Barring third party, what do you like to do with the Magus base class that does NOT involve Shocking Grasp or Dervish Dancing?
To start; At one point I went 'Iceman' and picked up a mostly cold spells. There are two relatively early cold spells that I used a lot (Frostbite and Frigid Touch) and focused on metamagicking them. Frostbite is kind of lackluster but modified with a metamagic feat it deals a lot of nonlethal damage with multiple attacks and leaves creatures susceptible to it entangled for Your barbarian team mate to obliterate at her liesure.
I've also went the force spell route and used/abused bladed dash. Sort of a guerrilla disabler.
I've built but not played a punching magus but the magic fist arcanas are really weak on paper and I'm skeptical of actually playing it.
Next Magus I play is specifically NOT going to be a "Dervish Dancing" one. That strategy just seems so played out. Almost any Magus build you find on these forums practically requires it. I get that it's super effective, but the feat is AP-specific, and feels sort of wrong to have so many different Magi using it, who have nothing to do with the region it's from.
I'm playing in a gestalt game, and I'm heavily thinking Monk/Magus for my next character.
It's 26 point buy only because that is how the GM likes to run things. I don't believe in the devish/shocking grasp meta, I think it is a sub-optimal build.
Well hexcrafter is a thing...
and there is actually a hexcrafter build that at 7th level can inflict Grappled, Staggered, Fatigued, Entangled, Prone and Shaken on an enemy with a standard action.. from its hair...
Well hexcrafter is a thing...
and there is actually a hexcrafter build that at 7th level can inflict Grappled, Staggered, Fatigued, Entangled, Prone and Shaken on an enemy with a standard action.. from its hair...
A note on the defiler build- they said you can't do the spell combat stuff with natural attacks (not sure of the specifics there), but then it seems they allowed it again.
Essentially, you have a feat/arcana tax now to make this build work now.
Still, it seems like this could be frighteningly effective, since it put INT to damage (and may well put 1.5x INT if it is your only natural attack). You can get up to 3 uses of this attack on this build (1 as a normal attack, 1 from haste, 1 from spell strike). So overall, good damage all things considering, and you are applying a horrifying amount of debuffs at once.
But even without all that silliness with, that guide does help to show how chilltouch and frostbite can be used to great effect for a debuff build. Hexcrafter also adds a few more interesting options from the witch class.