Umbral, Astral and Neutral affinityFollow

I have been often wondering during my fighting as a Thaumaturge what specifically each spell has an affinity too. For the most part I remember but there is that odd occasion that I am unsure. The ZAM database does a great job in listing all the possible spells that a THM gets (with the addition of a few that are not in the game) but it doesn’t present these in a table format that makes it easy to see which spells are connected to either umbral, astral or neutral elements.

According to Lodestone the following is true:

Umbral = Earth, Ice and Water
Astral = Fire, Thunder and Wind
Neutral has no affinity

So when planning your spell builds for different occasions it is important to bear in mind what spells to set according to...

a) What you will be doing when fighting
b) How you have assigned your elemental points

Scourge and Banish
These two spells are seen by many THM’s as our version of nukes and some ways they are, but people forget they are much more than this. If you make a successful hit on an enemy with either of these spells you will not just hit it for damage but if it’s a full hit will also debuff the enemy with weakness to either umbral or astral magic.
This is where I believe these spells are more useful because its then when you follow up with another debuffs that you are making the most of what you can do.

The amount of Umbral spells we have compared to astral is much greater (about 5 to 1) so here I have presented the list for everyone to see at a glance. Some of you experienced THM’s out there will of course already know all of this and will remember most of the spells affinities already. I hope to help anyone taking on the class for the first time or assist you as you climb the ranking ladder.
So without further ado here they are:

Umbral Spells
Scourge I & II, Posion (water), Slow (Earth), Damnation, Bio I & II, Stygian Spikes I&II, All Absorb spells, Siphon MP I&II, Siphon TP I&II, Drain, Bind (Ice), Paralyze (Ice), Flashfreeze (Ice), Resurrect, Blind.

Neutral
Sacrifice I, II & III, Shadowsear

Astral
Banish I&II, Gravity (wind), Dia I&II, Silence (wind)

No affinity magical attacks
Phantom Dart, Silouette, Shadowfall

No affinity Magic spells
Exaltation, Blood Rite I&II, Punishing Barbs, Dark Seal I&II, Initiation, Paradigm Shift, Emulate, Contagion.

Hope this provides some useful information.


Edited, Feb 26th 2011 2:58pm by EdyNOTB

Edited, Feb 26th 2011 3:00pm by EdyNOTB

With my THM I also go strong on the Umbral side of elemental stats. In a fight that will last a bit I open with a Scourge I/Scourge II macro, followed by Poison/Bio II macro. If its a really long fight such as a NM I use an Absorb DEF/ATT/EVA/ACC macro and then transfer it to the tank with Initiation. I also pumped a lot of points into wind for Silence. Also, pay attention to the elemental stats on your weapon. You don't want to use a fire brand if all your stats are pumped into Umbral elements. An ice or water brand works great for me for nuking Scourge I/Scourge II macro, and the Ornate Silver Scepter is great for all of my Umbral Dot macro's.

A bit of an update:

After toying with elemental stats the most effective setup for me so far was to keep the Umbral (ice, water, earth) as high as possible, with anything extra going to ice. I use scourge II and Blizzard II along with Blood Rite II and Profundity and am getting great resaults, especially AOE. My paralyze sticks way more often than not, and all that coupled with an Ice brand (that can be repaired much eaier than a water brand) equals some nice damage to a mob that stays paralyzed the majority of the fight. I noticed my Flashfreeze actually hits for as much as damnation, and it incapacitates.

Anyone else try stacking heavy towards one or more elements? Please share your setup, the info so far is very helpful.

Please check my lodestone profile. It's been like this for quite some time now :)

It seems that for me the increase in PIE and INT work well. Having said that the INT boost seems to be much lower than the boost I get as a THM from PIE. Its all situational though. If I'm fighting NM then landing Buffs with the the PIE is more important and useful than higher magic damage so I would say that in that case INT is not so important. In normal play though (bear in mind that as I've hit 50 already I don't leve/party grind anymore on it) buffs are nowhere near used as much, maybe the odd one and I tend to nuke more, so PIE is less important and INT more so. If you see the thread in this forum of that quality THM solo'ing the NM Kaeko Thaumaturgeyou can see that he must have high VIT and MND stats also as his Sacrifice Heals are hitting 700+ but again this is for NM battles and in his case solo ones!
I should really lower all my stats and try and look at them again though because I have had them this way for quite some time now. Puting all into INT or all into PIE might be interesting as would lowering/raising my VIT and MND stats. As I am now ranking up CON to 50 some of the stats are startig to mingle a lot more than they did when I was mainly THM without CON abilities.

Wow insider information thank you for this :)

....Edit...or you just looked him up on Lodestone (which I admit I didn't even think of doing lol)

Edited, Mar 9th 2011 6:35am by EdyNOTB

I never thought about the prime conditioning trait from Pug, now i'll have to get to work on that. Thanks for the info ^^