Thaumaturge

[Callisto]

Kind of wondering about how people are playing THM in parties, especially for leves...if we try 3 stars, the mobs die way too quickly, and it's almost impossible to get any skillups unless I just spam dart. If we do 4 or 5 stars, it's almost impossible to get skillups because every time we engage a group of mobs, the entire group of mobs heads directly for me and kills me before anyone can do anything, and I spend the majority of the leve either dead or running back from camp.

I've tried a few things to add survivability, but using a shield is pretty much only good for shield skillups as it barely mitigates any damage at all, Stoneskin subbed from CON doesn't even last for a full hit, and if I do survive the initial volley of hits I end up dying immediately anyways since curing myself keeps hate on me. I'm 14THM/20 physical right now and have half the HP as the melees in the group who are lower levels...it just seems like I can't actually stay alive long enough to get any skillups unless I'm solo and it kinda takes the fun out of doing leves.

[Lucavi]

Level up conj until you get soughspeak, then make it your go-to ability whenever you can. Make sure not to buff when the fight starts, as spells like stoneskin and spikes build a metric ton of hate. Protect and shell also work wonders towards mitigating damage.

Basically, level conj first (that's what I did, at least). C'mon, you're BG elite- figure that shit out~!

[Elcura]

In parties I spam sac and debuff like hell with slow and dia. Between that and curing with the occasional dart, I get enough skill ups.

I'll level conjurer eventually for protect and shell, but until the affinity stacks up, I'll let a real conjurer deal with that. Do you best to land slow on everything, it's hard when there are 20000 fucking sheep crowding you, but it seriously helps survivability.

You mostly need to cast in moderation, and if you are getting hit, use punishing barbs to equal shit out. You wouldn't believe how many seemingly impossible leves I've cleared because barbs killed the enemy as they were trying to rape me.

[Ryoii/Nonomii]

Anyone know yet approximately how much HP you get back with Sacrifice II at Lv20?

[Darus Grey]

I'm currently playing Thaum as a tank(equip heavy armor, use shield and purposefully level, take damage reduction abilities from every job, etc), works really well since thaum and to a lesser extent conj seem like the only jobs who can even pretend to keep enmity at the moment.

The only downside at all is HP compared to a pug or glad, who will have around 1100~ to my 900~ at my level. Though tanking in this game is pretty much useless anyway you slice it atm(for the hard stuff, the damage output on the tank means literally needing an alliance of healers to support them, plus the frequent enemy WS for *greater than your max health*).

Gonna keep trucking with the concept though unless it becomes evident that it's simply not viable.

[tobbenlobben]

Anyone know yet approximately how much HP you get back with Sacrifice II at Lv20?

287 for the initial hit for me atleast. The regen seems to be around 25-35ish a tick!

[zsuper]

So is it just me, or is THM terrible?

Damage output is low.
Poison is incredibly weak.
Gravity is almost completely useless.
Healing is low compared to Conjurer.
Bio and Dia are terrible in both reduction and damage; damage is possibly the same as Poison, the reduction to defense/attack isn't noticeable at all.
Scourge and Banish do low damage (~200 at level 19) and take too long to cast/too much stamina, it's better damage per second to just spam Phantom Dart + Damnation. The secondary effect (reduced magic defense) doesn't even work.
Stygian Spikes is useless, I've yet to have a problem with mana without it.
The absorb spells are nice, but unfortunately, we only benefit fully from Absorb EVA. Also, we can't keep 100% uptime and even with 60 Piety my absorbs are often partially or fully resisted. I think they were designed to be transferred to other classes, though. My friend couldn't notice any increase in physical damage when I used Absorb DEF, similar to the problem with Dia.
I'm expecting Siphon MP to be completely useless for the same reason Stygian Spikes is useless.
The only positive, for me, is that Slow is amazing on most mobs. Unfortunately, it can be hard to land and usually requires Dark Seal to be sure it won't be wasted. Also, it has low uptime and a long recast.

Overall, I'm sort of regretting leveling it. I'm currently 19.

[aru]

Is healing really that much lower than CON? How much does the regen affect add to the base sacrifice heal? I was under the impression that it was at least as good or better while costing less mp. Does anyone have the numbers?

[Nevex]

THM 19 here as well.
Punishing Barbs is by far the best ability in the game, though it's useless for grinding. However it's really, really good to solo guildleves.
My Banish and Scourge do about the same damage as main Conj's t1 nukes on just about everything (220ish). I believe both of them are modded by INT. With Blood Rite and criticals I've seen them doing 280ish on Cassiopeias and Galagos.
Stygian spikes isn't useless, it's simply outclassed by Shock Spikes for defensive purposes, however since Stygian doesn't deal damage, it's better for grinding if your defense is good enough.
Slow is the best debuff we have right now as it's been said.

Other than those, yeah, THM is pretty underpowered.
I guess things will get better with Sacrifice 2 and I hope Drain doesn't suck.

[zsuper]

Is healing really that much lower than CON? How much does the regen affect add to the base sacrifice heal? I was under the impression that it was at least as good or better while costing less mp. Does anyone have the numbers?

