful.

* **Event Unlocks:**

Two Artifacts, Blank Pages and Shard of Divinity, can only be obtained in an Event before the Last Divinity when having 150 Pact Shards.