I assume you’re leveling a Thaumaturge – you’re reading this after all. Luckily, obliterating enemies from afar will be easy! Being the softest class in the game, however… If all goes well – this Thaumaturge Leveling Guide will help you blaze (and freeze) your way past the early game.
BEFORE WE BEGIN, this Thaumaturge Leveling Guide is should be utilized with the FFXIV General Leveling Guide. Remember, if this is your first character – follow your story quest! If you need to know more about the: basics of a Thaumaturge, give yourself a refresher
Don’t know where the THM guild is? It’s in Ul’Dah. If you have any Accuracy Food, good. Is your battle chocobo ready? Good.
Hold on, I’m above L30 – I’m a Black Mage! Then get over to the BLM Leveling Guide.
Thaumaturge: the early levels
If you’re a fresh off the wagon Thaumaturge – begin with your hunting log. A level one character doing hunting logs + participating in level appropriate FATES is the most practical way to get EXP early on. In your case (Thaumaturge), you’re going to find yourself around Central and Western Thanalan often. Your goal is to GTFO of the early levels ASAP. if you really wanted to, you can get more EXP here by doing levequests in Scorpions Crossing (Level 1 & Level 5), it’s north of Steps of Nald from Ul’dah (Western Thanalan). Remember to tag all nearby FATES in the process.
Protip: Got some cross-class skills? Protect (CNJ 8), Cure or Physick (CNJ 2, ACN 4) and Second Wind (PGL 8) or are among your best choices for now. They will decrease your risk of death by a large margin! Which is the only thing BLM’s should be worried about.
DPSing as a THM: Far too often THM’s or BLM’s will just go full retard and forget how to DPS properly. If you’ve paid any attention:
- Casting Ice first REMOVES any existing Astral Fire Stacks and gives a stack of Umbral Ice
- Umbral Ice gives HUGE MP regen.
- Casting Fire first REMOVES any existing Umbral Ice stacks and gives a stack of Astral Fire.
- Astral Fire gives a HUGE bonus to Fire Damage, but zeroes MP regen.
So yes, cycling between these two is the very basic idea of the THM DPS Rotation. Get used to it early!
Level 4 skill reminder – Transpose: Okay, another oft forgot skill. Transpose will be your friend for a LONG TIME. You see how After fire, casting ice will leave you WITHOUT A BUFF, then casting ice again will give you Umbral ice. Transpose skips a step: Casting this while you have either buff will ‘tranpose’ it to the opposite buff! Get used to this skill. You’ll be using it far into your career!
Level 6 Skill reminder – Thunder: A basic DoT. Not much to talk about Thunder for now. Don’t use it on regular enemies since they wont survive long enough for the DoT to gain value – if you DO cast it, cast Thunder during Ice phase.
You’ll reach Level 10 Thaumaturge in no time following the advice above. Got to level 10? Finish your first tier hunting log before you proceed. You also got some unspent attribute points – put them all in INT. Also, Go back to the Thaumaturge guildmaster every 5 levels – level 1 5 and 10 – make sure your class quests are done! Do these ASAP for every 5 level interval in the future!
Thaumaturge Level 10 to 16
Level 10 Skill Reminder – Sleep: Soloing? Questing? Levequests? Running away? Cheesing objectives? SLEEP IS YOUR FRIEND. There are a bunch of ways sleep will make your life easier – it’s up to you to figure them out! Some people say using sleep is too cheesy… Well, if life gives you cheese… make nice cheese-centric dishes…
The first thing to go once you get to level 10 is do Guildhests. Not unlocked yet? Go to the nearest town (likely Horizon) and do so. Guildhests grant significant EXP bonuses for first time completion with any class. AND you can queue up for Daily Roulette: Guildhests, to get bonus exp once a day! For now, queue up the guildhests Under the Armor and Basic Training: Enemy Parties. AGAIN: you get the bonus for first completion for EVER CLASS you’ll do it on!
Travel (hopefully instant) to Aleport in Western La Noscea. Aleport is the de facto zone to grind in this range – FATES are clumped up close together and everyone grinds here. FATEs aren’t up? Get Levequests from Aleport. Too easy? Increase it +4. Too hard? Leve in Swiftperch. Grind like this until you hit L16
Reminder Level 15: Queue up for the two new Guildhests – Basic Training: Enemy Strongholds, and Hero on the Halfshell.