I see CON consistently heal 200+. I leveled CON in open beta and Cure healed about 220 at rank 8 with no MND, but I haven't leveled it in release.
My Sacrifice heals 171 at 19 with no MND. The regen gives 13 HP / 5 seconds. The regen may bring it up to par with Cure (in fact, I think it does), but the regen doesn't matter when you're spamming Sacrifice on cooldown; I'd rather have the flat amount that Cure gives.

And yes, Punishing Barbs is amazing. I can solo most tough leves but just popping Barbs and spamming Sacrifice on myself. And yes, testing shows the basic nukes (Scourge, Banish, Blizzard, Fire, etc.) get 1 damage for every 2 points of INT. Which is basically nothing. Not sure if the II versions get more damage per INT.

[LinktheDeme]

Stygian spikes description is inaccurate, it gives dia's description instead

[tobbenlobben]

Thau 26 and conju 18 here. I wouldnt say conjurer owns thau in healing, Having a Sacrifice running helps more in the long run i guess. Alltho any conjurer/thau should have both spells. Thats how the game is designed! Level several classes and gain abilites.
Slow is like mentioned the best debuff ingame atm, Even tho the resists feel fucking high. Even with Dark Seal i resist alot lol, Must be bugged.
Siphon MP is actually awesome. I always drain between 25-90MP with it. While Drain i do like 0-60 (hello worthless)
absorb spells are worthless. You cannot see a difference.
The Defence while casting trait for guild marks is INSANE. its really REALLY REALLY good lol. Mobs that hit for 350 hit me for 60 instead lol. It must be bugged or just insanely good. It appears to work good on other classes too. Nannygoats hitting me for 30 at level 16 on conjurer

[Nevex]

The Defence while casting trait for guild marks is INSANE. its really REALLY REALLY good lol. Mobs that hit for 350 hit me for 60 instead lol. It must be bugged or just insanely good. It appears to work good on other classes too. Nannygoats hitting me for 30 at level 16 on conjurer

This is interesting.
I can really see THM becoming an excellent tanking class if they fix Absorbs (which I also think they do nothing right now) and higher rank debuffs like Paralyze and Bio II end up being decent.
Hate is pretty easy to keep thanks to healing spells and Punishing Barbs+Shock Spikes make things even easier.

Despite all these good things, THM is easily the slowest grinding class right now, though. Also disappointed about Drain being worthless.

[aru]

I see CON consistently heal 200+. I leveled CON in open beta and Cure healed about 220 at rank 8 with no MND, but I haven't leveled it in release.
My Sacrifice heals 171 at 19 with no MND. The regen gives 13 HP / 5 seconds. The regen may bring it up to par with Cure (in fact, I think it does), but the regen doesn't matter when you're spamming Sacrifice on cooldown; I'd rather have the flat amount that Cure gives.

That's interesting. So if you let Sacrifice run its full regen it will heal 236hp for 10mp (23.6 hp/mp), just on its own it will heal 171hp for 10mp (17.1 hp/mp), but I think you'll get at least one regen tic before you can spam it a second time so it'll really be 184hp for 10mp (18.4 hp/mp). Compared to Cure which is 220hp for 12mp (18.3 hp/mp). Looks to me like it is equal to or exceeds Cure in terms of mp efficiency but if you are spamming back to back casts Cure will give you more hp immediately. Best results (for spamming) will probably be to mix the two so that Sacrifice's regen is always on and use Cure in the meantime. Could also take away from this that if a DD in a party wanted to be able to occasionally cure themselves Sacrifice would be the better choice between the two.

[zsuper]

If you sub either Cure or Sacrifice, the potency is halved, which imo makes it a horrible idea.

MP is a complete non-issue. There's so much crap for restoring it that you NEVER run out, so efficiency is meaningless.

[tobbenlobben]

Its not halfed when subbed. Unless cure 1 Does 400 on conjurer that is lol. Will try it out exactly tommorow and edit.

[zsuper]

Its not halfed when subbed. Unless cure 1 Does 400 on conjurer that is lol. Will try it out exactly tommorow and edit.

Just leveled CON to test, and my Cure as THM does 110. Maybe I'm just bugged, though.

[ascalon]

My biggest issue (and comparison with CNJ) is the conal spells. The cone effect seems pretty flaky at times. CNJ get a true AoE spell, so I can hit people who get knocked back to my sides with a Cure spell if I'm casting on myself. THM has no such luck.

[Darus Grey]

My biggest issue (and comparison with CNJ) is the conal spells. The cone effect seems pretty flaky at times. CNJ get a true AoE spell, so I can hit people who get knocked back to my sides with a Cure spell if I'm casting on myself. THM has no such luck.

The trade off being as a THM you can hit people much further away and in large groups easily, the cone is HUGE at the far end compared to conjurer's comparatively small circle.

[Nevex]

The conal aoe thing is a mixed bag.
On the good side, it helps during guildleves because you can Slow the entire target group without worrying about those damn random sheeps following you and getting caught in the aoe (I think CON's radial aoe is centered around the caster even with offensive spells).
On the bad side it's annoying when you're healing and buffing, but as long as everyone else stands in front of you it's not that bad (but it really sucks when someone is knocked back by some TP move).

My Sacrifice (initial cast) and Cure heal for the exact same amount as THM main, so I just keep them both.
Sacrifice isn't that bad compared to a main CON's Cure, but the HP cost can get you killed because if a mob gets you to 52 HP or lower during the cast it will be cancelled.