FFXIV: A small guide on playing thaumaturge

Tags : ffxiv guide, ffxiv thaumaturge guide, ffxiv guide

I found some interesting things while playing thaumaturge so I am going to share them here. This is in no way official stuff.

Stat allocation

One of the questions I was asking myself playing thaumaturge was whether intelligence had an effect on the duration of debuffs, and I could not find this answer anywhere.

As everybody knows:
-Intelligence stands for magic damage
-Mind gives you mp, stands for magic defense and increases the potency of restorative spells like Cure and Sacrifice
-Piety stands for magic accuracy.

However, it would be better to say that intelligence generally stands for the magic potency of spells cast on an enemy, including duration of debuffs. The only way to test this really are the absorb spells you get at rank 18, since the buff you get from them indicates the time the debuff will last.

If you have int at 40 but piety at 80, you will notice that the status effect you obtain from absorb spells flashes quickly, meaning it will not stay long. However, sometimes you will notice the icon stays solid and stays longer - that means you landed a critical hit with the spell.

If you increase your int to 80 you will notice the status effect icon stays solid almost all the time. If it's not solid, it flashes slowly. This is because intelligence does increase the duration of debuffs in general.

You also need to max out your piety to land the spells in the first place

I would recommend thaumaturges increase their vit to 40, their int to 80, their mind to 80 and their piety to 80.

Umbral and astral spells

If you do a bit of snooping around you will see that, in the ZAM spell database, thaumaturge spells have elemental affinities. For instance, Scourge has an affinity with earth, water and ice. There are indeed six elements, three of which are astral and three of which are umbral.

Astral: Wind, lightning, fire
Umbral: Earth, water, ice

This doesn't really matter. What matters is the following: I am sure many thaumaturges got frustrated with the fact that their 'nukes' dont compare to conjurer nukes in terms of damage. This is because Banish and Scourge aren't nukes at all

While the damage is a nice bonus, the point of those spells is to afflict the mob with the Banish or Scourge status effect. If the monster is 'scourged', then he will be more vulnerable to umbral spells, meaning you will land your umbral debuffs (slow, absorb, etc.) easier and it will last longer. Scourge should thus be the first spell you cast before chaining with other debuffs.

In an organized party, you might want to go Spiritbind, Blood Rite, Dark Seal, Scourge, then other debuffs. Scourge status effect should always be the first status effect on the mob before you use others.

Useful traits and subjobs
Firm conviction is really good and allows you to survive if tanks can't keep hate or if a mob pops besides you

The thing about firm conviction is that the defense does not work on mobs that are too powerful (they will 'ignore' it), and resets every time you are buffed or every time a buff disappears. It then takes a few seconds before the trait kicks in after you cast something, but after it does kick in you're INVINCIBLE

Fast Cast (you cast faster) from conjurer and Out of Sight (reduces enmity per action) from archer are also useful. While you get conjurer and archer to 20 to get those traits, you might also want to pick up and use Scouring Strike, Spiritbind, Protect and Shell from the two classes.

There you go, hope this helps.