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It’s weird that he’s ascension increases his attack but his shield scales off of HP. He also has an insanely high energy cost for his burst at 80. I really hope Hoyo fix Thoma.
@@jadecoolness101 thats because she has more utility than thoma , it makes up her bad side , diona literally heals/shield and with const she get even better , giving free EM to your whole team
@@diabolicesper6434 dont forget that with her passives she gives reduce stamine consumption and increase atk speed if im not mistaken, and shes a great battery, and that 200 em now with dendro is even better, she is just really good
It's kinda infuriating when you look at someone like... Forget Bennett, just look at Mona & Venti. Their bursts are really great, those 3 ascends with ER, yet their burst cost are only 60.
Burgeon has given him some lease of life but I think he still falls behind the better OG's, quite significantly. So far the biggest glow up came to Kuki, the rest of Inazuma 4 stars are kinda either just okay, mad niche or Sayu.
the name Thoma is meant to be like this, according to the tradition of foreigners alter their names to resemble a local name Thoma resembles a Japanese (Inazuman) first name by its spelling in katakana
Well, considering he's Inazuman, which Inazuma is based on Japan, Japanese spelling of his name would be "Toma". Or what Cori above my comment said, Katakana spelling. "トーマ"
So, what we’re learning is that pyro is a ruined element due to the fact that two 4 stars can do everything you’d want/need and do them extremely well, so for a pyro unit to stand out they’d need to be completely overpowered like Hu Tao… Barely two years in and we’ve already made power creep a necessity for new units to be worth pulling for anything other than really REALLY liking the character
Pyro Archon will be either a massive flop, or powercreep the whole game. She _has_ to be better than Bennett (would be ridiculous otherwise), but Bennett already _is_ the absolute best unit in the game meta-wise. If I was one of the devs, I’d be sweating in buckets about designing an archon of this cursed element tbh.
@@jeremiahsmith916 i mean its same for hydro. you need to design unit that would be better offield than yelan and XQ, or better onfield than childe and ayato, or have even more unique gimmick than nilou. And as we know by now, that's archons aren't best units of their element, they could have gimmick or niche were they excels, but even 4* could outperform them, like sucrose in many situations just better than venti.
@@jeremiahsmith916 Very true considering the archons, as from the ones we know, are the best at their specific archetypes. Since they all have supportive capabilities, I can't imagine the Pyro archon being nothing more than a better Bennet just from this description alone. It'll be a pretty hard sell, but I suppose its a price Hoyoverse has to pay for when designing a pyro character's kit, especially if its an archon too.
Honestly, as long as they are an interesting side grade or even barely mild down grade, I'd consider building Thoma or any character sooner rather than never. But spending resources, grinding artifacts, etc to get him to a point where he's just kinda usable just isn't appealing, especially if you lack constellations on him. He's almost interesting enough, but not quite. Yanfei, on the other hand, is a fantastic DPS unit with a very synergized kit, and is fairly fun to play, fairly easy to support. She also works solid as a shielder support especially thanks to TToDS. I enjoy her enough to use her over Xiangling consistently. Xinyan I also don't hate, even though her kit is most certainly confused. But she at least can hit like a truck with a solid build, and pyro DPS is possible if you go the dreaded C6 Bennet route. Not good, but feels good when you hit those high DPS Ults. Thoma just kinda flops around an sometimes ruins your setups other than dendro. Like the character, but unfun kits are hard to get over.
The real reason why no one plays Thoma is that he is so much of a precious waifu to the point we keep him back home so we could come back to this beautiful man's delicious cooking.
Thoma holds Kitain spear on his splash art, which used to be regarded as a very meh option for him, but now with EM-scaling Burgeon… It’s all coming together.
This will be interesting, I initially built thoma cuz I really liked his character but he didn’t really fit into any of my teams. Thankfully he recently found his place on both ayato’s and heizou’s teams and is quite comfortable turning them both into fire benders with a decent shield on top
If only his burst cost 60 and his passive was 4.4% of HP as damage he would already be pretty decent (and replacing his atk scaling for ER would also be good)
I had Thoma built as a sheilder but the INSTANT I got Zhongli I turned him into a DPS. Thoma is in my top 3 favorite characters and I just wanted to play as him more
judging from the recently added bp claymore, i think that natlan's meta would be circling around self-applying aura to gain certain buff (like wanderer when he enter his E stance)
I think Alhaitham may be huge for Thoma. May be coping but we don't have a dedicated burgeon 5 star yet, as Tighnari was clearly meant to synergize well with quicken/spread/aggravate, so maybe he will have a good synergy with Alhaitham for a burgeon team, or hell maybe even Nahida if she ends up being a dps not a support, although I doubt the latter
If Nahida has godlike off-field dendro application it could be possible to pair her with Ayato and Thoma. Ayato and Nahida set up the Dendro Cores with their fast ticks while Thoma's fiery collapse sweeps in and causes Burgeon for extra damage
Really excited for more Dendro characters. Traveler and Collei are extremely meh for Burgeon teams, but we really have no choice right now. Especially Traveler's lamp that always risks combusting if Pyro even looks at it funny.
I really don't know what Hoyoverse is thinking when they put Atk% as his ascension stats, they should have atleast put all in hp. It's like the 1st release of Zhongli where his shield is his bread and butter but decided to put geo damage as ascension stat.
