Honkai: Star RailPhainonBest build, teams and other guides

Phainon is a visually stunning and unique Physical Destruction character. His Ultimate will have him transform into a vastly powered-up state and will have all other allies leave the field, leaving him the sole member. He gains Enhanced actions and inflicts every enemy with Physical Weakness by default during his Ultimate transformation. He has exceptionally high damage multipliers and is the first unit that appears to be intended to be played without a sustain.

At last, the hero arrives onto the scene. Phainon is here to bring Deliverance to his foes, and his likeness to a certain Flame-Chaser from Honkai Impact 3rd appears to be well earned. He's essentially just a playable Boss character, and as such demands the spotlight when it's his time to shine, playing just like a Boss would do as well.

Phainon has two sets of actions to get through, one set for when he's outside of his Ultimate, and the other for when he is Transformed by his Ultimate.

We'll start with his actual Ultimate and Energy mechanics. He's got a unique Energy bar just like Acheron and Feixiao; he uses 12 points of Coreflame to enter his Ultimate, and can store an excess of 3 points. Upon using his Ultimate, he will Transform into... Well, you'll see.

During this transformation, Phainon deploys a Territory (spooky). All of Phainon's allies will become Departed and so cannot take action, and all enemies within the Territory will gain a Physical Weakness.

Phainon has a unique turn count during this transformation as well, but it's a bit complicated. He gains 8 'extra turns' to use during the Ultimate. These are not real Extra Turns that happen outside of the Action Order, but they do inherit the property of not having buffs tick down on each of the 'extra turns'. These 'extra turns' have a fixed SPD value equal to 60% of Phainon's base SPD. This is for the entire duration of his Ultimate, meaning that all 8 turns (the duration of the Ultimate) will be equal to 60% of his base Action Value (AV).

At the start of the final 'extra turn', Phainon will automatically launch a Final Hit, dealing up to 960% ATK, distributed evenly among all enemies present. This will end the Ultimate's Transformation and will return base Phainon and his allies to the field, with the same AV they left at.

This forms the core gameplay loop of Phainon. You accumulate points of Coreflame as base Phainon and then use those points to enter his Ultimate's transformation and rain fire and brimstone upon his enemies.

As base Phainon, his Basic ATK is a standard one dealing 100% ATK to one enemy and restoring 1 Skill Point. His Skill grants him 2 points of Coreflame, and then deals a Blast AoE of 300% ATK to a target enemy and 120% ATK to adjacent ones. This Skill is important for getting points of Coreflame quickly, so remember this for later.

His base Talent also helps with accumulating Coreflame. When Phainon is the target of any target's ability, he gains 1 point of Coreflame. This means ally or enemy, it doesn't matter, so getting hit by enemy AoE attacks will also grant him 1 Coreflame. If he's targeted by an ally, Phainon gets 30% increased CRIT DMG for 3 turns.

While transformed, all of these abilities are Enhanced, including the Talent, and he even gains a third ability to use instead of his Ultimate, being put on the W key. He will also gain a new resource to manage called Scourge. He does not consume or generate Skill Points during his transformation, in fact they're completely inaccessible during his Ultimate.

The Enhanced Talent will grant Phainon 4 points of Scourge upon transforming. If he transforms during an ally's turn, it will forcefully end their turn and extend all positive effects on them by 1 turn. During the transformation, Phainon is completely immune to Crowd Control debuffs, gains an Enhanced Basic and 2 Enhanced Skills (I'll refer to these as Enhanced W Skill and Enhanced E Skill), and gains 80% ATK and increases his Max HP by 270%. You can hold up to 7 points of Scourge in the Ultimate.

When Phainon attacks, he restores 20% of his Max HP. Should he take a mortal blow, instead of getting knocked down, Phainon will immediately use the Final Blow of his Ultimate and will restore 25% of his Max HP. When used in this way, the final damage of the Final Blow will be reduced by 12.5% for every 'extra turn' that remains; if you fall at the 7th turn, you'll deal 87.5% of the original damage, but if you fall at the 2nd turn, you'll only deal 25% of the original damage.

