Source Shard User's Help!

Source Shard buff only last five seconds. It has a little long cooldown. My artifact is barely reaching level 100. My pet just stays idle for some reason. Should pets stay idle even though you are in combat? This idle only last for 1-2 seconds top but considering how short the buff is from Source Shard, I have concerns. Obviously getting the art to 200 is the goal and my gameplay might look different after that.

Is my pet staying idle because it has no power? Does Robot Side Kick also uses power (never really bothered to use RSK)? There's no ability to have your pet regenerate power aside from Sorcery and Earth. Am I using Source Shard wrong?

I honestly don't think it's working for me lol I refuse to add fortify golem to my loadout. Source Shard gives 200% yes and the only good thing about fortify golem is that it gives power. If I were to use a different powerset and use RSK, how will I have it regenerate power? Strictly opinionated, I have better needs than to use up a spot for my pet just so it can instantly use up all its power in one go. Also, how do I know if my pet is getting the buff and not my henchmen? Or is the buff only applies to your pets such as Grim, Quislet and Brick/Crystal etc...

The idle time is just part of the pet "Ai".

Crystal does less damage than RSK if you dont use fortify golem.

The neat part for Earth and Sorcery is that you can actually tell your pet when to do a high burst by using fortify golem/offering. That makes it ultimately good for source shard.

RSK uses power aswell, but you cant control its power regen. Its also much weaker in terms of burst for Source shard.

If you dont want to sacrifice a power slot for fortify golem, you shouldnt use source shard. All in all, having a specialised pet build with max artifacts myself, its really not worth it if you want to have the maximum possible damage. It not weak, but still lacks behind the meta. This shows most in grouped content.

Well I see players use RSK a lot and if they by choice want to have a pet build then they’re going to want to get Grim and Quislet. If all three pets want their damaged increased then that player will might be more inclined to get Source Shard even if they are not Earth Or Sorcery.

The thing is that earth and sorcery almost require fury/crystal when using source shard. This is because you can control these big hits and you can even time it to be a huge double hit. If you start a fight with them at max power you cast godwave hot a target to trigger the attack and instantly use fortify/offering while godwave is still up and you get 2 big hits. This is something you can not do with rsk.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to be earth or sorcery to use it. Source builds a pretty good set ups. The reason it lags behind other build is because pets can not take advantage of buffs like soders/colas/holiday/omega/troll buffs. Using a trinket buff also doesn’t help out. The more buffs you have access to the more it falls behind. But at the same time these tend to be easier loadouts to use and still do damage. By design certain slots are taken by default.

Sorc/earth use: pet, pet feed, godwave, supercharge. 4 slots are taken by default
Other powers: rsk, godwave, supercharge

With sorc/earth you use 1 spam ability and 1 stringer ability and with other powers you can have a mix of abilities based on what power they are.

How long is the internal cooldown on Godwave's Strength? I remember an extra internal cooldown being mentioned in patch notes when the cooldown reset chance was increased from 10 to 25%, but I worry that some players may have put time and money into the artifact having no idea of the internal cooldown duration.

If you're not Earth or Sorcery, what artifact would you replace from Source Shard if you are going the pet route?

If you're not Earth or Sorcery, you probably shouldn't go the pet route to begin with if you expect to do decent damage.

Decent is subjective you can do good damage with different setups. Please don’t try to add META to this thread.

Oh I'm not trying to add meta. I'm trying to make sure nobody is adding DETRIMENT to their group.

idk, I'm messing around with source shard, Quislet and grimorium, it does OK damage, it's not top tier, but it keeps up with a bunch of people.

In fact, I'm water right now, I feel like water with pets isn't doing too bad compared to water might right now, I'm sure all the forum gangers will tell me how competitive water is soon, but whatever. I feel like the pet loadout is stronger than the actual might loadout.

My loadout consists of the pet buff from source shard, tsunami strikes, shark, high tide, robot sidekick and supercharge.

In an ideal situation I can pop the buff, clipped with supply + trinket + high tide, throw my shark and supercharge. This does some insane burst damage and your pets maintain some good dps too.

But the problem is, perception of the 'community' (or what's left) is very negative towards pet loadouts.

I have all three arts on my earth and rage. Well for my rage I have solar instead of source equipped. I feel like pet build for earth is stronger than on my rage toon (I don't use fortify on my earth anyways). I still need to further investigate and find a good loadout on my rage to see better results. I don't run a supercharge by the way. Hey your water pet build sounds fun. You can further increase your pet damage with Aquaman ally passive.

Word of advice, worry about yourself than others. What you believe to be right doesn't always mean failure. Skills will always be king when it comes down to everything. Artifacts are just icing on the cake.

I like Solar Amp. To get the good hit you are less inclined to clip out and the source shard cool down matters less.

I use fury (sorcery), grim and Quislet, with source shard. It's a strong build, but I think it would be significantly weaker with the rsk, unless you also had a nice burst loadout that could deal enough damage to compensate. It could be done, but doubtful with all powers.

IMO, gadget's suppressor turret greatly benefits from source shard as well. It does a little less damage compared to sorcery and earth pets when they are boosted but it makes up for it by doing a lot more damage than even RSK with just regular attacks.

Also, use the source shard for trinket pets too. The higher tier trinket pets do even more damage than the suppressor turret so make sure to tap on Godwave Strength when you summon your trinket pet and whenever it's still active.

Finally, Godwave strength is a great combo to Quislet supercharge attacks.

I thought turrets don’t get the buff from source shard?

Actual text on the artifact says "does not affect Turret Trinkets". The gadget pet, while a turret, is NOT a trinket.

EDIT: I have a gadget dps and tested it on sparring target - it gets buffed with source shard

Oh okay lol that’s cool then, are you able to have suppressor turret and rsk at the same time?

Nope. One explodes when you summon the other.

Imagine how insane the dmg would be if you could have more than 1 summoned pet at a time. Like, fury + guardian + RSK, pop godwave and observe the melting.