As someone who built their Thoma here are my thoughts: His shield is pretty tanky,I use him in the open world and pretty much does his job protecting my team most of the time.He is surprisingly fun with Heizou and Xq together,I mostly use him cuz he is one my favorite characters,overall he never makes it to the abyss because Diona replaces him easily My issues with Thoma: -He doesn't shield in coop, constellations dont include it (I am guessing it's because of the uptime of the shield but I would still prefer a shield in coop instead of nothing) -Energy issues which can be solved but it's kinda inconvenient imo(unless u have c4) -he eats hu Tao's vape -other units just easily replace him like Diona who can shield,heal and provide em,heck even a c4 Yanfei Even tho I love using Thoma ,as a unit he feels kinda overwhelming and hoyoverse srly did him dirty.With dendro reactions I can already see some potential but Thoma is still stuck at bottom
I always wanted to build Thoma, and I might do it in the future. I like his character, but his kit is similar to Xinyan and I already have her built since debut. So I keep neglecting the guy, because I'll ended up just going back to use Xinyan for exploration and Zhongli in abyss. I'm also have been delaying experiment him with dendro, maybe will change some of my opinions.
Yeah, it's unfortunate and I appreciate an honest review of a favorite character (rather than getting defensive as if anyone is attacking a characters personality). And it's hilarious to me how MHY seems to hate coop. Like give people a reason to play coop with characters, make Thoma overpowered in coop. It'd help sell the character, give you a reason to actually coop, make COOP fun, etc.
his shield sucs lol wdym tanky, if you talk about overworld , literally zhongli with 3 star artifacts could tank anything, You don't use overworld as a measuring tool ,
@@diabolicesper6434 correct if I am wrong but didn't theorycrafters say that Thoma's shield comes second in tankiness?Sure nothing beats Zhongli but I don't have him and Thoma still does his job fine,the reasons I dont use him in the abyss are already explained
@@diabolicesper6434 you're comparing a 4* to a literal archon, why would they make Thoma just as strong??? The fact that he has the second best shield is still good especially for players who don't have or like Zhongli
the full quote is actually “a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” and tbh thoma's been pretty great for my account, I used to run zhongli with my very squishy klee but thoma's managed to free up my zhongli and provide the pyro resonance boost, so i get he isn't super popular but i do love playing with him hehe
@@warrencaelum9536 yeah i suppose, but damage isn't really what i'm using him for, so i suppose depending on what you wanted from him for he could be very disappointing, but he is so useful to me
As someone who has built C6 Thoma to level 90 and thought the new hydro resonance would help him out a bit in the double hydro Hu Tao team, he still falls pretty far behind Zhongli. Zhongli's shred seems to be more effective than Thoma's C6 buff to normal and charged attacks. Shield strength is ok but obviously Zhongli is better. He's a great sub if you don't have Zhongli but if you do I guess he's just a pretty paper weight lol
@@Centurion305 maybe in yoimiya/hutao teams where u have to use zhongli/diona in the second half?? like hutao xingqiu yelan zhongli 1st half yoimiya kazuha bennett and thoma?
We've found Thoma to work quite well with Yoimiya if you can get his energy up far enough. Since she can't take advantage of Vaporize as well, and since she'll be normal attacking constantly, Thoma's burst works quite well with her. He also provides Pyro resonance with her already. Our current team is Yoimiya/Xingqiu/Thoma/Electro Traveler, and works quite well. We'd be replacing Xingqiu with a more focused healer if we had one.
I use thoma with yoimiya too (yoimiya, yelan, xingchiu, thoma) and they go perfect together, i never have to dodge and (with c4 and favonius) i have his burst with 100% uptime
I honestly prefer Xiao's aggressive animations (which we barely get to see bc no one bothers to do his normal atks..), along with the new Candace's spear-and-shield playstyle.
I definitely don't think Thoma will become meta BUT I'm really happy that he found a place in burgeon teams especially since we don't get much use of him anywhere else. I'm really happy my boi Thoma finally has a decent team where he feels needed and not just a substitute .
Can you do a video on "Why no one plays Kaeya". I am genuinely curious as to why no one plays him, since he does his role of providing off-field cryo on the enemies pretty consistently with almost 100% uptime while dealing sizable damage.
@@3xtan327 I have always seen her as a side-grade to kaeya than an upgrade. Just like Ganyu-Ayaka and Childe-Ayato, who have similar roles(dps) but don't hampers each others viability.
I have built Rosaria first when she came out and after Inazuma came out, I found myself needing more cryo characters and so built Kaeya anyway and I do find him very useful and strong too. Having both Rosaria and Kaeya is nice although yeah Rosaria has a slight edge above him but still nice nonetheless
@@debamchakraborty1143 so you see childe isnt a dps, the only team where he is viable is international where he is enabling for xiangling while doing a decent amount of damage, while ayato lacks the nuke that childe has, but can be played as a hypercarry
I think when a Cryo catalyst comes out, he will get more usage. It would allow for some good reverse melts and give good protection, since catalysts are generally squishy, exceptions being Kokomi and Barbara.
His pyro app is way to slow even for a cryo catalyst. You’ll wanna go the same route as a ganyu melt team with Xiangling/Benny to guarantee those reverse melts otherwise thoma will be the one melting and his dmg isn’t all that good
@@queerbinarygendersexualhom8983 they typically get one shotted by many atks in the game. It’s another way of saying that they can’t take many hits compared to other characters
@@queerbinarygendersexualhom8983 they have little HP pool when you build them. And Kokomi and Barbara are both scaling off of HP so they get pretty tanky, but those 2 are the exception. Squishy means they have little amount of hp basically
I wish hoyo would fix these characters so bad. But, that said, I've always been a Klee person and Thoma and her get along quite well for me. Klee is such a glass canon that I prefer a shield for her over Bennett, and using xingqiu/yelan/thoma with her is really fun and allows for so much vape. Though I love this team, I haven't found another use for my lv 90 Thoma outside of it...
