Hello dragonfly swarm! Thoma is back and better than ever. I made a guide video for him back before sumeru
came out, and I kinda wish I had waited now. When dendro came out, we were introduced to
“burgeon” teams, which Thoma thrives in as the premiere pyro unit currently. But even beyond that, I think there’s a
lot of misinformation as well as underestimating that happens with Thoma, even after dendro
was introduced to the game. So in this video, I’m going to explain everything
you’ll need to know about Thoma’s powerful new strategies and WHY I feel that he’s
a great character to invest in. But before I start, if you haven’t already,
please consider subscribing, because it very much helps my channel, and only a small percentage
of my viewers are actually subscribed. ALRIGHT, soooo, where was Thoma before dendro? Thoma was considered weak, a rather underwhelming
4 star shield support. And even that, is an arguable statement, because
a good portion of the community considered him to be underrated, and objectively speaking,
a LOT of the community didn’t really understand how he worked or how best to play him. Does that mean people were missing out on
some god tier 4 star that was better than every other character in this playstyle niche? Ahaha, no. But it DID mean that people never gave him
the time of day, and thus, never experienced how unique his kit actually is. And in fact, it’s so unique, that he’s
currently the ONLY character in the game that can consistently and reliably make burgeon
teams as powerful as they are. And they’re pretty strong. At high investment, a double hydro burgeon
team can wipe out Raiden shogun in one single phase, which doesn’t even take into account
that she’s a single target boss, and burgeon thrives in multi target scenarios. So… why exactly is such a powerful team
so reliant on such an undervalued character? Well, it’s probably because burgeon teams
aren’t really that easy to work with. They’re the first of a few teams introduced
in 3.0 that can actually cause a LOT of harm to your OWN team because of the burgeon explosions,
but also, in trying to trigger burgeon reactions, you’ll often end up triggering the burning
reaction instead, which just messes the whole thing up. And at that point you might as well have just
stuck with Hyperbloom teams, which are far easier to pull off and a lot less risky to
work with. But Thoma, remedies both of those issues to
the extent that burgeon teams are actually functional and enjoyable. His shields, even without his typical shield
support build, can mitigate a portion of the intense burgeon damage, PLUS, his pyro application
is slow enough to avoid triggering the burning reaction very often, ESPECIALLY with the help
of other teammates. You COULD argue that someone like Xinyan can
also work since she’s ALSO a pyro shielder, but that argument really doesn’t work. Xinyan’s shield does not refresh if it breaks…
which… in burgeon teams, it will. But beyond that, it doesn’t even have 100%
uptime unless she has c2, and even then, if and when the shield breaks, she has no more
pyro left to trigger burgeons until she can recast it, etc. etc. But OTHER pyro units, namely, literally everyone
else except Bennett, apply SO much pyro so consistently that it becomes very difficult
to actually trigger burgeon, in which case you’re better off just sticking to their
regular teams. So, essentially, right now, Thoma is only
the premiere burgeon character BECAUSE we don’t have any other options, that are even
remotely as compatible with the team as HE is. But in my relatively educated opinion, I don’t
think Hoyoverse will release another unit who consolidates so many roles so well in
burgeon teams for quite a while, and even if they DO, it’d likely be some very offensive
playstyle that doesn’t completely overshadow Thoma’s. Plus, keep in mind, he’s not just a burgeon
carry, he STILL plays well as a shield support if you’d rather go down that route. But moving onwards to how you should BUILD
Thoma for burgeon teams, it’s rather simple, thankfully. Just like any bloom team carry, your best
set for Thoma will be a 4pc Gilded Dreams, and your best mainstats will be triple elemental
mastery, entirely for the purposes of stacking as much EM on him as possible. This is because Thoma’s elemental mastery
is the one being calculated when burgeon explosions are triggered, so if he’s at level 90 and
his EM is at around 1000, you can expect to see burgeon explosions dealing upwards of
35-40,000 damage, which is theoretically around 80,000 dendro damage per second. That is absolutely insane. I do say theoretically because it won’t
