Contingent action errata - too much

[James Gibbons]

Does any know specific instances making contingent action too much? The one thing I thought I'd use it for was 'when specific big bad gets within range attack it and cast it on your heavy hitter. That also assumes you know who the big bad is wich either means you spend time scouting or you're trading your standard action in combat for your fighters, still making it probably the highest damage second level spell but its nothing compared to haste. It's like haste light.
So what was the big deal breaker on it being level 2? Or what were your best uses for it?

[Firebug]

One of my friends in PFS was using it to 'quicken cast' Magic Missile through Minor Spell Expertise a couple times per day on his Magic Missile focused Wizard. Trigger: When his character exclaims a certain phrase. Usually "Cletus' (his character's name) Continuous Chaingun Cannon!". Also, usually when he had also cast a regular (persistent dazing heightened+1 Magic Missile, 5th level slot) and a Quickened Magic Missile (empowered maybe as well? 3rd, or 5th slot). 15d4 + a bunch is fairly significant in the 7-11 range, especially if it does daze. Not exactly sure on the specifics but its been effective. And before you say "what if the target has shield!", its called Dispel Magic for a specific spell, caster level check vs the save DC of shield. Or rather what a 1st level spell would be from that caster.

Since the ruling that Spell-like Abilities are not Spells, and a Spell-like Ability is also not a Supernatural Ability, it is a valid action for Contingent Action.

Other spell-like abilities could be interesting, for instance Summoner's Summon Monster SLA. Stardard action, and a SLA not a spell, so meets the requirements for Contingent Action.

[Gilarius]

An already cast Shield spell specifically negates Magic Missiles. Not dispels.

[Firebug]

Perhaps I wasn't clear, normally first round he would toss an empowered Magic Missile (1st level slot) spread out at most of the targets if they were close together to check if any of them had the Shield spell active.

If one did, and he wanted to attack it, he would cast Dispel Magic for Shield specifically. Which is a whole lot easier then dispelling everything on the target and hoping you get lucky. And a lower DC.

I'm currently prepping Carrion Crown 13-15 for some seekers, and I am going to pull the DCs from a Necromancer from it:
CL 13, so a normal dispel is looking at a DC 11+13 = 24. And his buff list: False Life, Mage Armor, Shield. Since they are all the same CL, essentially a 1/3 chance of getting shield, but a very high chance of getting something, with 3 attempts (91% actually).
1st level spell DC = 17 (w/o greater spell focus necromancy).
When the PCs are ~14, we are talking about succeeding on a 3(90% chance success) vs 10(55% if you got lucky with shield as the 1st, 45% x 55% if it was second, and 45% x 45% x 55% if it was third = ~30%).

Usually though, unless it was a single boss type fight, or everything had shield, he would just focus on the non-shield targets and let the melee characters mop up the shield guys.

Anyway back on topic: Figure out what the shtick of everyone else in the party is, for example if you have a grappling focused person, give them a Contingent Action for an extra grapple action, perhaps contingent on making a grapple action. So instead of merely grappled in the first round the target could be pinned or worse. An extra attack when flanking a target for the rogue, etc. Sunder attempt on being attacked with a weapon, 5' step away from an enemy who ends a move action adjacent and is wielding a non-reach weapon, lots of choices.