Thaumaturge leveling: confused...

[LuSnow]

Re leves: Yes, I do them, but first since I'm above 20, because before, I couldn't manage the ones requiring kills. My thaumaturge was very weak against damages and the foes could kill me in no time. It goes a bit better now that I'm above 20, because I damage faster, but my defenses are still quite weak.

Re roulettes: For me, it's not a matter of liking - or not - going with other players, it's more that with my low level, I'm afraid to be a dead weight for the team and I feel very embarrassed at that.

Generally, my thaumaturge does not resist well against damages. I can give you a typical example: I am now level 30 and have the quest to swap to black mage (my objective). That quest requests to kill two foes coming out of a fissure: I keep failing. Reason: I don't damage fast enough compared to the speed at which the foes get my health down. That's annoying and really typical of what I experience as a thaumaturge (I never had that problem of weak defenses as an arcanist).

Since 2 minutes, am level 31 and a black mage. I do hope it will be a better experience than thaumaturge.

[Shistar]

Hmm, a few things that caught my attention:

My thaumaturge was very weak against damages and the foes could kill me in no time. It goes a bit better now that I'm above 20, because I damage faster, but my defenses are still quite weak. [...] That quest requests to kill two foes coming out of a fissure: I keep failing. Reason: I don't damage fast enough compared to the speed at which the foes get my health down. That's annoying and really typical of what I experience as a thaumaturge (I never had that problem of weak defenses as an arcanist).

This sounds like your gear is in serious need of an upgrade. You should not be this weak, and it does not make a lot of sense to me that your arcanist is stronger than your thaumaturge, when they wear the same gear type. Check your gear's level, and see if you can buy anything better from a merchant NPC. Check your gear's state: if it is 0% you might as well be running around naked, you must mend it at a Mender NPC and keep it anywhere over 0% for the gear to work. Are you wearing jewelry, and jewelry appropriate for your role? Check your weapon's stats (+Critical Hit, +Determination, +Mind, etc) and try to wear jewelry that matches your weapon's main stats. Make sure you're not wearing random jewelry like +Dexterity, it's no use to you. This should fix your defense issues.

If you are overwhelmed by enemy attacks, you may have a Role Action called "Sleep" - it's an aoe that sleeps weaker enemies for a long time, but be aware that you will wake them up if you hit them (so sleep them all, then kill them one at a time if you must)
You may also have Swiftcast - which you can use to either quickly sleep enemies or to insta-cast an attack. Sometimes, the best defense is pure, destructive force lol

Remember to keep an eye on enemy cast bars and aoes! Although it sounds obvious, maybe they're casting something that you're having trouble seeing? It may be worth checking it if you're running out of ideas.

Re roulettes: For me, it's not a matter of liking - or not - going with other players, it's more that with my low level, I'm afraid to be a dead weight for the team and I feel very embarrassed at that.

Here's the thing: The more you avoid other players, the more this feeling will intensify over time, and at some point you will be unable to socialize or accept help from other players. You're not a dead weight as long as you're not trying to be, and I promise that just like people are helping you on the forums, they'll try to help you ingame too. Just be honest when you're struggling like you are here and many will offer helpful advice!
If you are worried about your personal damage, check out this useful site: https://www.icy-veins.com/ffxiv/black-mage-leveling (using black mage as an example, but there's a page for every class)
Use the slider to select your level and it'll spit out an example rotation and some tips for you to learn your job. Practice this at a training dummy nearby most settlements. You'll get the hang of it in no time.

When you go into a roulette, everyone is synced down to a similar level. As long as you're pushing any button at all, your damage should be comparable to your teammates'.


Also, don't be embarrassed, because many of us were absolute menaces to society (and we were shameless in it too) when we were sprouts.
I'm telling you now, I was an archer (not a bard, an ARCHER) until nearly lvl50! I was wearing tanking jewelry too, because I didn't know about the stats and just bought whatever the game listed first (let's not talk about the time my best friend showed up to an alliance raid without his pants. Straight up no pants, nada, nothing!). My DPS was abysmal and I struggled to remember to look at the chatbox, so I often missed useful advice from my teammates... nowadays I'm reclearing ultimates! We all get better at our own pace, but avoiding roulettes is doing you more harm than good, I promise. In the future, you'll be glad you embarrassed yourself as a sprout and you'll be able to share some funny stories with others, because we all did some seriously silly stuff when we were learning our jobs, and we all had to go through that to become better at our jobs. You feel nervous now, but in the future it'll enable you to step into any kind of content that interests you with confidence in yourself.

If you're nervous, I can go with you on your first roulettes. I'm happy to help, so let me know!

[Frizze]

When i read this, my initial thoughts were either your THM weapon was out of date or that you might have the rotation wrong(it isnt unusual to see lower level THMs who either only use ice spells because of the mana cost or who alternate fire ice fire ice - both of which significantly lower your damage). Weapon contributes more to your spell damage then any other piece of gear, so when in doubt that slot should be the first you upgrade. As for the rotation, THM/BLM is a little odd in that the correct rotation changes a lot more often as you level up compared to other classes. Stripped down to the most basic parts, the idea is that you spam fire spells until you run out of mana then switch to ice spells to recharge. That much is true from level 1 to level 100, but which spells you prioritize and how you change back and forth goes through several revisions. THM/BLM also uses a spell naming scheme that confuses some people. If you dont read your tooltips, you might think that Fire 2 is an upgrade to Fire 1. It isnt, its the AoE version. Is Fire 3 an upgrade? Not exactly. It does more damage(and is single target), but it costs too much and is too slow to cast. But Fire 3 lets you switch from ice to fire with your full damage buff in place, and you get to cast it for free+instant some times(via the Firestarter trait) so it definitely is used. What about Flare? Well its AoE, but also very strong even on a single target. But with Flare, the cost is deceptive. It says it costs all your mana, and indeed it uses all your mana when you get it(you later get a trait that lets you use it once for only most of your mana). But you dont need to be full mana to cast Flare, as little as 800 is enough - which means you can use Fire 2 repeatedly and still finish that AoE round on a Flare as long as you save your last 800. It also means that you could drink an Ether that restores at least 800 and use it again.

Ok, that was a lot of words. And many of them probly dont apply to you yet. The overall point was just to read what your spells do, and when in doubt ask questions.

[LuSnow]

@Shistar: For info, with my main toon, I do roulettes and party with other players for lot of other stuff and enjoy that. You're fully right with all what you say. My "problem" was limited to my newly born alt, with whom I didn't feel comfortable. When it's like that, going with others puts an enormous stress on me (can't help it). Such a case where I prefer to grind alone rather than coping with the stress of teaming up. Idiotic, but can't help it...

@Frizze: Thanks for your post that came as a confirmation that my understanding of my skills is correct. Lucky me! Arcanist also has that concept of skills existing simultaneously, one for single target and the other for AOEs. So I'm already used to it. I will keep in mind everything you say in your post.

I'm by now level 32 and black mage, with better equipment, so I start to enjoy it.