With the addition of Burgeon, i think Thoma's kit some gets more kinda complicated, 1. You need HP for his shield strength 2. You need ER cause his ult cost 80 energy for some reason 3. You now need EM to boost the damage of Burgeon Best move is to focus on EM and ER for Burgeon teams
I run him with Jean, Ayato, and Dendro Traveler. Dedicate all his main stats to EM. Use HP and ER substats. ER weapon. He does pretty good actually! It’s a really niche team, but I’m enjoying it.
@@SeraphimDragon may I ask, if you have hands-on experience, is R1 Kitain viable in your opinion? I don’t have spear billets sadly and only have R1, thinking of whether it’s worth upgrading all the way from 1 to 90 for Thoma or nah.
@@jeremiahsmith916 It is very viable at R1. You could also run him with another Pyro for extra particles, or there's always good old favonius spear if it's just a shield you need. But yeah Kitain Spear is good imo cause it gives him a lot.
I think that a the "problem" with Thoma is that Mihoyo made the characters follow an specific trend related to their element, therefore the Pyro characters have two choices: They have to be able todo A LOT of damage or dissapear. I thinks this is a general problem for every element that makes new characters with a new and often interesting mechanic fall into the abyss (and not the spiral abyss mind you). Its a real shame that characters with cool desings, unique personalities and interesting skills and mechanics simply dissapear because they dont follow the trend of their respective elements.
I’ve been having a lot of fun with Thoma since i got his C4. Pretty good success running him with Yoimiya, XC and Yelan. The new hydro resonance kinda solved his issues for me. I can completely disregard his damage just focusing on ER and HP and he’s good to go. Gameplay is surprisingly fluid too (i find with ample ER, the rotation is pretty simple and comfortable - IMO) i have him at 30K HP and 200ER and have 100% shield uptime. Kinda wished he has a healing/energy kit instead of damage dealing tbh.
As my 2 favorite characters in the game, I currently run a "reverse vape" team with Thoma and Yelan and honestly, I'm having a lot of fun with it. It's far from built, but I like exploring their synergy.
I also play him. Specifically in teams with Yoimiya. I have Diona build as a shielder but Thoma’s shield is far better than hers in a Yoimiya team. Fiona’s shield breaks too easily, while Thoma’s rarely breaks on me. And he isn’t even build to the max yet.
I’ve been tainted with zhongli since he was my second 5 star on my acc. But got extremely bored of his playstyle/shield bot build. I tried thoma at first at C0 and was disgusted and how bad he was. But with time I got more cons and revisited him at c4 and was way better after I got yoimiya I also got c6 thoma and now I’ve been enjoying him a lot more. Both his shield bot build and even main dps are so much fun
I’ve used Thoma in my every day team and in Spiral ever since I got him- he’s been super useful to stack HP on for shield, ER for constant burst use, and for amplifying my pyro main dps dmg w/ double pyro atk bonus and doing more pyro dmg with his burst. He’s been a comfort character of mine since I met him in storyline- I absolutely love his voice lines and character type, and I’m so so glad he’s doing pretty good in Sumeru with burgeon and other reactions with dendro! ^-^
I was so hyped for thomas release. But after I found out his kit, I had no reason to build him. It wasn't until I pulled Kazuha, and 3.0 hit, that I finally had a reason to build him. I built him about 2 weeks ago. I mainly built him for Hu Tao VV, but also to try out burgeon teams with him.
ive been waiting for this one !! :DD i wrote a whole thing abt thoma's kit back in july (before dendro came out so i didn't factor that in) ill put it here in the comments before the video premieres for anyone who wants to read, its long and sorry for any possible inaccuracies ! (this is all coming from someone who has their thoma built as a sub dps btw) "first thing im gonna nitpick at is his skill, he's already put at a disadvantage for being a pyro shielder; pretty much every shielder is left to die if you already have zhongli if no other part of their kit is useful to you. for example diona is a shielder but her support capabilities outside of and including shielding are so useful which is why she's not completely disregarded in the meta. geo shielders like noelle are put above people like thoma because pyro shielders are most useful for absorbing pyro dmg, cryo shielders are most useful for absorbing cryo dmg etc but geo shields absorb damage equally of all elemental types. thoma's shield's duration also isn't too long and you're left with a ton of downtime, especially if you don't have his c2 which increases the duration. the thing however that sets thoma's shield apart from others is that when it's refreshed, the remaining strength that the previous shield had is added to the base strength of the new one, his shield stacks which if im not mistaken no other shielder has. for me, the biggest problem with his burst is its icd (internal cooldown) if his burst was just slightly modified so that it applied pyro in tandem with normal attacks in a similar way to xingqiu, he would be up there with xiangling for being able to easily proc pyro-based reactions (though,, maybe not because his e cooldown is a tad too long to be able to be integrated into a burst rotation team such as raiden national and there's no sacrificial polearm but i digress) his burst also has shield-like properties but only for pyro dmg ????? so it gives you the idea that you have a shield protecting you but then if you were to get hit with a strong attack that's not pyro it's probably gonna kill you. his constellations and passive talents do nothing to fix these problems - though even if they did that'd be bad game design because constellations aim to improve what's already there, not fix what's broken. his first passive grants the active character more shield strength when the shield is refreshed, but that means nothing when your shield is down for half the of its cooldown. his other combat-oriented passive increases his burst's dmg based on his hp but god if they just fixed the GODDAMN INTERNAL COOLDOWN HE WOULD WORK SO WELL WITH CHILDE IM IN SHAMBLES ABOUT THIS his c1 & c2 are alright about fixing some of the present issues, lowering the cooldown of his abilities if his teammates are attacked and slightly extending the duration of his shield but not enough