This can be very useful when the same shader needs to be able to run on less powerful hardware. With the technique material you can now make up to four different techniques per shaders. This allows you to create the best looking shaders for powerful graphics cards and create cheaper shaders for low-end hardware.

Other uses of the technique material can be to be able to flag objects that need to require certain scene effects such as bloom/glow by adding a second technique in the shader of the objects that the engine can switch to when bloom is being applied.