Best THOMA Genshin Impact Builds Artipact, Weapons

 As a unique new character in Genshin Impact, Thoma gets a lot of misconceptions, both from his role and the way he plays.

After so many new characters were released, Genshin Impact finally released a new shielder character. The last character to provide a powerful shield is Zhongli, which was released in November 2020.

After a year had passed, Zhongli had already proven superior at protecting the other team members. What about Thomas? Will he be able to live up to Zhongli's standards?

Overview

Thoma is a Pyro character armed with a 4-star polearm, whose skill is focused on providing shields and applying Pyro. Genshin Impact describes Thoma as a supporting character who is able to protect and attack simultaneously. This is reflected in his Elemental Burst, which will damage Pyro and his shield.

Even though they both produce shields, Thoma has its own uniqueness when compared to other shielder characters, such as Zhongli, Diona, Xinyan, Noelle, or Beidou (C1). Check out the explanation of how the Thoma shield works below:

Mekanik Shield

When another character creates a shield while in the arena there is a shield of the same type, the previous shield is immediately replaced with a new shield, regardless of the properties of the previous shield.

This is different from Thoma's stacking system. Every time he gets a new shield, the power of the new shield will receive the remainder of the power of the old shield. Additionally, the duration will also be refreshed.

There are two ways to stack shields, namely through Elemental Skills and Burst. When activating Elemental Skills, Thoma immediately gets a shield. Shields created in this way, had stronger resistance, compared to shields from Elemental Burst.

To get a shield from his Elemental Burst, the method is a little different. When activating Elemental Burst, the shield does not form immediately. Players need to perform a Normal Attack, to trigger Scorching Ooyoroi, which is Pyro's attack in front of the character.

So every time a character performs a Normal Attack for the duration of his Elemental Burst is still active, then a shield will continue to be formed and stacked, with a duration that will always be refreshed. Through his passive talent, every time this shield is refreshed, the character who gets it will get an additional 5% Shield Strength up to five times, with a maximum result of 25% Shield Strength.

So, if you can master the game of Thoma, then Thoma's shield will be durable and strong. It can be said, that the strength of Thoma's shield is directly proportional to the length of the battle duration.

As a supporting character, Thoma has several weaknesses. The thing that is most noticeable when using Thoma is its energy requirement of 80. Therefore, Thoma requires a high Energy Recharge, which is around 200-230%, especially for C0. This can be achieved through weapons and artifacts.

In addition to energy problems, Thoma's base HP is also fairly low, especially for a character whose shield is based on HP. In addition, Thoma takes a while to accumulate his optimal shield, compared to other characters who immediately provide their optimal shield when skill activation.

Because of this stacking system, Thoma is compatible with DPS, which often uses Normal Attack. Thoma is a perfect match for Hu Tao because Hu Tao needs a shield more than healing.

Performance as a sub DPS?

Before Thoma was officially released, many players hoped that he would be similar to Xingqiu, with Elemental Burst that would consistently deliver the Pyro effect. However, after being released, Thoma turned out to have an obstacle that made it unsuitable for use as a sub DPS or enabler, namely the internal cooldown.

What is the internal cooldown in Genshin Impact? In simple terms, the internal cooldown is a pause for a character, in applying an element. In Thoma's case, he is unable to grant Pyro status to enemies in every Pyro wave of his Elemental Burst. He can apply Pyro once per three attacks.

That means, Thoma can't react stably to various Pyro element reactions, such as Vaporize, Melt, and Overload, making the damage he generates unamplified.

Plus, Thoma's Elemental Burst talent multiplier is quite a small number. Another example of a character who has a similar problem is Yoimiya who was released some time ago.

The existence of an internal cooldown can be interpreted as a weakness as well as an advantage of Thoma. As a sub DPS, the internal cooldown is very annoying.

However, as a shielder, especially when with Hu Tao, Thoma will rarely take the Hydro effect from Xingqiu so that it will not interfere with the Vaporize reaction of Hu Tao and Xingqiu. So it can be concluded that Thoma was designed to fulfill Hu Tao's needs.

Artifact

As a shielder, the choice of artifacts is not too much. If you don't have any other characters that wield 4 Noblesse Obliges, then you can use those artifacts for Thoma to provide additional buffs for a team.

However, if there are other characters with 4 Noblesse Oblige, or if you have trouble collecting 4 Noblesse Oblige with the appropriate main stat, you can use 2 Tenacity of the Millelith and 2 Emblem of Severed Fate as an alternative.

For 4 Emblems of Severed Fate, it is not recommended for Thoma because its Elemental Burst multiplier is relatively small and it is difficult to get elemental reactions.

Main stat yang dicari: HP% / Energy Recharge ; HP% ; HP% / Crit Rate (Favonius Lance).

Prioritas substat: HP% > Energy Recharge > flat HP > Crit rate/DMG > ATK%.

Weapon

Because Thoma requires ER and HP, the choice of Thoma's weapon can be determined from your Thoma's needs. If you need ER, the recommended weapons are  Favonius Lance, Skyward Spine, Engulfing Lightning, The Catch, and Prototype Starglitter.

For Favonius Lance, you need at least a 30% to 50% Crit rate to activate the passive effect. You can increase the Crit rate by substation your artifact or by using the Circle Crit rate.

If you don't have an Energy Recharge polearm or maybe it's being used by another character, you can use Staff of Homa or Black Tassel. To balance the stats, you can use Sands Energy Recharge. Thoma can use the Staff of Homa because the weapon gives extra HP%.

Team Composition

Thoma is suitable as Hu Tao's shielder in the Vaporize team. In addition to functioning as a shielder, Thoma can help lower the Pyro resistance of nearby enemies, with the help of the Anemo character.

Thoma will apply Pyro first, then the Anemo character (Kazuha or Sucrose) will continue by doing a Pyro swirl, to activate the Viridescent Venerer artifact effect. After that continued with Xingqiu and Hu Tao.

Keep in mind that Hu Tao can't give Pyro without breaking Hu Tao and Xingqiu's rotation, so Thoma's presence will enhance Hu Tao's more aggressive Vaporize team.

Share :