Level 15 Skill Reminder – Scathe: You get this when finishing the L15 THM class quest. It’s a no-cast time filler spell that you can use while moving. It’s a tool you’ll want to get used to. It’s not one of the more defining THM skills – but it’ll do you well to keep it in mind.
Level 16 – the turning point: Upon hitting Thaumaturge 16, you can unlock Duty Roulette: Low level dungeon. This gives an INSANE EXP BONUS ONCE A DAY. No Challenge Log yet? Get it! (It initially unlocks at level 16) Find out how to unlock Challenge Log in the General Leveling Guide. After level 16 all future levels will come by alot easier. Queue up now!
Dungeons as a THM: Fire often pulls in low level dungeons until about 30~ range. When you feel your aggro is gonna pull on the next hit or two – just switch target or ‘chill out’. Pulling doesn’t make you cool.
Skill reminder level 18 – Fire II: Fire II is your shiny AoE tool you’ll be using till the imaginable end of time. Don’t get suckered into thinking it’s good when there’s only 2 enemies. Use Fire II only when there’s 3 or more targets. You’ll thank me later.
Thaumaturge: finishing up to level 20: If it’s not yet done – finish your Hunting Log. If you’re sick of Aleport: Bentbranch Meadows (East Shroud) and Camp Drybone (Eastern Thanalan) also have level appropriate FATEs and leves. Allocate all statpoints to INT, and finish the THM class quests before you go on.
Thaumaturge Level 20 – 30
Continue grinding as you’ve been grinding – different place, same strategy: Daily Guildhest, Daily Low Level Roulette. Travel to Quarrymill (South Shroud) and do Fates/Leves in this area. If your gears bad at this point, you’re gonna start feelin’ it… but you’re doing Dungeon Roulette – or so I hope. Drill it in your mind, Accuracy Food isn’t irrelevant .
Reminder Level 20: Queue up for the two new Guildhests – Pulling Poison Posies & Stinging Back.
Level 26 Skill Reminder – Swiftcast: It’s not uncommon for you to be reading this for you to get up to this point. Swiftcast is a massively important cross-class skill. Its implications for BLM aren’t too relevant for now, but it’s best used to speed up an FII or TII for now. If you’re a healer or summoner reading this – grats!
Alternate FATE spot mid 20’s: Another underrated FATE zone is the Highbridge area (Like this), there are a lot of FATEs here, and the FATE chain is mega value. If you’re just AFK waiting for your queue to pop – this is the place to be (As THM you’ll do a lot of waiting).
Reminder Level 25: Queue up for the two new Guildhests – All’s Well that Ends in the Well & Flicking Sticks and Taking Names.
Level 28 trait reminder – Thundercloud: Every tick of thunder gives a small chance to proc Thundercloud. This makes your next Thunder (or any rank) free, have no cast time, apply its entire damage at once, leave the DoT… well you get the picture. Naturally, use the highest ranked thunder available when this procs.
(Image: thundercloud proc hud)
At Level 28: Get over to Costa Del Sol, Eastern La Noscea. Leve and FATE grind here until you level to 30. Finally 30? As always, all unused points into INT, wrap up unfinished THM hunting logs and THM class quests.
Skill reminder Level 30 – Convert: A niche skills which you should learn to maximize. Convert has two main uses. A) recovering from messed up rotations (if you’ve played up to this point you’re no stranger to it), B) Giving you extra mana to extend Fire phase. Hopefully you’ll use more B’s than A’s in your time as BLM.
Thaumaturge 30 onwards: What to do?
Once you’re done with the (final) L30 THM class quest (You’ll know you’ve done it if you have Convert). From here you have two main choices:
- Black Mage (requires Archer 15 and THM 30)
- Alternate job path not yet released
If you’re going straight away to BLM – continue with our Black Mage Leveling Guide. You might still need to level ARC 15, though – Archer Leveling Guide.
Sadly, there is no second job path for Thaumaturges yet – but i’m looking forward to updating this filler sentence in the near future :)
Thanks for using our Thaumaturge leveling guide! I hope you found it useful! But your hot and cold relationship with leveling will have to continue for a bit more… For more awesome FFXIV updates, go ahead and Like us on Facebook – and if you need to drop a line, follow us on Twitter!
what happened to the black mage leveling guide?
We’re actually in the process of updating our guides since there are also changes in Stormblood.