His Enhanced E Skill is the focal point during this transformation. It spends up to 4 of the accumulated Scourge points to gain a ramping total damage multiplier. For every point of Scourge consumed when used, it will deal 4 instances of DMG equal to 45% ATK. These DMG instances are Bounces that hit one random enemy at a time. When consuming 4 points of Scourge, there will also be an extra hit at the very end of the attack dealing 450% ATK, distributed evenly between enemies on the field.

This means that this already visually impressive attack will have a total multiplier to match; 1 point grants 4 hits, 4 points grants 12, plus the final big hit at the end, and this Enhanced E Skill is dealing a potential 1170% ATK. There are extremely few attacks in the game that can reach that number on a single enemy. There is very little reason to use this ability at fewer than 4 points of Scourge, as you sacrifice a tremendous amount of damage.

His Enhanced W Skill acts as a momentary self-enhancement. You'll gain points of Scourge equal to the number of foes on the field and also gain 1 stack of Soulscorch, then you'll cause all enemies to immediately take action. Yes you read that right, you literally advance the enemies forward.

This Soulscorch state will reduce the DMG Phainon takes by 75%, and he will gain an additional stack of Soulscorch after enemy targets attack or take action. Once the final enemy has taken their action, Phainon will immediately launch a Counter, dealing 40% ATK to all enemies, and then having 4 instances of DMG dealing 30% ATK (this is also a Bounce).

Each stack of Soulscorch will increase the Counter's DMG multiplier by 20% of the original multiplier, so this is final damage multiplication like what Acheron has on her Bonus Trace. The damage dealt by this Enhanced W Skill is considered as Skill DMG. Should the Counter not be launched by the next 'extra turn', it will be launched automatically at the start of Phainon's 'extra turn'.

His Enhanced Basic is a Blast AoE, dealing 250% ATK to a target enemy and 75% to adjacent foes. It will also grant 2 points of Scourge upon use. This is useful for those sick 1v1 duels you may find yourself in where you can't get enough value out of his Enhanced W Skill, as usually it'd be better to use that if you're against 3+ enemies (and if there is no downside to advancing the enemy action).

It's a lot to get through, and there's still the Bonus Traces:

• A2 will grant Phainon 1 point of Coreflame at the start of battle. Phainon does not start with any Coreflame by default, unlike how Acheron and Feixiao start with at least 3 of their unique Energy points, so this is quite a useful head start for Phainon. When the transformation ends, he will gain 3 points of Coreflame, accelerating his next Ultimate use.

• A4 will provide Phainon with a 45% DMG boost for 4 turns upon receiving healing or shielding effects from an ally. This is mostly as a way to help alleviate the damage loss you incur by not going sustainless in the event that your team is struggling to survive without one. This Trace will also make it so that when Phainon receives Energy from ally abilities, he will gain 1 point of Coreflame.

  • This is exceptionally useful for getting extra value out of teammates that have such Energy regenerating abilities like Sunday, Tingyun, or even Huohuo, and can greatly speed up the process of getting Phainon's first Ultimate in a fight.

• Lastly, A6 will provide a 50% ATK boost when entering battle, or after his Ultimate's transformation ends, and this can stack up to 2 times. This is functionally a free and permanent ATK boost that Phainon can gain, and combined with the ATK increase he gets from his Enhanced Talent, he's already very close to saturating his ATK stat all by himself.

It sure is a lot of words to describe what is functionally a very simple kit, and Phainon has an extremely high performance floor. This means that he's going to be strong right out of the gate thanks to his insanely high ability DMG multipliers. Even with just more readily available units, Phainon can end up dealing pretty ridiculous damage quite easily during his Ultimate.

You use his Enhanced E Skill upon transforming, then you use either Enhanced Basic or Enhanced W Skill to regain points of Scourge until you have 4 again, at which point you summon Meteor with the Enhanced E Skill again. At 4 targets you actually get to just alternate between Enhanced W and Enhance E, which is really quite strong.

