For me it is just hugely streaky on the opposite of what I need at the time. I’ve had a converter cascade with two match 5s to go from a mercy cast to filling abynissia to filling mercy back up with an extra turn cascade on a 4 match to filling abynissia and jotnar with another good convert with match 5s and had ONE troop barriered at the end of it. I still maintain this is one of the biggest reasons he feels so weak, since his damage is directly tied to how many barriers he can get up.
Anecdotally, the first troop is almost never barriered for me, though. I figured this was because of the prevalence of death/famine or just straight skulls taking it, but I never bothered collecting hard data on it.
for what its worth - for as long as we do not have any “intended” protection from “instant kill” mechanics im very glad that shield actually does that. Please do not “fix” it until you give a valid protection trait
Works well with a single troll on the team and other true damage troops, or with a troll/converter loop and another power troop as your 4th. Hes never going to be very fast, though, because of the setup required to make him a sniper coupled with his high mana cost, never generating mana, and always dropping the turn when casting.