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The magus, as written, works best when using a certain combination: sword and spell. I imagine his most popular weapons will be scimitar, rapier, longsword, and bastard sword. This is fine, but it puts the class in a sort of straitjacket that no other class has, but it's hard to get around that. Of his two signature abilities, one works only in melee, the other works only if you're using a melee weapon in one hand. We can do better. I suggest that the magus is probably the first class in a long time to be in a position to use a crossbow or thrown weapons to extreme effectiveness. Here's how.
Spellstrike should not stipulate 'melee' in any way. That way, a magus is capable of casting a touch spell and then loosing a crossbow bolt or thrown weapon at range, getting the benefits of both. This grants him the distinct advantage of casting 'touch' spells at range if he wants to - something no other class gets automatically. To balance this out, it takes two standard actions for him to do so: one to cast the spell and one to shoot the enemy. But why does it have to be a crossbow or thrown weapon? Why not a longbow?
See, the magus' other signature ability is an improvement in action economy. So if spell combat makes some allowance for missile weapons, then the magus should be able to use spell combat (forcing a
'cast defensively' check as normal because it's hard to aim and cast at the same time) with a one-handed missile weapon. This includes slings, crossbows, and thrown weapons, all of which are rather marginalized in the other classes.
Throw in a few magus arcana that improve missile attacks, and you're set! What do you guys think? Could this work?
yes.
That's kind of the arcane archer's trick.