to the point where he feels smooth to play. his c4 and c6 are also alright, but as mentioned earlier you shouldn't need constellations to make a character viable, even if they're a 4*. his c6 especially would be super helpful if he plays a support role in a team but that extra 15% dmg is just not worth it with the other problems in his kit. you're much better off playing somebody like xiangling, who is free anyway. so he's not great as a support, but his dps potential is also not great. his skill cooldown is too long to be able to make him a pyro dps and his burst would be viable if it worked well with melt or vaporize reactions but the GOD 👏 DAMN 👏 INTERNAL 👏 COOLDOWN 👏 Gets in the way of that. you can't have a good dps if you can't synergize reactions to enhance their dmg, this game's combat system is oriented around elements and the way they interact with each other. you could build him physical but nothing in his kit is meant to improve his normal atk dmg (maybe his c6 but even then it's aimed to improve his teammates dmg not his) so you'd just be taking on a challenge and not actually using the character as intended, because the way he's intended to be used doesn't work because of the problems in his kit, because he's a badly designed character. sure you could be able to hit 100k with his e but that contributes nothing to how well his kit is designed if he can't do much outside of that. if you build him a dps anyway because you love him, like me, you lose out on so much of his kit (like his hp scaling) because he's just not meant to be a dps, he's meant to be a support, BUT HE CANT BE PLAYED AS A SUPPORT BECAUSE HIS KIT IS BADLY DESIGNED!!!!! i think that's all i wanted to say but if you don't know what an icd is it's a cooldown built into elemental abilities that effects how often they can apply the element that their ability is geared towards. so if you apply hydro using an ability, you can't re-apply hydro until 1. you wait a few seconds 2. you attack (i think it's) 3 times? the reason xingqiu is able to continuously reapply hydro and work well in tandem with characters like hu tao, is because with each rain sword thing he hits the enemy 3 times, resetting the icd and being able to proc vaporize with every single one of hu tao's normal attacks. thoma only summons one burst of pyro dmg every second which is not enough to reset his icd until a couple of seconds later, making it so that he can't efficiently proc pyro-based reactions like xiangling can."
@@warrencaelum9536 right lmao. Raiden doesn’t want em so her overloads will suck. Same with thoma on a hp build. Xiangling is quiet literally the best option. The only reason I see this working is for Raiden energy refund helping with Thomas er issue which is an easy fix without Raiden
@@rico9815 Xiangling doesn't provide a shield like Thoma, which in a lot of cases is more practical for a character who just wants to hack and slash once the burst has started, like Raiden. Or Razor. Or Tartaglia. Or Heizou. Or-- you get the point. Yes, Xiangling does uber damage. That's not what Thoma was made for.
If you have C6 he’s pretty nice for Ayato, he increases normal attack and his shield cant be interrupted which is great if you’re trying to slash everything.
If Thoma's burst of flames trigger every auto attack so allow it to do so bypass the ICD, it would not only make his low damage stronger since it would be hitting more often, but it would also allow him to be a good pyro applicator for a Hydro main DPS
I feel like there's a lot about Thoma that people don't actually think about when they talk about him. Warning, I am a Thoma main and I tend to over-talk about him so this might be long lol OKAY so. Biggest one I think people miss is his C6. His kit is pretty meh in terms of what he can do before C6, but after that he can work in tandem with Benny to provide a good amount of atk boost, so long as you use NAs. Basically, each time his shield stacks, the active character gains a 15% atk bonus for 6s. With Thoma's burst, my Childe goes from 2,056 atk to 2,364 with one stack, and theoretically this could be boosted for another 15% before the first one times out for 2,718? Now maybe that's not ideal for replacing Xiangling in International but it's still nice. Now while that might not be useful, consider our favourite short king Xiao. Hopefully it's known that you can N1 cancel (N0.5) for a bit more damage between plunges. Fun fact though, the timing of Xiao's plunges means the icd on Thoma's burst is over, and N1 cancelling triggers Thoma's burst, meaning now Xiao does e v e n m o r e d a m a g e. And it's not like advising the use of a 4 star's C6 to make them useful is unheard of. Sara, Sucrose, and so on. Since 4 stars are a lot easier to C6, I don't see why it'd be unreasonable to say that. Furthermore, people look at Thoma's kit and think they're supposed to build him both as a subDPS and a shielder. NO, doing this means none of his kit does well. Pick one and he can do well. Shieldbot Thoma won't do damage, but he'll do a decent job of protecting your team (note that no, he doesn't do this better than other shielders, so really only do this if you need a second pyro and don't have tankfei or you just want him on your team, which is understandable I mean look at him). SubDPS Thoma won't shield your team super well since you'll likely be focusing on pyro dmg/atk more than hp, but at least he actually DOES something other than look cute which, to be fair, is his greatest skill. This is why I despise trial Thoma, which is where a lot of people will come to assume he's downright useless. Their Thoma is built for support, and kind of damage, but he's actual trash there and I hate it. Give the man bolide or millileth or crimson, ANYTHING else ffs bc aAUGH- (not to mention what they did to Childe. Seriously, just Kaeya? Excuse?) And yes, burgeon Thoma is actually really good. Pretty boy cause explosions! Orrrrr you could just take the uh, somewhat inadvisable route I did and make him a physical DPS because apparently I hate damage! Actually though, mine can do more than you think, and some of his artifacts are even still copium :) And he has 600 more atk than Childe? I use pyro resonance usually but still, wtf have I done- TL;DR Thoma actually good if you build and use him right thank you for coming to my tedtalk
I've been using my c6 thoma to support hu tao since forever, honestly he's a really solid shield + pyro resonance + dmg boost option for her. Note: I do also have zhongli, but hes normally used for my melt ganyu.