… You know I'm about to hit you with an ellipsis followed by 'however'. Ahem... However, there are some rather unignorable things that should be mentioned that rather negatively impact the playing experience of Phainon.

One of the more glaring issues is the fact that his damage is always distributed among targets evenly. This is hardly a problem when you're in an honourable 1v1 duel as the contender will always take the full brunt of the Enhanced E Skill's massive damage multiplier, but as soon as more enemies start showing up, it gets more and more awkward to have your damage go onto the actually important target.

This is particularly noticeable inside of Pure Fiction where there are endlessly respawning adds that do nothing but divert important damage away from the boss onto themselves. It's noticeable in Apocalyptic Shadow as well, as even though the total Toughness Damage of the Enhanced E Skill is huge, if it's Bouncing pointlessly on summoned adds, it's going to feel like a slog to actually Break something.

Once actual AoE encounters start to get considered, the total damage multiplier of the Enhanced E Skill starts to become less impressive, especially as we already have a whole host of DPS characters who can multi-task both single-target and AoE extremely reliably and easily. Comparing to the behatted Peerless Gem seems almost unfair in this regard.

Don’t get it twisted, it is not unserviceable by any means. It’s just that the deeper you look, the more awkward things can become. Being alone on the field means that it can become difficult to deal with Boss mechanics; hit count mechanics become extremely difficult to meet, and quite a few bosses change their behaviour when there's only one living party member remaining in a way that makes things more challenging. It’s unlikely, but it’s something to keep in mind.

While he can heal in his Ultimate, it's not a huge amount per action, and using his Enhanced Counter to advance enemies can have devastating consequences if you're not aware of what it might cause them to do. This also means that Phainon can ironically run into issues against the Amphoreus Bosses like Nikador, Reaver, and Pollux.

The specific way his Ultimate interacts with Action Value is quite intriguing. Whenever conversations about Action Value or SPD happen, the rabbit hole opens up its maw like everyone's favourite Portly Pegasus, and it can be quite daunting, but it's important to at least be aware of these interactions if you want to optimise Phainon and play around some of his weaknesses.

His Ultimate functionally freezes ally Action Value, meaning if they're at 0 before you enter his Ultimate, they will still be at 0 when the Ultimate ends. This can lead to some funky optimisation with things like Dance! Dance! Dance! or with Robin's Ultimate, making it so that allies can act immediately as soon as Phainon's Ultimate ends, getting the ball rolling for Phainon's next Ultimate.

Boots main stat choice can also play into this quite heavily (and SPD substats), as having a good amount of SPD can be useful for eking out extra points of Coreflame sooner and have ally turn order be exactly the way you want it for a fast second Ultimate as well, though the exact values you need for this depend on the particular SPD tuning of the Action Advancing supports you'll be using.

As allies literally cannot act during the Ultimate, they have no way of regenerating their own Energy, meaning they'll struggle to keep their buffs going if the fight is taking too long. Usually by the time you get to Phainon's 3rd Ultimate, your supports are going to be running out of juice, so this is when you would want to consider bringing a healer.

Speaking of supports, yeah, you're going to want the Action Advancers by default. The Angel, as well as the OG, Sunday and Bronya. More actions for Phainon means faster Coreflame generation, and especially since all of the buffs from these two supports explicitly target Phainon, he can get an influx of Coreflame from them as well.

Sunday grants a lot all by himself due to Phainon's A4 getting extra value out of Sunday's Ultimate, and having him be SP efficient, while meaningless during Phainon's Ultimate, is extremely important for the downtime between transformations, as Phainon needs Skill Points to get Coreflame points from his base Skill.

Bronya provides an excellent DMG% boost as well, and her buff lasting for only one turn isn't an issue since the Deliverer transformation has 'extra turns' that can functionally extend the duration of Bronya's Skill through the entire transformation, no Bronya E6 required. Being a second Action Advancer means even more opportunities to quickly build points of Coreflame for Phainon.