ACTUALLY be that high. It would be impossible to trigger exactly
2 burgeons every 0.5 seconds, but it’ll be close to that damage output, and that’s
still insane. And as long as you’ve reached a decent amount
of elemental mastery, say… at least around 6-700, Thoma’s burgeons
will still be dealing respectable damage. You WILL have to invest in energy recharge
though so that he can cast his burst off of cooldown, because that’s what his pyro application
is entirely tied to. Luckily, in most burgeon teams, your best
teammate options and strategies usually lean towards quickswap teams in which you can generate
a LOT of particles, so he’s requirements can be as low as around 150-160% if you’re
running multiple Favonius weapons on the team or you’re in massive horde floors. On the other hand, though, his energy needs
CAN also be as high as 200-250% if your teammates are bad batteries or you’re not running
Fav weapons, etc. in which case, you WOULD have to sacrifice your EM sands for an energy
recharge sands, and/or your weapon for an energy recharge weapon. I would advise avoiding that outcome, because
it’ll cost Thoma a considerable amount of burgeon damage. So wherever you can, slot your teammates with
favonius weapons and/or utilize rotations that can drive lots of particles back to Thoma. This also subtly implies that substats such
as HP%, EM, and Energy recharge are all very valuable for Thoma. the extra HP will scale his shields a bit
so they can tank more burgeon damage, the energy recharge will ease his burst cost,
and then obviously the EM will make the burgeon explosions hit even harder. Other substats will NOT provide much value
at all unless you’re running Favonius lance on Thoma and you need a bit of crit rate. As for Thoma’s best weapons, there are some
very specific details you’ll have to consider in order to choose the one that’s best for
YOU. First and foremost, as a reaction trigger,
Thoma will LOVE elemental mastery in these teams, thus, his three best polearms for stacking
EM are Dragon’s Bane, Moonpiercer and Kitain Cross Spear. Dragon’s Bane will provide a VERY large
EM bonus for Thoma, and doesn’t require refinements to reach its maximum potential
with him. So this WILL be his strongest weapon overall
for burgeon teams and will provide the highest damage output, BUT, be aware of your energy
needs, because if they’re not already met, you should probably avoid using this weapon
so Thoma doesn’t miss his burst. In which case, you’d likely be better off
with Kitain Cross Spear. It’s a craftable weapon that provides a
decent amount of elemental mastery, BUT, at r5, its passive can refund just under 20%
of Thoma’s burst cost back to him when he casts his skill. This means his energy needs will inherently
be quite a bit lower by default, and that is a VERY valuable asset to provide, so unless
your energy needs are solid and covered, I wouldn’t underestimate this weapon as one
of his best in this team. And in a much more situational context, Moonpiercer
can ALSO be one of thoma’s best weapons in burgeon teams. It provides the same EM as Kitain Cross Spear,
but allows Thoma to buff the active character’s ATK with a little leaf thingy. This weapon can provide a lot of value in
burgeon teams where you have a dedicated DPS to drive Thoma’s pyro application, for example,
Ayato and Childe can both make great use of this buff, and thus would greatly enjoy Thoma
using this weapon so long as his energy needs are met. But if you’re REALLY struggling with his
energy needs, as I said earlier, you CAN sacrifice your EM weapons for an energy weapon such
as Favonius Lance, The Catch, Skyward Spine or Engulfing Lightning if you have them. Favonius Lance provides Thoma with a decent
ER bonus as well as a means of generating lots of energy, and then Engulfing Lightning
and The Catch just straight up provide him with a huge chunk of energy recharge. Using these weapons WILL cost Thoma a noticeable
amount of burgeon damage output, but that’s better than not being able to cast his burst,
in which case you’d have basically 0 burgeon damage output. And overall with all of these weapon options,
keep in mind that base attack and offensive stats such as crit and ATK do very little
for burgeon Thoma, so generally you won’t find use out of weapons outside of these recommendations. Finally with Thoma’s burgeon strategies,
we gotta discuss the best teams to slot him into, because there are a LOT of options at
his disposal as the central unit of this team. Burgeon teams require a few key teammates
