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In 10 levels of Extinction Curse as a LS magus I have only taken one AoO the whole campaign. And as cheesy as it sounds it is possible for any melee to bypass the AoO. It's going to cost a feat or two but elemental wrath allows you to spellstrike without getting smacked for it and can give you another damage type for Cascade.

You're gonna need some armor either from champion, rogue, or a general feat and you probably want to use haste over mirror image in order to skirmish. Only really worth going in if you can get your 2 targets with imaginary weapon. Maybe also with the d12 amped produce flame. Could be fun if you can land attacks against flatfooted foes.

Won't need armor if he's using Drakeheart mutagens

Magnetic acceleration does that, under the same conditions

AlastarOG wrote:

On magus: Obviously they don't strike as hard as other damage classes with their gimmicks if you remove their gimmick, that isn't my point. My point is you can get out of the ''MUST SPELLSTRIKE'' mindset and have a lot of options still. Base striking with weapon specialization and martial proficiency is still very viable, after all, it's essentially what the fighter does, they're just 10% more effective at it (which makes them crit more often on average yes, but if its just a hit because of dice well they do as much damage as a magus)

Between un-maxed int and bad proficiency progression, magus shouldn't ever cast anything with a DC.

Regarding the never ending struggle between martials and casters, the caster's ability to "rewrite reality" isn't considered truly worthwhile until level 7+. Bard and cleric get a pass because of their innate features but that's the limit. Even at 7+ optimized parties don't really want more than one spellcaster with, again, bard+cleric being excepted. The once vaunted out of combat utility casting used to bring is no longer considered a valid use-case by optimizers in this edition as skills are now much more useful and most utility and "plot" spells have been kneecapped or locked behind rarity tags and assumed unavailable.

Temperans wrote:

AnimatedPaper wrote:

Otoh, doesn't that run the risk of someone becoming the main character? If one of you reliably outperforms the rest of the table, it creates pressure for everyone else to be your support, spending actions to enable your big maneuver instead of everyone working to lift up everyone.

That was basically the description of the God-Wizard, right? Hugely complex class, but the power available was equally deep and everyone was best off helping you do your thing instead of trying to be heroes in their own right.

You just described the PF2 Fighter. Everyone is spending all their actions to make the PF2 Fighter do their their thing, while their own thing takes a secondary to

...

So have you played a magus in this edition or are you a strict optimizer? Because I've been playing one since the playtest. And my DC was 1 behind our druid and my saving throws were passed and failed pretty much similarly. Starting with a 16 int doesn't kill you. In fact it works even better in your favor. Only barbs can start out with a higher damage bonus per hit if you do it right.

Again you see it as bad because you don't feel the feat cost is justified but the other parts make it so. The feats you are trying to compare shouldn't be. Regular casting and bounded casting are not the same and trying to compare the archetypes the way you are is unfair. You give up better spell access for access to class abilities.

What was said was you aren't taking a bounded spellcasting archetype because you're looking at the spellcasting. If I want to cast more spells I'd be a wizard not a magus. Same with the archetype yes it has spellcasting but if that's the reason you're taking it vs access to spellstrike and magus class feats then you are and will be disappointed. The feats are balanced for what they are. Oh I get that people want them to be more but it's an archetype and is always going to be less.

To be honest you can take the Magus mcd and be out of it without taking any spellcasting. The dedication, spellstrike and basic martial magic to grab a feat. I really think people who underestimate the power of spellstrike even with a cantrip especially with a fighter or ranger.

Not really again the reason it's worse is because you're getting access to class features. The spells are incidental and not the main point of the mcd.

SuperBidi wrote:

And there's also the question of average VS optimized. As Fighters can be either Strength or Dexterity based, and Dexterity based Fighters are quite bad, do you consider the class strong because of its best builds or average because it has both good and bad builds?

Why are Dexterity Fighters bad in PF2e? Just unable to take account of the correct feats etc? Could they not be great archers?

They can make great archers but with no dex to damage and still needing strength for propulsive. Optimizers don't like it but there is nothing wrong with them

Captain Morgan wrote:

You know, 14 dex works great on a monk going into dragon disciple. You're a bit fragile from levels 1-3, but you have the same AC as max dex from levels 4-9, and they only maintain a 1 point advantage until the uppermost levels. That's probably the best way to do a dragon stance monk. And given the archetype has an Access and not Prerequisite, most GMs will probably let the dragon monk take dragon disciple.

Edit: As currently written, the mountain stance monk does it even better, but that's unintended and on the chopping block for errata.

Drakeheart mutagen greatly helps.

This here is how I keep my ac up on my laughing shadow magus with a 14 dex. I'm level 7 in the current campaign and get a total of +7 to ac. Allows me the unarmored speed boost while keeping a good ac

Arcane cascade only works in melee. That's why it's not useful to starlit span magus

No I'm not. I actually play a laughing shadow Magus with an Oracle dedication. Playing in Extinction Curse. So far I've taken 1 AoO and were level 7.

No and you would never try to. But what can a magus do besides spellstrike that a fighter with magical dedication can't? Spellstrike plus take a magical dedication and get more mileage out of it than that fighter. Since the utility and attack spells become useful.