I built Thoma when I got his C6 for Hu Tao (benching Zhongli as VV Hu Tao had a higher damage ceiling) and he works pretty well! At 32k HP and 203 ER, I've 36*'ed the Spiral Abyss with him in a Hu Tao-Xingqiu-Thoma-Sucrose team. To me, his issues are less about the kit itself but the numbers behind the kit: 1. His base HP isn't too high 2. He ascends with ATK% 3. His particle generation is low and burst cost is high 4. He has a high E cooldown 5. His attack scalings are too low to warrant the ATK% ascension stat (and his A4 passive too) His standard ICD can be considered a flaw of his too, but the ICD allows him to work with Hu Tao and Yoimiya vape, and with no ICD they won't work with him but would work a lot better with others. If I could change one thing about the numbers of his kit to make him better, it would be changing his ascension stat to be ER% to help with his energy issues which he has pre-C4. With even more changes, I don't need to address the attack scalings as you'd want to incentivize building him as a shielder. Lowering the E cooldown could help with energy issues even if his particle generation remains low. His burst cost could be decreased to something more manageable, like 60, allowing his ascension stat to be HP% instead. His A4 passive could benefit his shield instead of the damage it deals too. Though I love Thoma and I'm glad to have his C6 to make him viable (thanks in part to the Kazuha banner), it isn't good that you'd need high cons on a character to make them viable. Mihoyo fumbled the bag when they decided on his numbers and it sucks that my favorite Genshin man isn't versatile and useful for many teams, essentially locking him to Hu Tao, Xingqiu, and Sucrose. It won't ever happen, but I hope he gets a buff in the future to make him more viable (heck, even a Sac polearm would help a ton! (and before you say "but what about Xiangling, she could have two Guobas", Mihoyo can easily just put a one-on-field-only restriction on Guoba like they do with Albedo's flower. Sacrificial weapons don't proc off field too. Catch is also just better for her in general.)
Great comment, I agree 100%. My Thoma has around 190 ER and 33k HP and also runs in the same VV Hu Tao team. They have no issues 36 starring the abyss.
in terms of burgeon comps, you would have to split scale him like xinyan where you focus on hp for shielding but less dmg, or em for more dmg but weaker shields. i think one of the reasons hyperbloom teams being more popular is because of how kuki has a passive that let's her heal with em, meaning she can still help keep everyone topped off while still providing dmg for the team. i think making his shield scale off em would've make him a much better sidegrade to xiangling. hell it may even replace her since she's my burgeon reactor
tbf i don't find the shield to be that helpful so i just build full em and and that's it with hp being a minor substat for me cause i focus heavy on ER/EM substats. Him and Xingqiu are pretty tanky. i also just run whatever defensive unit it is that works and pair with the on fielder that helps. Like Xingqiu+Kokomi, or Ayato+Instructor Bennett. i don't even need bennett on my usual burgeon team but i would like to use him with thoma. not because of er since i already have enough with kitain and a single fav. but once i get ayato i would like to make use of his attack buff. in some cases i find her to be better than xiangling in burgeon. since burning is just bad and her energy generation is worse as a solo pyro. idk about the idea of full em cause idk if it's worth the personal damage loss, like she already deals good amounts of damage with an average damage build. and if you rely on gouba then good luck with random targeting.
Two notes: Firstly, I seriously doubt that Thoma's Burgeon potential is through "sheer luck" - given the ICD benefit, the shield which guards against dendro core explosions, and his splash art weapon being the kitain cross spear (EM with an ER passive) it really seems like this is what they intended along. It's a little baffling why they released him so long before Dendro, but he fits the niche a little too well for it to feel like a coincidence to me. Second, I think in burgeon-specific comps his low damage output isn't a huge issue, as I believe burgeon damage is based on EM instead of personal damage. If Thoma's role is to trigger burgeon, then it seems like EM is all he really needs, plus ER to keep his burst active? Maybe not a perfect fix, but I think it makes him feel much more cohesive as a unit.
But otherwise this is one of your videos that I've enjoyed the most! I feel that focusing more on why the community as a whole reacted the way they do is more helpful and comes across less like just trashing the character.
@@xxri I would tentatively argue that shielding isn't really the main point of his kit now that dendro is out. It's a nice bit of protection from the dendro cores, especially since it refreshes with every hit of pyro, but I would definitely say HP is the lowest priority of the three if you're building Burgeon Thoma.
@@fish6494 idk 😭😭 like I said I don't think he's perfect, but my point is that he fits so perfectly with burgeon that I think it's pretty clear it was an intentional choice by hyv, which is also why they didn't invest much in his personal damage because that doesn't really affect his intended use.
On the topic of Thoma having a different element, I think it'd be really amazing if characters could acquire a Delusion at some point, changing their element from the primary one to another but keeping the kit the exact same. Imagine something like a Pyro Ayaka or Electro Barbara. So many characters could have really interesting set-ups with an element change.
