Mastering Genshin Impact's Cyno: Build, Weapons, Artifacts, And Team Compositions

Genshin Impact’s Cyno is a five-star electro polearm wielder who hails from the deserts of Sumeru. He has the potential to be an extremely strong DPS, as long as you’re willing to invest in him and his team. So let’s dive into our best Cyno build, featuring his top weapons, artifacts, and more.

When you’re done here, be sure to wander over to our Genshin Impact tier list to see how he sizes up against the other characters, and our Genshin Impact next banner guide to see who’s up next. We’ve also got a list of Genshin Impact codes to keep the freemos flowing.

Here’s everything in our Genshin Impact Cyno build:

What’s the best Genshin Impact Cyno build?

Cyno is a five-star electro polearm wielder. Similar to Genshin Impact’s Xiao, he’s a hyper carry DPS who requires a lot of field time but is capable of dishing out incredible amounts of damage with the right build. However, his long burst time often outlives the elemental application, shield time, and buffs of many supports, meaning he can be quite restrictive in terms of team comps.

Here’s a brief overview of our best Genshin Impact Cyno build:

Cyno’s best weapon is his signature five-star polearm, Staff of Scarlet Sands, and his best artifact set is Gilded Dreams. When building him, it’s important to give him enough energy recharge so that he can burst regularly, then you should focus on boosting his crit and elemental mastery. For more details on his best equipment and alternates, check out the dedicated sections below.

In terms of his talents, we recommend prioritizing his elemental burst, followed by his elemental skill. His normal attack is unimportant, so you should leave that until last.

In general, we find he sees most success in aggravate team comps alongside Genshin’s Traveler with dendro alignment. Genshin Impact’s Nahida is also a very strong ally for Cyno; however, she requires on-field time to reapply dendro every time new ads spawn, whereas Traveler’s burst continuously applies dendro even when they’re off field.

Aside from that, Cyno benefits from a secondary electro character to help battery him, as well as a strong shielder who can protect him from interrupts and reduce his need for healing during his long burst.

How to use Cyno

The most important part of learning how to use Cyno is getting to grips with his elemental burst.

Firstly, Cyno’s burst is very long compared to many other DPS and cancels if he leaves the field. As such, you need to ensure that you set up all the off-field elemental reactions and buffs you have before you switch to Cyno and use his burst.

We also recommend setting up some form of off-field healing (such as Kokomi’s Bake-Kurage, Kuki’s grass ring, or Yaoyao’s Yuegei) or a strong shield (such as Zhongli’s) directly before you switch to him. This is important as it helps him survive throughout the burst and, in the case of the shield, prevents interruptions so he can keep dishing out the damage.

Now, when it comes to Cyno’s burst itself, his top damage output comes from you triggering his skill when the eye appears on your screen. Without Thundering Fury, this lines up pretty well, but it’s still easy to misclick or miss the prompt when there’s a lot going on. So be sure to get in a bit of practice and get a feel for when to hit that enhanced skill button.

Outside of his burst, Cyno’s skill is more like a quick dash with some electro application. But, generally, you want him to use his burst as often as possible, which is why increasing his energy recharge is your top priority when building him.

His kit focuses on elemental mastery, which means his damage output is higher when he’s triggering elemental reactions. Therefore, as an on-field character, he relies on off-field elemental application from his allies. This makes his team comps pretty rigid, as he relies on a particular type of support that can keep up with his long burst duration.

What are the best Cyno weapons?

Cyno’s signature weapon Staff of Scarlet Sands is ultimately the best in show, as it compliments his kit well through its crit rate and elemental mastery buffs.

If you don’t have Staff of Scarlet Sands, Jade Winged Spear and Staff of Homa are also great choices, with Deathmatch acting as his best four-star option if you’re a Battle Pass buyer.