Was Cyrene the biggest bait?
With this post I don't want to attack anyone who plays her, I just wanted to share my opinion on this topic now that her rerun is getting closer. I'll be only talking about her endgame performance with Phainon, everything about her performance beyond that won't be taken into account in this post.
When 3.7 dropped everyone was saying that she was definitely the BiS for Phainon teams even at E0 while going with or without a sustain, some even said that her role at making him don't exit his enhanced state was what would make Phainon last longer in the meta.
Fast forward to 4.0 we got Sparkle's novaflare, which gave Phainon some much desired buffs (damage taken, crit damage, ATK%, resistance penetration...) on top of her being free to select in that same patch. With that buff Phainon's DPAV improved substantially and, with the help of some vertical investment on your supports like E1 Cerydra, you could artificially maintain almost 100% uptime in Phainon's ultimate state.
If we compare both Phainon's BiS teams costwise with and without Cyrene:
- Phainon E2S1 / Cerydra E1S0 / RMC or Bronya E6S0 / Sparkle E0S0 (6+1 cost); DPAV=116,071
- Phainon E2S1 / Cerydra E1S0 / RMC or Bronya E6S0 / Sparkle E2S0 (8+1 cost); DPAV=171,648
- Phainon E2S1 / Cerydra E0S0 / RMC E0S0 / Cyrene E0S0 (6 cost); DPAV=92,258
- Phainon E2S1 / Cerydra E0S0 / RMC E0S0 / Cyrene E2S0 (8 cost); DPAV=136,643
As we can see Sparkle gives higher DPAV both at E0 and E2. Calculations about Sparkle and E2 Cyrene and Sparkle will be higher obviously, althought to make the comparison fair I didn't want to inflate the cost or use both together. All information and calculations come from Phainon's mastersheet:
With that said, I don't want to start war with anyone, I just wanted to share my thoughts about this topic. Hope you guys can understand and have a peaceful debate :)