Why NO ONE Plays: Thoma | Genshin Impact

Thoma is one of Genshin's most tragic characters. Despite having an interesting and well functioning playstyle, it didn't cater very well to the general format that Pyro espouses and suffered from underwhelming numbers. Fortunately however there may be one possible way Thoma can find a way into relevance. Today let's find out Why NO ONE Plays Thoma but how that could change very soon!

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[MrWidgen]

It’s weird that he’s ascension increases his attack but his shield scales off of HP. He also has an insanely high energy cost for his burst at 80. I really hope Hoyo fix Thoma.

[FllnThBlanks]

Burgeon has given him some lease of life but I think he still falls behind the better OG's, quite significantly.
So far the biggest glow up came to Kuki, the rest of Inazuma 4 stars are kinda either just okay, mad niche or Sayu.

[chillybradley]

The weirdest part about Thomas has to be his hp growth it's the lowest of all characters who scale off hp which is weird

[RenkittyRenzo]

So, what we’re learning is that pyro is a ruined element due to the fact that two 4 stars can do everything you’d want/need and do them extremely well, so for a pyro unit to stand out they’d need to be completely overpowered like Hu Tao…
Barely two years in and we’ve already made power creep a necessity for new units to be worth pulling for anything other than really REALLY liking the character

[loufih]

With the addition of Burgeon, i think Thoma's kit some gets more kinda complicated,

1. You need HP for his shield strength
2. You need ER cause his ult cost 80 energy for some reason
3. You now need EM to boost the damage of Burgeon

Best move is to focus on EM and ER for Burgeon teams

[Maxr]

why no one plays thoma: they misspelled thomas. what an obvious mistake. they should try hard next time to make less bad mistake thank you

[Lily.Freida]

The real reason why no one plays Thoma is that he is so much of a precious waifu to the point we keep him back home so we could come back to this beautiful man's delicious cooking.

[jeremiahsmith]

Thoma holds Kitain spear on his splash art, which used to be regarded as a very meh option for him, but now with EM-scaling Burgeon… It’s all coming together.

[Venandi_]

This will be interesting, I initially built thoma cuz I really liked his character but he didn’t really fit into any of my teams. Thankfully he recently found his place on both ayato’s and heizou’s teams and is quite comfortable turning them both into fire benders with a decent shield on top

[diogoschneider]

If only his burst cost 60 and his passive was 4.4% of HP as damage he would already be pretty decent (and replacing his atk scaling for ER would also be good)

[nzkieee]

I really don't know what Hoyoverse is thinking when they put Atk% as his ascension stats, they should have atleast put all in hp. It's like the 1st release of Zhongli where his shield is his bread and butter but decided to put geo damage as ascension stat.

[LydiaStormx]

I had Thoma built as a sheilder but the INSTANT I got Zhongli I turned him into a DPS. Thoma is in my top 3 favorite characters and I just wanted to play as him more

[robyn]

the full quote is actually “a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” and tbh thoma's been pretty great for my account, I used to run zhongli with my very squishy klee but thoma's managed to free up my zhongli and provide the pyro resonance boost, so i get he isn't super popular but i do love playing with him hehe

[TypicalYaspa]

I think Alhaitham may be huge for Thoma. May be coping but we don't have a dedicated burgeon 5 star yet, as Tighnari was clearly meant to synergize well with quicken/spread/aggravate, so maybe he will have a good synergy with Alhaitham for a burgeon team, or hell maybe even Nahida if she ends up being a dps not a support, although I doubt the latter

[Trixy]

Makes you wonder how they're going to design a pyro archon when time comes.

[sadbread]

As someone who built their Thoma here are my thoughts:

His shield is pretty tanky, I use him in the open world and pretty much does his job protecting my team most of the time.He is surprisingly fun with Heizou and Xq together, I mostly use him cuz he is one my favorite characters, overall he never makes it to the abyss because Diona replaces him easily

My issues with Thoma:
-He doesn't shield in coop, constellations dont include it (I am guessing it's because of the uptime of the shield but I would still prefer a shield in coop instead of nothing)
-Energy issues which can be solved but it's kinda inconvenient imo(unless u have c4)
-he eats hu Tao's vape
-other units just easily replace him like Diona who can shield, heal and provide em, heck even a c4 Yanfei

Even tho I love using Thoma, as a unit he feels kinda overwhelming and hoyoverse srly did him dirty.With dendro reactions I can already see some potential but Thoma is still stuck at bottom

[danielferrieri]

Thoma has the best Polearm Attack Animation. Change My Mind

[Centurion]

As someone who has built C6 Thoma to level 90 and thought the new hydro resonance would help him out a bit in the double hydro Hu Tao team, he still falls pretty far behind Zhongli. Zhongli's shred seems to be more effective than Thoma's C6 buff to normal and charged attacks. Shield strength is ok but obviously Zhongli is better. He's a great sub if you don't have Zhongli but if you do I guess he's just a pretty paper weight lol

[oygemprime]

We've found Thoma to work quite well with Yoimiya if you can get his energy up far enough. Since she can't take advantage of Vaporize as well, and since she'll be normal attacking constantly, Thoma's burst works quite well with her. He also provides Pyro resonance with her already. Our current team is Yoimiya/Xingqiu/Thoma/Electro Traveler, and works quite well. We'd be replacing Xingqiu with a more focused healer if we had one.

[Furiasu]

I think that a the "problem" with Thoma is that Mihoyo made the characters follow an specific trend related to their element, therefore the Pyro characters have two choices: They have to be able todo A LOT of damage or dissapear. I thinks this is a general problem for every element that makes new characters with a new and often interesting mechanic fall into the abyss (and not the spiral abyss mind you).

Its a real shame that characters with cool desings, unique personalities and interesting skills and mechanics simply dissapear because they dont follow the trend of their respective elements.