As someone who’s fully built Thoma since getting him at C6 on his initial release I think while yes his kit didn’t hit a lot of people definitely blow it out of the water. Thoma is there for shielding not damage so comparing him to Xiangling who is solely built for off-field dps, and seeing who does more damage just seems weird to me. Thoma has potential to be a great shielder but he comes with a lot of conditions like energy needs and on-field character compatibility. HYV definitely could’ve been a little more generous with some of his multipliers but I think they went to focus a little too much on his shielding since he really doesn’t offer much else beyond it apart from his C6 buff. Also the fact that there’s no sacrificial polearm really hurts his viability as well since Xingqiu has a similar energy issue but it’s compensated by his particle generation and the sacrificial sword. Sure Thoma has access to the fav lance but a sac polearm would’ve completely fixed him if his skill shielding also synergized with it. Also the lack of a synergistic artifact set really holds him back since Emblem or Crimson aren’t the best on him but also noblesse also isn’t the greatest. The new EM set is also in a similar case. I’ve found that there are mainly 3 ways to build him (sans main dps Thoma) and that’s 1. Shield bot, 2. Amplifying reaction dps, or 3. Transformative reaction dps. Shield bot is pretty self explanatory just build HP with enough ER to spam his burst but his ascension star being ATK just doesn’t work toward that. Amplifying reaction just build him with some EM, crit, and enough ER to spam his burst and his ascension stat works with this a little. Transformative just build EM and enough ER (plus level him up). Just looking at these options he’s kind of juggling a lot of potential stats and a lot of it is ER dependent which just locks a lot of his potential behind his burst. I have found some better success recently with Burgeon Thoma but still it’s like a lot of investment to make it work especially since you’re giving up his shielding completely to build full EM (and ER). I still play Thoma and I’ve crowned his skill and burst but he does leave a lot to be desired. Though I will say that I enjoy using him as my shielder and he’s my second go to shielder after Zhongli because if you do build him properly he can be a good shielder.
14:55 electro Ningguang would be kind of nutty with aggravate. 300k+ bursts followed by 100k c6 powered charge attacks. No video on her, sure, but still
I'm a big Thoma enjoyer, and always appreciate it when people are fair to him in reviews of his kit. I agree with most that has been said here, TBH. He is clunky to build and use, and only feels like a "complete" character with constellations (a trend in our last few 4*s, sigh...) What got my attention was you mentioning other weapon type, which reminded me of when I was researching good builds for him. Back then, I remember lamenting that he couldn't use ANY weapon in the Sacrifical series (as polearm is the ONLY Sacrifical weapon that doesn't exist). I think it would've been amazing for his shield stacking to have an E reset, but idk. Not like I could try lmao. Thanks for the awesome video!
I'd like to use this opportunity to share my history with Thoma, my team was Rosaria, Beidou, Amber and Ayato, but even tho she was 80lvl nice artefacts and all that, i didn't use her because i don't like bow users, and the joke wa the only pyro characters mihoyo gave me was Diluc and Bennett at the time, i didn't like Diluc cus i got him instead of Raiden and i don't liked playing with Bennett that much, that was it until i got Thoma and Xinyan, i di not give 2 shit about the 2 of them, all i knew was that Xinyan had pyro shield and i didn't care enough, until one day me and my friend made an improvised roleplay (ignoring the game and character lore completely) so we kinda of did a really weird love story between Thoma and Bennett (we thought Bennett was 18) and we really liked that! we have our whole little AU which tottaly disregards the game's story when we want, and after the first roleplay i went - uh maybe i will use Thoma, just a little, and now i have him 80 lvl, and he became my second favorite character but most beloved one
I'd actually love to see a video of like "what one change would be most effective at making this character meta useable", like changing Xinyan to a superconduct element or giving Thoma a sacrificial weapon so his shield stacks easier.
Important note: this video was made before 3.0, when Sumeru, Dendro and Burgeon became a thing. Post-3.0, I'd say Thoma's got a pretty good setup with Dendro and Burgeon. Granted, it's not the best since we need Dendro characters with faster off-field Dendro application, but if you want to play Thoma, there are teams that you can field that are really fun and strong. Also, Vars is still correct: Thoma's Pyro damage isn't that great, because Burgeon explosions are Dendro.
@@ellenm.5762 He did... as speculation. Given that we've had Dendro for a month now and we've gone from speculation to actual practice (i.e., we've seen Burgeon Thoma's current strengths and limitations), isn't the info here a little inaccurate?
I've been playing around with adding Thoma as the driver of a fridge comp with Diona, DMC and Xingqiu/Candace. He attacks fast enough to build up a lot of bloom before his pyro icd kicks in, and his small shields completely negates any self damage you might take. Super fun
I use an EM build thoma since his application is delayed so he is almost always the one triggering the reaction. Before burgeon, I used him for overload.
I absolutely love Thoma! Honestly one of my favorite characters in game. He with ayato, raiden and qiqi are my super team. Maxed them all out and I have a blast.
nowadays Thoma is much better with Nahida Burgeon teams if you don't wanna use Benny boy for Burgeon. since his Pyro app is slower than Xiangling's. however he might fall off once Dehya arrives. idk if it will be true or not but leaks say she'll be a Burgeon Support Dps.
@@imsmokeyy5630yeah i just saw it. kinda dissapointing. like her kit is weird and confusing. like is she a defensive or offensive unit? her burst screams DPS while her E screams Support. and the thing is... she's not as good the as other options. as an offensive unit she deals very little and as a defensive unit why use her instead of a Shielder or a Healer. another thing i don't like is that her Pyro app is slow and you have to be really careful with reactions. let's hope in release that gets fixed but i have a feeling it won't happen.
I have mained thoma since ar19 and he's my best built character. I had used xiangling before getting him and in my team, she didn't help as much as everyone said she would. I think thoma is underrated and most peopel see him as a support. However, if you build him right, he can be a main dps. I chose to main him because of his personality and because he was a good character in the lore, but soon he found a place on my team that can never be replaced.
