New Thaumaturge Question

[Grumbie]

I read a lot of experienced players complaining about BLM's spamming Blizzard. I'm a low level Thaumaturge right now, so I want to plan ahead to avoid inefficient playstyle later on. I admit I spam Blizzard during Umbral Ice because there is little else to do except Thunder until Transpose cools off. Is this bad practice?. Should I ignore the Transpose cooldown and just start Fire again when my MP is back to full (even though I'll still likely be under Umbral Ice) or just continue doing what I'm doing?

[SecretCrowds]

The rotation for a BLM differs a lot by level. When you read complaints of ice mages, they are referring to high level BLMs that only use ice spells, not low level BLMs. Everything changes when you learn fire 3 and blizzard 3. And your rotation will keep changing as you learn newer spells and traits.

Now, at your level, I would recommend you to use fire till you are out of mana. Then, when you are out of mana, transpose to go into umbral ice and regen mana. Use thunder once while under umbral ice and use blizzard till you have gained back all your mp
Now, transpose will still be on cd after you gain your mp back. I recommend you to just use fire right away and not transpose to astral fire.

Just fire all the way till you have no mp and then transpose. Use thunder and ice till full mp. Use fire till no mp. Rinse and repeat.

I won't explain about the newer rotations until you get the newer spells and traits (starting with Fire 3), since you probably wouldn't understand. However, once you learn Fire 3, just ask again and I won't mind explaining the newer rotations. Take note though that it changes very often from then on and you might be finding yourself changing rotation every few levels after that. It is quite easy to understand though. And definitely a lot more fun to play than low level THM.

Note: Of course, for all classes, getting newer spells means changing rotations. However, for all other classes, the basic rotation still remains somewhat similar. For BLMs, the rotation drastically changes, although the concept of using fire spells under astral fire for damage and switching to umbral ice for mp regen still remains.

[Grumbie]

Thanks for the help

[Niwashi]

[EDIT: Sorry, this post just kind of rambles on with an observation regarding the game's skill descriptions. If you're just looking for useful answers to Grumbie's questions, SecretCrowds' post above seems to cover it. I didn't really add anything to that.]

... although the concept of using fire spells under astral fire for damage and switching to umbral ice for mp regen still remains.

I think that's the basic part of the pattern that low level THM are supposed to be learning. Unfortunately (perhaps by intention, I'm not sure), the game doesn't explain it to you. The skill descriptions only say that fire spells grant "Astral Fire" and ice spells grant "Umbral Ice". Since it doesn't explain what either of those do, it isn't very meaningful on its own.

I remember when I first started out and thought that "Umbral Ice" made ice skills stronger and fire spells weaker whereas "Astral Fire" would do the opposite, making fire spells stronger and ice spells weaker. Though it made sense to use Transpose if switching between the two, it wasn't clear at first when I should be switching between them. It didn't take long to notice that things died quicker to fire spells, but at the time I just thought that meant it was a more common elemental weakness than ice. (I didn't know yet that FFXIV had pretty much done away with the elemental strengths and weaknesses found throughout the rest of the FF franchise. They are, after all, still listed in our stats.)

It took a bit longer to figure out that Umbral Ice gave an MP regen, or that the extra damage from Fire spells was due to the Astral Fire buff and occurred with any mob rather than being a matter of some being weak to it. Only once all those pieces were figured out was it possible to put together the standard Fire damage / Ice MP pattern that the class and its job are built around.

It's actually a common issue in skill descriptions across a lot of classes. They'll say that such-and-such skill grants such-and-such effect without ever saying what that effect does. (It sounds particularly weird when the skill and effect share a name, like telling us that Aetherflow grants Aetherflow as though that would be informative. At least that one had a class quest a few levels later telling us it was useful, and that we should try combining it with Energy Drain. I don't think THM's paired buff states were ever really explained in any of its quests.)

[Astrelle_hyperion]

I think it was explained in Active Help. But most people just click that away.

[Niwashi]

I think it was explained in Active Help. But most people just click that away.

Ah, that's possible. For the most part, I usually try to read all those Active Help windows that come up, but there were a few (especially if they popped up in the middle of combat as this one likely would have) when I was in too much of a rush to clear it out of my way so I could see what was happening, and missed one. Maybe this is one of those ones I missed.

I still think it would be better if wherever a skill grants a buff, the skill description would say what the buff does rather than just referencing its name. Either that, or add a help section listing all the status effects in the game and what each one does, so that if skill X says it has the effect of granting status Y, we could look up Y in a listing of status effects (and maybe have the skill description link to that entry). It would be a good place for listing debuffs we can get from enemies as well (which would be really useful for new healers trying to learn what to Esuna). Most games seem to have a reference like that, so I was a bit surprised this game doesn't. (Or at least it didn't last time I checked, which was probably a couple years ago.)

[AnaviAnael]

Thanks for the help

No, thank YOU for asking. For a lot of us it warms our hearts to see people taking the time to learn their job. The people you get paired with in duty finder will be grateful for it. Keep being awesome!

[Shicka]

as a low lvl thm id say dont worry about it until you get f3 then you practice a bit more on rotating back and forth between ui and af then learn your 60 rotation when you cap and just practice