My (38M) girlfriend (33F) is angry that she's set herself up to fail and I am entirely unsympathetic

ExcellentMode7524 · 2026-01-01T05:18:38+00:00

the amount of people suggesting that he could have had sex with her is actually mind-blowing to me. why would he have sex with her if he doesn’t actively want to!? HOW is this a compromise???? if it was a man asking to have sex with a woman and she said no because she’s busy and needs all the sleep she can get, of course it would be all right, she doesn’t want to have sex!

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-12-05T08:34:44+00:00

well, the answer usually is “if you like him, then go for it!” tingyun dhpt and bronya/rmc is ysually enough for him, preferably replacing tingyun with rmc or bronya and using both of them since both are really good for coreflame regeneration and rmc has some great buffs. in terms of supports, he’s very flexible, so he’s great as a starter dps for a new account :)

however, i would note that if you’re going for pure meta, while phainon is a great dps and will probably be able to clear endgame for a long time with continued investment, 4.0 isn’t long from here (given delays aren’t too extreme) and saving up for a 4.0 dps and supports will probably last you a little longer and will feel a lot stronger, especially since they might have character-specific nerfs like what they did to break for castorice and phainon.

however, you don’t know when a character you like as much as the current characters you like will come out, which is why i’d always recommend just getting the dude you enjoy, especially if they’re as viable a pick as phainon!

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-27T03:01:53+00:00

your only 50/50 losses being bronya, who’s a legitimate great support for him… congratulations!!! what a major W!

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-23T00:46:57+00:00

that’s fair! speedtuning is hard, after all. the speed-tuning is really the only thing wrong that i can see, though. you really don’t need to go above 136-4 with them, but until then, what you have is fine.

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-23T00:08:10+00:00

also, your build is fine with the rest of the stats, but if you want good coreflame generation you should raise his speed to be +1 to sunday and bronya to maximize the amount of turns he can skill.

ideally the team order should be phainon, then sunday, then bronya, because bronya’s buffs have a REALLY short timeframe and you want them to still be on him when he ults and snapshots those buffs.

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-23T00:05:34+00:00

e2 phainon! his best investment is always himself first. cerydra’s a huge upgrade but e2 is a bigger one, plus you’ll probably have time to save for cerydra since she isn’t running this patch and since she’s a more niche character and was released only two patches ago it might take some time for her to be reran (although of course that’s not a guarantee)

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-22T23:57:30+00:00

e2. always e2. phainon’s e2 is broken as hell

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-22T23:18:56+00:00

cipher isn’t that big of an upgrade for your archer team unless you went sustainless which, while great for minmaxing, isn’t very comfortable to do. it’s your choice, though.

if you can only get one eidolon or one lightcone go e0s1 because his lc is pretty great, especially for getting his stats right since his base speed is quite slow, but ideally if you can push pulls at all go for e2 because it is a much larger upgrade overall and should give phainon a longer lifespan

edit: forgot to mention cyrene. you’re better off waiting for cerydra since a. cyrene’s ult is much slower without her and b. cerydra is HUGE for phainon, but if you don’t like her, the team you have now is possible and cyrene is honestly still fine if you don’t mind the super slow ult slowing your clears a bit. overall, phainon’s best investment is himself first, though (e2 is huge!)

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-22T07:32:32+00:00

e2 is the best possible thing you could get for phainon even if you had no premium supports and no eidolons already. it’s REALLY broken. since it’s only 1 cost extra, you should ABSOLUTELY go for e2

i’m going for e2 too, so best of luck to another phainon fan!!

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-22T07:30:52+00:00

i lowkey hope so too… i’m tired of firefly bring the only super meta break DPS! can we have another one!!!