@@toastboy8613 Shocker, didn't know that But these videos always get backclash. And he shouldn't have made a video about a character that just got good XD The only reason he isn't as utilized currently is because there isn't a really good driver for him currently. You are better off just playing Thoma on field with Xingqiu applying Hydro off field which is bad because now you don't have good personal damage XD
@@kawaiimika7974 u make a good point. However in my opinion he makes these videos to show how characters like thoma or keqing are considered bad by the general play base but now have uses for it. It is his own way to “promoting characters” if u will. Also why no one plays is his most viewed series, correct? And he has covered almost all the characters considered bad so that is why he made the video
it still baffles me to no end how stupidly OP Xiangling's Pyronado is, snapshot + no ICD on a 14 second rotating wheel of destruction that's ready for any reaction is just insane meanwhile they always gimp out newer characters with ICD cooldown problems to varying degrees like Collei
There's this Theory that Thoma was a dedicated Support for Yoimiya. You see, Yoimiya's supposed to be Artifacts is Retacing Bollide (lore wise) on which needs a shield to proc 4pc effect. coinicidentally, Yoimiya needs shield so that she wont get interrupetd. Thoma's shield gets stronger whenever you do NA. Yoimiya do NA to deal dmg. coincidence? i think not. and also Thoma's built to enable VV pyro. reason he got to be on Hutao's team because Hu and Yoi have similar playstyle. Hit E, do NA/CA combo, then hit Burst before switching.
I’m a day 1 Thoma main and knew what I signed up for when leaks of his kit came out, so I just focused mainly on his ER and HP with some ratio on his crits and he does good enough damage for me that I’m content since I never been the type to follow meta for any gacha games I play. I know he’s not the greatest, but he’s one of my favorites and never regretted triple crowning him. I just wish the fandom would just back off on their cruel jokes about him, but this is the Genshin community so…
People just assume characters are either top tier or trash based on face value and youtubers opinions , Thoma suffered the same exact thing that Kokomi and Kuki did , personally I never thought he was bad and I used him as a support on a team with Xiangling as Bennett was needed for another team, Thoma offered defence , energy for Xiang and pyro resonance leaving the other two slots to be much more flexible because of him, but I do agree he would probably be better with other element for better scalings.
Definitely NOT sheer luck that he fills the burgeon niche, he was practically designed for it His lord Ayato being an AOE hydro unit with fast application would benefit greatly from burgeon enablers Ayato also spams normals which time the pyro perfectly to only come out when hydro has produced blooms All characters except him and Yoi have either special ICDs (Diluc, Xinyan, XL, etc..) or intended bypasses built in (hutao, Yanfei), all of which would screw with bloom Defensive capabiility is also a lot more sense because burgeon deals a not insignificant amount of damage to the player This was 100% intentional and the only thing missing from thoma (passives and consts) would be EM scaling
Except you literally disproved yourself because it definitely was sheer coincidence that Thoma is good with Burgeon. If they actually intended for him to do so they would've done it like Kuki where he has built in EM related talents and consts. Meanwhile they pretty clearly built him to be an HP% based shielder and pyro applier but gave him some of the worst base stats and ATK% ascension which barely even helps him.
Just gonna drop this comment real quick... After experimenting with a few party combo for CYNO, I have to say that THOMA is one of the best character to pair him with. Thoma provides defense and offense (constant pyro app at minimum) also one of few burst buff that can keep up with CYNO 100% burst up-time (potentially). Really happy to have C6 Thoma!
i love thoma and ive used him since he came out. what i saw mostly were people forgetting that you need to build stacks with his burst so they often compared his E shield to zhongli and diona, forgetting about his burst shields. as for me, hes excellent in hutao teams bc he allows me to swirl pyro for hutao. i also use him in my vape ayato team. ayato and hutao being my main dps means i actually wish i had two thomas sometimes. i also tried burgeon with him and it was super fun bc my maxed kitain cross spear (r5 lvl90) is actually good on him bc of its em secondart stat and energy passive. but thats just bc i love thoma and constantly find ways to use him. his ascension stat being atk and in general having a low base hp is just so rude of mhy.
You clearly haven't seen people (even other content creators) use burgeon thoma teams, huh... one variant is called "Thomato" where you have ayato and dendro mc as the main bloom drivers while thoma (em build) procs burgeon + a flex slot. It's very competitive with hyperbloom teams in the abyss and has relatively fast clear time. Overall I'd say thoma has improved and has a bit more opportunities now just like kuki shinobu thanks to dendro.
You're absolutely wrong. Hyperbloom outperforms Burgeon teams right now because: 1) In order to produce enough dendro cores to justify even using Burgeon teams properly while keeping up with Thoma's pyro application, you either need to run an electro character alongside a hydro character (which reduces team versatility and makes rotations more strict), or you need a Dendro character that applies a ton of Dendro quickly and consistently (which currently doesn't exist). 2) The available characters we have right now makes hyperbloom remarkably easier to pull off, but the same cannot be said about Burgeon teams that lacks a Dendro healer/Dendro driver. It's why one of the strongest bloom teams right now is Sucrose Fischl Dendro Mc and Xingqiu while Thoma bloom teams *can* work, but aren't nearly as competitive as Aggravate/Hyperbloom. Currently Thoma is copium with dendro, but obviously that can change in the future.
@@nathanaelpierre9439 tell me you don't know how to play a burgeon team without telling me you don't know how to play a burgeon team. Notice how in this video ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-77zpAaarnkU.html IWTL never used an electro character in the burgeon thoma team and in the end still came second to the hyperbloom team (and surpassed burning and fridge teams) in terms of faster clear times. If you hate thoma just say it, no need to spread misinformation. The clownery is embarrassing 🤡
15:01 I would say that Xinyan would benefit the most with the change in element as part of her kit is to deal physical damage and shred physical resistance, thus she could work with eula if she is electro as a physical resistance shredder and apply electro for superconduct, while also giving a shield (albeit somewhat weak) and deal some damage. Biggest issue would be to possibly rework her design to accommodate the change in element, which sucks for people who like her aesthetics and personality.
