This is because of her strong ATK buff with a low uptime – and this uptime aligns perfectly with Raiden’s burst duration. Plus her energy requirement is only comfortable with Raiden as a teammate. Still, she’s viable in other teams that don’t mind her low buff uptime – namely, in quickswap teams and with characters that can snapshot. Quickswap teams let you cast Sara’s skill/burst in between rotations to refresh her ATK buff. And abilities that can snapshot (like Beidou’s burst) let you benefit from Sara’s ATK buff throughout the ability’s entire duration. This is because they snapshot the stats present upon cast – including the ATK buff. So she’s a great buffer for these teams but underwhelming everywhere else. Oftentimes, there are far better buffing supports with better uptime than Sara – thus making her unfavorable in most teams. For instance, Bennett has better ATK buff uptime and plenty more utility. Note: This is about meta only. If you like Kujou Sara regardless of her power level, don’t let this stop you from playing her.
Pros & Cons
Sara Strengths
Sara has really good multipliers in her burst – and it deals a significant portion of her damage. This makes her a great additional source of damage while also buffing her teammates. Plus it incentivizes you to build her for damage even in a support build. Casting Sara’s skill before her burst lets her gain the ATK buff to deal more damage – and her burst then buffs your next character. Although Sara still needs over 200% Energy Recharge, she does generate a good amount of energy. This is through her skill and ascension passive. Her skill generates 3 Electro particles when the Crowfeather from her charged attack explodes and hits an opponent. The Crowfeather from her C2 doesn’t generate any particles. Plus her ascension passive regenerates 0.012 flat energy to all teammates for every 1% of ER she has. This effect is also triggered when her Crowfeather explodes and hits an opponent. Sara’s good energy generation effectively reduces her and her teammate’s energy requirements – it’s an overall nice utility to have.
Sara Weaknesses
Sara’s burst costs 80 energy – it’s the second most expensive burst in-game. Plus she doesn’t spend a lot of field time and rarely catches any energy particles on-field. This greatly increases her Energy Recharge (ER) requirements to more than 200% ER. Her energy-hungry burst is also one of the reasons why she works really well with Raiden – and not so much in other teams. Raiden generates plenty of energy that significantly reduces Sara’s energy requirements. Without Raiden, Sara needs a lot more ER and proper energy management to charge her burst. Sara’s ATK buff has a short uptime that lasts for 6s. This is a really brief duration that very few characters can fully benefit from – most notably characters that can’t go off-field in the middle of their skill/burst. This makes her an unfavorable support to quite a lot of units – especially when there are other buffers (like Bennett) who have better uptime. Sara’s C6 is the highlight of her kit as a buffer – but this is heavily locked behind all her constellations. She’s definitely still a good buffer before C6, but there is a significant difference between C0 and C6. Plus it’s generally harder to get 4-stars than 5-stars because there’s no way of guaranteeing them. So although you’ll naturally get Sara’s constellations, this can take a lot of time – unless you’re lucky or actively spend a lot of Primogems in her rate-up banners.
Are Kujou Sara’s Constellations Good?
Sara has amazing constellations, so it’s highly recommended to pull for them if you use her. This is especially true since getting her C1-C5 brings you closer to C6 – her strongest constellation. C6 offers a unique CRIT damage buff to your Electro units. It makes her an exceptional support to Electro characters, especially Raiden. All of her constellations before C6 are also nice to have. They serve as quality-of-life upgrades and further improve her buffing abilities. Here’s a closer look at each one.
C1: Crow’s Eye
When Tengu Juurai grants characters an ATK buff or hits an opponent, Sara’s skill cooldown is decreased by 1s. This can be triggered once every 3s. This lets you cast her skill more often in a single rotation. It’s a great way to increase her buff uptime and Electro particle generation.
C2: Dark Wings
Casting Sara’s skill leaves a weaker Crowfeather in her original position. This deals 30% of its original damage. C2 is a really good quality-of-life upgrade. This lets her create a Crowfeather without having to perform a charged attack – thus making her ATK buff more accessible. Plus you can still create another Crowfeather with her charged attacks – thus doubling her source of ATK buffs. However, the weaker Crowfeather doesn’t generate any energy particles. This means that you still need to perform a charged attack if you lack energy.
C3: The War Within
Increases her elemental burst talent level by 3. Sara has great burst multipliers, and C3 further buffs this ability. It’s a nice damage gain.
C4: Conclusive Proof
Increases the number of Stromclusters released by her burst to 6. This lets her burst cover a larger AOE. Since each Stormcluster refreshes her ATK buff upon hitting an opponent, being able to hit more opponents increases her buff uptime.
C5: Spellsinger
Increases her elemental skill talent level by 3. This increases her ATK buff, so it’s a teamwide damage gain. C5 is an overall nice constellation to have – and it brings you closer to C6.
C6: Sin of Pride
The Electro damage of characters buffed by Tengu Juurai has their CRIT damage increased by 60%. This is Sara’s best constellation by far – and it’s the highlight of her kit as a support. This makes her an exceptional buffer to all Electro damage dealers, especially Raiden. However, this CRIT damage buff can’t be snapshotted. So it needs to be refreshed in between rotations for units with lengthier ability durations — like Beidou and Fischl.