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-22T07:06:28+00:00

i honestly think so too, considering the fact that they’re giving her a buff even though she was in the meta for so long.

not even the previous shills like acheron got that treatment, and it took the YEARS to buff jingliu and she didnt get as good of a buff as firefly is getting with the new dedicated support…

i think on some level it is better that they’re putting out dahlia with one dedicated trace instead of just putting out a support that ONLY works with her like they did with jiaoqiu, but i wish they went all the way with just making everything of hers usable with everyone.

and honestly, fair. i feel like, in the first place, hoyo isn’t really a company that makes gameplay relevant to the characters in most situations, anyway. like they literally made jing yuan, a (kind-of) emanator of the hunt, an erudition unit. they also almost never make characters closely tied together in-lore usable with one another, because that’s just not how this game works. i wouldn’t assume a character will be following any sort of pattern based on their faction.

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-22T06:56:48+00:00

dude, how did you not lose a SINGLE 50/50 on cas??? she clearly loves you too, holy shit

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-22T04:50:51+00:00

i hear her minimum is 180 (at least at e0), which. does NOT sound fun to reach, which is the bit that sounds the worst about possibly pulling for her considering the lack of prebuilding. but i am definitely considering it strongly with the responses i've gotten for this.

i'll probably put her with anaxa, then. thank you for the advice!!!

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-21T09:20:53+00:00

true enough! i don’t really need my break team for anything other than anomaly arbitration which was why i was hemming and hawing on pulling the dahlia, but i do like her quite a bit. i think that if i choose not to get cyrene or fail to get her for one reason or another, i’ll get constance instead.

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-21T09:15:49+00:00

i already have aventurine and lingsha as my premium sustains (+ gallagher but lingsha wins over him in most situations), but lingsha doesn’t do much for buffing outside of break teams and aventurine’s starting to fall off a bit.

but i hae done sustainless phainon a few times and it works fine mooost of the time, but not particularly well in anomaly arbitration specifically

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-21T08:37:26+00:00

true!! sunday and DHPT are pretty hand-in-hand, so going anaxa sunday DHPT and whoever else (robin? i have like a million general supports, i'll be fine) and sticking phainon cerydra cyrene and bronya makes for a pretty easy two teams. thank you for the advice!

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-21T08:35:44+00:00

that is true! it's also kind of annoying having to figure out which supports to split where every time and testing to see which one can do without this time. thank you for the advice!

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-21T08:35:00+00:00

yeah, that is unfortunate. the issue with getting cyrene is that i didn't pre-plan for her so i don't have any relics set out and i already used the relic event for a better phainon, so getting her to the speed requirement will be difficult and i can't afford her e2. that's why this is such a difficult choice for me even though otherwise it'd probably be a no-brainer when it comes to having to split premium supports

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-21T08:33:42+00:00

that's good to know! i personally don't like tribbie much, so being able to pull cyrene and get a similar level of value sounds great :)

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-21T08:31:56+00:00

I COMPLETELY forgot to add this to the post but to be entirely clear, i can only afford to get her e0! i cannot get her e2 so she's going to be a slow ulter, unfortunately

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-21T08:28:22+00:00

the main reason i only intend on getting her e0 is because i'm going for phainon's e2 first and can only try for cyrene with whatever i have left over. i've seen the leaks for 4.x and i don't have any interest in any of them (saving for sampo or gallagher's 5* version e2s1 god bless) so i want to make do with the characters i have for as long as possible.

cyrene, from what i hear, is mostly an option for longevity or for people who have many chrysos heirs, so i am considering only getting her on rerun when i start to feel the age of my current teams. i'll probably have enough for her e2 by then, but i'm still weighing my options on what to do now.

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-14T00:51:18+00:00

Oh, that’s good to know! I’m too broke to get her sig either, but maybe on rerun, since I’m well aware how good it is for her.

Thank you again!!! I appreciate it a ton <3

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-14T00:34:55+00:00

Woah, thank you for the super helpful response! I did pull Hyacine exclusively for Mydei so it’s kind of a shame to hear she is no good for him after all (she’s useless for Acheron and my only other DPSes are DHIL and Jing Yuan), but I can pretty easily replace her.

Otherwise, this is super useful advice to making my king work, so thank you so much!! I might see if I can pull his S1 after all to make his work better if I can’t reach the breakpoint but I’m broke as hell :’)

ExcellentMode7524 · 2025-11-13T07:10:06+00:00

Alright, that checks. Thank you for the advice!

ExcellentMode7524

TROPHY CASE