Genshin Impact: Thoma Build Guide – Weapons, Artifacts and More

Genshin Impact’s Phase II update for version 2.3 has just released Thoma, the housekeeper hailing from Mondstadt as a new playable 4-star character. This new character is a powerful support type that can supply his team with shields similar to characters like Zhongli, Xinyan, and more. However, unlike the other shield bearers, Thoma’s shields can be stacked, allowing him and his team to withstand intense amounts of damage with relative ease. With his unique shield stacking gameplay and Pyro element skills, Thoma can easily fix up your team comp and improve your survivability in your combat while exploring or when battling in the Spiral Abyss.

This guide will quickly go over what his skills can do, what weapons and artifacts you should use, and what team members will synergize best with Thoma’s kit.

Thoma’s Attacks and Abilities

• Melee Attack: Swiftshatter Spear
  • Normal Attack: Performs up to four consecutive spear strikes.
  • Charged Attack: Consumes a certain amount of Stamina to lunge forward, dealing damage to opponents along the way.
  • Plunging Attack: Plunges from mid-air to strike the ground below, damaging opponents along the path and dealing AoE DMG upon impact.
• Elemental Skill: Blazing Blessing
  • Thoma vaults forward with his polearm and delivers a flame-filled flying kick that deals AoE Pyro DMG, while also summoning a defensive Blazing Barrier.
    At the moment of casting, Thoma’s Elemental Skill applies Pyro to himself.
    The DMG Absorption of the Blazing Barrier scales off Thoma’s Max HP.
    Blazing Barrier absorbs Pyro DMG 250% more effectively, and when a new Blazing Barrier is obtained, the remaining DMG Absorption of an existing Blazing Barrier will stack and its duration will be refreshed.
  • The maximum DMG Absorption of the Blazing Barrier will not exceed a certain percentage of Thoma’s Max HP.
• Elemental Burst: Crimson Ooyoroi
  • Thoma spins his polearm, slicing at his foes with roaring flames that deal AoE Pyro DMG and weave themselves into a Scorching Ooyoroi.
  • While Scorching Ooyoroi is in effect, the active character’s Normal Attacks will trigger Fiery Collapse, dealing AoE Pyro DMG and summoning a Blazing Barrier.
    Fiery Collapse can be triggered once every 1s.
  • If Thoma falls, the effects of Scorching Ooyoroi will be cleared.

Thoma’s Passive Talents

• Imbricated Armor (Unlocked at Ascension 1)
  • When your currently active character obtains or refreshes a Blazing Barrier, this character’s Shield Strength will increase by 5% for 6s.
    This effect can be triggered once every 0.3 seconds. Max 5 stacks.
• Flaming Assault (Unlocked at Ascension 4)
  • DMG dealt by Crimson Ooyoroi’s Fiery Collapse is increased by 2.2% of Thoma’s Max HP.
• Snap and Swing (Unlocked Automatically)
  • When you fish successfully in Inazuma, Thoma’s help grants a 20% chance of scoring a double catch.

Thoma’s Weapons

Due to the defensive playstyle that Thoma brings, Thoma is primarily used best as a support type, rather than a main or sub-DPS character. While it is possible to use him as a sub-DPS, his damage values are so low compared to many DPS characters that it may not be worth pursuing a DPS build in the long run. Regardless, when building Thoma up around his supportive skills, energy recharge will become a mandatory stat for him due to his elemental burst having a high energy cost. Weapons such as Favionius Lance or The Catch will work wonders when fully leveled up, as the amount of energy recharge gained from either of these lances will significantly help maintain those energy costs. If you’re looking to land more damage when using Thoma in battle, Using The Catch over Favionius Lance will be a much better choice, due to the increased elemental burst damage and elemental burst critical rate.

Of course, if you have the luck (or the funds) to get ahold of the Engulfing Lighting spear, Thoma’s attack and energy recharge will have the most potential, as it will increase attack power based on 28% or more of Thoma’s maximum energy recharge. Even better, Thoma will gain 30% or more energy recharge for 12 seconds after using his elemental burst, allowing him to keep activating his elemental burst over and over again.

Thoma’s Artifacts

When it comes to artifact choices, there are two kinds of sets that players should pursue to get the most of them:

The first build that players can attempt is a balanced build that requires collecting “Emblem of Severed Fate” which increases energy recharge rate by 20% with the 2-piece set and increases Elemental Burst Damage based on 25% of Thoma’s maximum energy recharge. The main stats that players should focus on farming should be HP% on Sands, Pyro bonus damage on Goblet, and Crit Rate on Circlet.

For a more hyper-focused build that forgoes any damage enhancement in favor of more powerful shields, players can attempt a 2-set combination of “Emblem of Severed Fate” with “Tenacity of the Millelith”, while stacking as much HP% on sands, goblet, and circlet as possible. This will make Thoma’s shields incredibly tanky and able to withstand lots of damage, even without skill stacking. The amount of damage players will be able to get from Thoma will be low, but your main DPS will benefit greatly as they will fight while being nearly untouchable.

Best Thoma Team Compositions

As a Pyro character, it’s easy to figure out where Thoma would fit well into many team compositions. With Pyro being one of the most effective elements in the game, it’s always a good choice to pair him up with another main-DPS Pyro character along with a sub-DPS Hydro character. Easily one of the best characters to pair Thoma up with would be Hu-Tao, as her playstyle is focused on increasing her damage output by sacrificing her own HP each time she uses her elemental skill.  By activating Thoma’s shield just before switching to Hu-Tao, she can keep her HP fairly lower while staying protected. Along with the increased damage boost by having two Pyro characters together on the same team, Hu-Tao’s damage output will be increased even further.

With two pyros on the team, pairing them up with a Hydro character like Xingqiu will easily create a devastating combo, as Pyro and Hyrdo can create powerful Vaporize reactions together, further boosting the team’s damage potential, especially when Xingqiu’s elemental burst is active. As for the fourth choice: players can pretty much pick whichever character they want to fill the gap, depending on their goals in combat. For instance, you can’t go wrong with adding an Ameno character to the team for those easy swirl spreading reactions, or a Cyro character for Melt reactions.

Conclusion

Thoma’s inclusion in Genshin Impact has brought a super defensive style of play that’s easy to grasp and easier to gain value from. While he’s not much of a damage dealer, his pyro shields can help out main-DPS characters as long as players can manage their uptime, while being able to sync up well with Hydro users for easy damage potential. If you manage to unlock this dependable housekeeper, expect to see your survivability in battle increase tenfold. For more information, check out our other Genshin Impact guides here.

Genshin Impact is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, and mobile devices.