Keneth's page

Can someone explain to me why mirror image is such a highly valued spell for a magus? Since you're a melee character, it means you'll be in the thick of things throughout most of each battle, which in turn means you'll be taking a lot of heat. Considering the fact that even the simplest of opponents generally have 2 or 3 attacks right off the bat in Pathfinder, those mirror images are gonna pop way too fast (accounting for all the near misses) for it to be worth spending the time on to cast it at any other time than before battle (assuming you have any time to prepare in the first place, although admittedly it is long-lasting). I'll agree that it's a decent defense spell against a smaller number of targets or in really short battles (ours are mostly epic encounters that last anywhere from 10 to 20 rounds) but unless I'm missing something, there's plenty of better 2nd level spells that you could and should be casting if you have time to do so.

Also, I've decided to take a familiar for flavor as one of my magus arcanas but I'm not really sure what I should be doing with it during a fight. I mean I could polymorph it and have it fight alongside with me but since polymorph spells no longer give you the physical stats of the monster like they did in 3.5, it still wouldn't be useful for anything other than flanking. But that also puts it in harm's way and it would probably just end up dying anyway. Any other combat applications I don't know about? They would have been marginally useful if they could at least hold the charge of something like Frostbite on their own but the darn thing dissipates if you cast another touch spell, so that's also pointless.