to function properly, first and most obviously, a hydro and a dendro unit, so that you can
create bloom seeds for Thoma to burgeon. But you’ll ALSO very very much want to slot
a supportive unit somewhere in there, because burgeon seeds do a LOT of damage to your own
team. So in this section, I’m going to discuss
in detail the two main archetypes of Thoma burgeon teams, those 2 being quickswap burgeon
teams and DPS burgeon teams. Starting with quickswap burgeon teams, these
are very much the most common kind of burgeon teams because they’re quite budget friendly
and can utilize a lot of different teammate options. In your first slot you’ll obviously use
Thoma, then the second slot must be a dendro unit, preferably either Dendro Traveller or
Nahida. In your third slot, you’ll need a hydro
unit, and I’d say your best options currently are either Xingqiu for his very fast hydro
application, or Kokomi, for her ability to apply decent hydro AND heal her team. Other hydro units work, and I’ll mention
them in a bit, but they tend to change the way you’ll want to play this team. Finally in your last slot, you can use any
number of characters that don’t interfere with burgeon reactions, and generally i just
recommend using that slot to fit whatever you’re missing, currently. For example, If your 3 core units don’t
provide much survivability, consider slotting a support such as Diona, Layla, Zhongli, Kokomi
etc into that last spot. Otherwise, offensive options such as anemo
crowd controllers or sub DPS units can work instead. Some of the best ways to utilize this last
slot though is by pairing the team with someone like Fischl or Layla, who can apply a reliable
amount of their own element to enemies. Doing this can prevent the burning reaction
from triggering, and can often times provide a large overall damage increase for thoma’s
burgeon output. And in general, you can expect these kinds
of quickswap burgeon team to be relatively lax with their rotation strategies. and you’ll have lots of freedom to swap
between characters and cast their skills so as to generate lots of energy for thoma’s
burst, which acts as the central point of the entire team. … <two clips interchanging> In most cases, these burgeon teams will provide
drastically more damage output in AOE combat as opposed to single target combat, but even
then as you can see, the damage output in single target is NOT negligible by any means. And so the second archetype of these burgeon
teams is what i would call “DPS Hybrid” Burgeon teams. In these teams, your main hydro unit will
actually also double as your main DPS, so my dendro unit recommendations will remain
the same, however for the hydro unit, your best options will be Childe, Ayato, or on-field
Kokomi. And in your last slot, once again, you can
use it to flex any number of characters to make the team more enjoyable for you, so long
as they don’t interfere with burgeon reactions. The idea of this team archetype is that Thoma
is STILL acting as the primary off field DPS, and he’ll still be outputting the same very
large amount of burgeon DPS, but you’ll also have a hydro damage dealer dishing out
their own high personal DPS whilst assisting thoma’s burgeons. With Ayato or Childe as your core hydro unit,
I’d recommend using your last slot for a supportive character since the team otherwise
wouldn’t have ANY survivability. But with Kokomi in that slot, she’s dealing
good personal damage whilst ALSO consistently healing your entire team, so you could actually
use that last slot for any number of characters, such as for example Xingqiu, so that your
hydro application completely prevents burning reactions AND Xingqiu assists Kokomi’s own
personal damage. As usual, are a lot of options for that 4th
slot, and I’d just recommend testing out different characters to see which one provides
the most comfortable finishing touches to the team… for you. … <dps Kokomi clip> Aaaaand that’s about it. Which is saying a lot. I mean it’s weird how such an underrated
character has access to SO many different variants of this dendro meta, and not only
that, he’s the CORE unit that makes the whole team function. And while I very much wouldn’t say burgeon
teams are as easy to execute as Hyperbloom teams and other team variants, it can be VERY
rewarding if you just learn the basics of how it works, which… I guess was the purpose of this video. And speaking of this video, it’s OVER now. If you enjoyed, or it helped you in any way,
don’t forget to like and subscribe, and I will see youuuu in the next one.
