Thaumaturge over ConjurerFollow

I mainly chose Thuamaturge because Conjurer just seems like the healer of the game and I was never a healing type of guy. I like that Conjurer has some black magic spells but just not enough. Thuamaturge seems more of my style and my personality. Reading descriptions of the abilities and spells of that class, I fell in love and I know its going to rock.

When I read the description for Initiation I was sold. Being able to share your buffs with a teammate is going to be awesome. Perhaps allowing such foolery as leveling a little conjurer for shock spikes so you can put them on the tank along with Punishing barbs? Or using Blood Rite and and Dark Seal to make the Conjurer blow something up with extra -splosion! No idea if thats how it will actually work, but I'm getting a vibe that Initiation is going to one of the most versatile and potent in a swiss-army-knife-type-of-way abilities in the game.

Don't sell yerself too quick. I read that (right now) it works only for the Absorb-Status line of spells (Absorb-ATT, Absorb-DEF etc.).

I think its definately personal preference. I would pick THM over CON purely because I like the idea of playing the game with all the debuffs, some nuking ability (Scourge etc) and the survivability of a Red Mage in FFXI (Gravity + DoT), but this hasnt been fully tested yet.

I ranked with quite a few CON's in my time since Alpha and found that both classes we similar however a big difference was our ability to shed hate and debuff the mob - the initiation action btw was very very poor in my testing - definately couldnt use Punishing Barbs which is silly because it would make people really want a THM in their party. The longevity of Initiations buffs on a party member was very quick as well - so you would actually manage to cast it and then 1 minute later its gone and you have to cast again, imagine casting this for every members of a party in cycles! It would mean you couldnt cast debuffs, Sacrifice etc! - So I hope SE change it so at least your ACC, EVA, DEF and ATT buffs stay for 10 minutes or so...

I also found one difference in a THM versus a CON - and this was in a duo - My mp pool stayed pretty full compared to the CON (this included me casting Stygian SPikes on him constantly) - even though my damage output was around the same level :) - Mind you this might have been because I had been using Silouette so he had to keep curing himself cause he was getting all the hate (I did cast Sacrifice too though!).

Until they sort the AoE and single target casting for both mages though + the party member targeting system niether job will make very effective Healers even though I'm sure both jobs could fulfill that role more than adequately.

Thats going to be so cool - I heard about it from Jalena (another high THM on Beta) but I can't remember when we get it. Any ideas on that? I was hoping to get it at 26 but never made it that far :(

I've seen that list and I'm not 100% convinced its 100% accurate...maybe be wrong though!

What's a "DAts"?

Could someone shed some light on the description of thaum on the official website when it comes to the (paraphrased) "Thaum can also put out some serious hurt, eclipsing even the DoW"? I mean, what I've read so far thaum seems to be able to do some damage, but conjurer seems to do more, and our focus seems to be debuff.

If I read the official description I just got the feeling we would debuff/buff and do a lot of dmg to mobs, even though it might be with DoTs more than direct dmg spells like conj. Sort of like Mage vs Warlock in WoW, is this just something I misunderstood or is the official description just innacurate?

Thaumaturge is definitely the Redmage in FFXIV.

Unfortunately initiation isn't as good as people are making it out to be. Since almost all buffs are AOE anyway, it'll only be good for transferring Absorb spells, or quickly rebuffing someone that has fallen in combat.

On that note Dia is awesome!

Shock Spikes is already AOE, so no need for Initation there. But, "ONLY" for absorbs? Ok, Absorb Attack, Absorb Defense, and transfer to GLD tank. Everyone hits harder because you debuffed def, and the tank is even tougher with better hate holding due to higher attack. Do acc/eva if using a PUG tank, and BAM, owned! :)

XD I will admit to doing the same thing OP did... reading the two descriptions, Conj felt white magey to me, so I went with the only other option.

So, I played THM to 17. I got Conj to 6. Both jobs play exactly the same solo. I know a lot of people swear by stoneskin/shockspikes, etc, and I will get them...but honestly, fighting mobs it's dart-dart-dart, occasionally cure/damnation.

I try to cast other spells, too, but it doesn't speed up the fight any, and I'm not exactly wowed by damage. The thing is, I wasn't wowed by damage in Conj, either.

Spells can miss, which is pretty irritating considering that they're not exactly instant cast. Stacking int didn't seem to make spell damage great, either...so now I mostly stick points into pie, mnd, and vit. (Having low hp, also, didn't seem to help -.-)

I'm not.. exactly in love with either of these jobs yet. Neither one of them grabbed me the way blm grabbed me in XI. Blm was boring to solo to 10, but that first skillchain made me fall in <3 with the job. I'm a DD at heart, healing is not something I do well. Or like to do.

Sadly, both Conj and THM in any kind of a party end up being healers, unless, of course, you're partying up with more than one mage, and the other guy gets to be healer.

I'm hoping to get THM to 30 and see how it plays then before deciding, and then I'll do the same for Conj. Atm, there's no real way to decide.

THM FTW

If your mobs are dropping within a few seconds either you are fighting Leve mobs in a party or your mobs you are fighting in a party are way too low. In most party situations I have been in the mobs take quite a while to go down and a THM's dot and debuffs when they land are totally worth it. Just ask the Tank and DD in my party - they want Dia+ABS DEF + slow to land to make fights quicker. There is a fine line though because the more damage your tank takes the more chance of skill ups you get.

works both ways , its a great idea to lvl both of these classes to atlest 20, if you plan to solo farm/grind on a melee class, they both help alot on that aspect.

Great to hear more and more ppl leveling both mages.

I love how I got rated down for saying I would level both concurrently...

I have to agree that the no-targeting thing makes healing very easy. Not sure about us being far superior though. there are situations when a CON will be able to heal people better through targeting a player and the aoe hitting all around them.

Nice to see an old player from Midgardsormr by the way :)

Big congratulations on getting both to 50! :)

I'm leveling both but leaning more toward thaumaturge, i level both because they compliment each other nicely. i do wish i could try out a melee job i feel like i would be far too gimp because 98% of my stats are int, piety, mnd.

I just equip some +str rings and load up the +str maybe +dex Traits.

No real need to maximize your DoW stats. My VIT carries over well, and at phys 50, give me survivability ... and of course all my spells ^.^