Both of these Harmony supports follow a trend, and are pretty much the best options for Phainon as of the initial writing. The SPD tuning can be a pain for newer players, since you ideally want Bronya's Advance to be last to keep the DMG buff from it throughout the entire Ultimate transformation of Phainon, but it's not that bad in general and definitely worth the effort to do. Just make Bronya 1 SPD slower than Sunday and you’re good to go.

However, these two also continue to saturate the stats that Phainon already has even further, with even more ATK% and CRIT DMG. Since Phainon is a one-man army, the 3rd team slot that would be reserved for a sustain is vacant, available for another support to take its place and provide more offensive value. You can still choose to run a sustain if you know the encounter is going to be going on for longer.

You have a great number of options for this final slot and it'll all depend on what you're against and what you're going for (and also what you have available). Robin is a great option for the Action Advance shenanigans you can pull, as well as the setting of AV for better 2nd Ultimates, as well as more DMG% buffs. The Remembrance Trailblazer is also a great accessible option for the Action Advance from Mem and the True DMG buff that persists through the Ultimate as well, though it's a little harder to sustain if the fight lasts too long (and the SPD tuning for Mem can be agony).

Cipher is also absolutely fantastic, as her Bonus Trace provides 40% Damage Vulnerability to all enemies passively and permanently for just being on the team, and her damage accumulation Talent means that she can provide a great True DMG nuke during Phainon's downtime, keeping up the pressure and potentially allowing for even faster clears. The trade-off is that Cipher won't be contributing to Coreflame generation, but Sunday and Bronya can sustain Phainon’s opener by themselves, so it’s not an issue. Tribbie is in the exact same boat, just with RES PEN instead of Vulnerability.

Some really accessible options are Tingyun and Gallagher. Tingyun, like Sunday, also benefits from Phainon's A4 letting her Ultimate generate 2 points of Coreflame instead of just 1, and can provide some decent buffs as well. Her Skill also gives an additional instance of DMG when Phainon attacks which can be quite nice especially if you lack the stronger supportive options, though do keep in mind that you’ll get a lot less value out of her buffs and she can be quite SP intensive.

Gallagher is really the option for when you're stuck on Skill Points during the opening moments of a fight. He can use his Skill on Phainon to generate Coreflame stacks, and with his Ultimate, Gallagher can do this twice in succession, but know that by bringing a sustain, you are sacrificing a tremendous amount of potential damage, so this is only if things are really dire.

The better healer to bring along for Phainon is Huohuo, since she can actually provide even more Coreflame generation for Phainon, and also (more importantly) Energy for the rest of your allies, meaning it’s less painful to get things set back up after Phainon’s gone through a couple Ultimates. Especially if Skill Points are not an issue, and you definitely need a sustain, Huohuo is the way.

The common theme is to try and get enough damage out, quickly enough that the fight ends within the span of a couple transformations, because Phainon's allies won't be able to keep up the pace forever, and if you have to transform without getting buffed by allies first, you'll have a really bad time and will be wasting a lot of time in whatever endgame mode you're in.

Phainon is an absolute stat monster, but he is also kind of a 'stat-checker' unit; if you have the stats to win the fight before it starts taking too long, you'll get through it easily and without much hassle at all. But should there come a point where the enemy stats are higher than yours can keep up with, and you need to start worrying about teammates' Energy and HP values, things can start to become messier and messier the more Ultimates he needs.

He has extremely high potential to improve with future supports, but it's important to evaluate him as he is right now, and that evaluation is this: He is still a DPS from the Amphoreus patch cycle, so he is not weak by any stretch of the imagination, and even though he's a simple stat-checker, the bar he sets for enemies is extremely high, so he's not going to be suddenly falling off very soon.

If you do not have a DPS from the 3.x patch cycle, you should seriously consider getting Phainon (and Sunday *cough*), as he will make your life that much easier. Just be aware that he is far far more stat reliant than other main DPS characters, so you really need to make sure his personal relics are as good as they possibly can be. Put in the effort to build the team before you go into a fight, so that the fight itself can be over in a flash.

And so it shall be, for when the night is encroaching, know that the Sun will rise again.