I would argue that no one was really expecting him to be a really good off field dps, I personally expected him to be a very strong shielded and a decent elemental applicator but when he was released he was only a decent shielded and an awful elemental applicator. I was personally hoping he would be a better shielded for hu Tao teams or maybe an enabler for reverse melt teams for a character like Ayaka. But he does’t Apollyon nearly enough pyro for reverse melt and has just enough pyro application to completely screw over Hu Tao if you are running her with Xinque. Plus his low base HP and attack percent ascension are revolting.
I play Yanfei in general, and Hu Tao in Abyss, so much, I forget Xiangling and Bennet exists sometimes 😂. I feel whatever the meta is I haven't been taking note.
A common misconception about Childe. He's not a serial killer, he just likes fighting, not killing. Diluc, though... that guy lures people into the winery to kill them so he's very very much a serial killer ♥
yeah Childe was willing to destroy an entire city on the teeny suspicion that Morax was still alive. So ur right abt not being a serial killer. He's more of a genocidal maniac
@@caoisekamay1175 again ur self reporting on how little u know, he was ORDERED to do that, and he stated it was largely AGAINST HIS MORALS and that he wasn't worried about too many people dying since he was confident Morax would save the day. According to the Labrynth Warriors event he considers killing even monsters like hilichurls a BURDEN. come back when ur educated about his character 🙄😩💙
@@Star_Rattler ahh the age old "it was just orders!!" argument. Do you think real life war criminals can get away with that excuse? "Yeah I know I killed all these innocent civilians but it was orders from the dictator, you can't blame me." Furthermore, he had the fake sigils prepared even before going to the Golden House. So he was already considering Liyue's destruction before "being confident Morax could save the day" (which again was just on a whim immediately after finding out, he didn't even put that much thought into it). Idk whats with people's obsession in redeeming or apologizing for bad characters. You can love a character while acknowledging they've done bad things. It just makes them more complex. I love Childe BECAUSE he's insane and bloodthirsty and yet also a cute family man. He has duality. I'm glad Mihoyo/Hoyoverse is leaning into letting characters be irredeemably evil with the intro of Dottore. Evil characters are so entertaining, that's why villains are always so popular. Have a nice day ❤
@@Star_Rattler are you literally a kid? "self-reporting" "come back when ur educated" plus the unironic emojis lmao. You talk like a kid who spends 3+ hours a day on twitter and tiktok. Grow up and accept that you stan a war criminal
@@caoisekamay1175 hes not a real person and YES if he's sexy he can get away with whatever crimes he wants to do ;) childe can murder if he wants, if it's orders or not XP he didn't kill anyone directly, and like i said, he views killing as a burden. he likes to FIGHT and BATTLE and is ok with losing. he wants to be strong to rule the world, not kill people. he's not bloodthirsty, shenhe is more "bloodthirsty" than he is and even that's not true. he just likes fighting, not killing. he has NEVER said he likes killing. hes not evil. you wouldn't understand his duality if you took a class on his character. i hope you have a suckass day and pee pee poopy your pants
As someone who didn't get Bennett or Xiangling before ar40 (yeah I never did the abyss) Thomas was in all my teams as the official pyro off-fielder (and he still is to this day)
Love the idea of making a video where you talk about all the "why no one plays" characters and what element/weapon type would make them a lot more appealing without changing much else in their kit ^^
I use Thoma because when he came out, he was for a very short while a staple in Hu Tao teams. No longer, but I don’t have any replacement units yet. Need a Yelan.
Idk if you know this but I think the full saying is "a jack of all trades is a master of none, but is often times better than a master of one." Thoma, sadly, does not fall into the often times.
My poor boi. He deserved so much better qvq. My thoma main butt is really huffing the copium. Tbh tho, while I dont think burgeon thoma will be meta, it definitely makes him better. Honestly if his dmg output and icd was better and his burst shield offered aditional utility (ex. 15% more Crit or ER or whatever while the shield is up) he likely could've been a lot more used.
I just want to say, with 3.1 coming out I've been watching a lot of Genshin videos from other creators. There's really no better Genshin creator than you. You're the only one I chose to subscribe to. You just have really good content! I always look forward to when you release another video.
if the new upcoming character "Layla" is an on field DPS specializing in Reactions like melt. I can see Thoma being a good support on her, kinda like a pyro Xq in a sense... Well, we dont know yet so... just a speculation...
tbh as frustrating as he feels to play sometimes i always feels so sad swapping him out TT i got him unexpectedly and i left him in the rain and his in the rain voiceline just caught me so off guard he instantly became my fave TT who would win actual meta/characters who probably are better to play/do more damage or a guy with some sweet voice lines :”)
I'm kind of interested to see whether he'll work well with Nahida. By virtue of being a catalyst user, she should be fairly good at consistent Dendro application, so using her as an on-field driver for XQ and Thoma should be interesting
Good video explaining the character as always. The music seemed loud in relation to the voice over I could still hear you but the mix seemed off. I pulled a Thoma that I’ve never used because I forgot he can shield the pulled Zhong Li so the shield didn’t matter anymore
I play Thoma only because I wanted to have an Inazuman Boys Dream Team tbh. I like his design and him as a character but I’m more accustomed to using other pyros.
Fun fact, iv built him Er/HP with Favonious, hes been my shielder for Eula, Razor and now Cyno. Holds longer than any other shielder while loosing dmg he can batery realy well. Note his C6 effect