Something I've noticed in the discussions about what spells to use with Striking Spell

[ShadowFighter88]

I'm sure some of this is because the playtest only just came out today and there's lingering habits from the 1e Magus but I have to wonder - how much is the focus on old magus standbys like Shocking Grasp and Vampiric Touch hampering the discussions?

I may be putting too much stock in this, but I keep seeing touch spells and those two in particular being mentioned very frequently. But Striking Spell isn't restricted to touch spells (they just need to be single-target ones) and the class has full access to the Arcane spell list now, so now I'm wondering if old habits or the like aren't blinding people to new possibilities.

Agonising Despair, for instance - that targets just a single creature and is on the Arcane list, therefore is perfectly valid to be delivered via Striking Spell. Even if the target succeeds on its save, it'll still be frightened 1 and take some extra mental damage.

Slow could be delivered with it as well. Along with Blindness, Curse of Lost Time, Earthbind (though I think you'd need the Shooting Star Synthesis to use that one with Striking Spell unless you have a way of getting airborne), Paralyse, and that's just with a quick skim of the 3rd level spells.

Again; I may be over-estimating how much effect this would have on the discussion, but I want to at least highlight this possibility rather that only looking at the old standard spells from last edition.

[Blave]

Vampiric Touch doesn't even require an attack roll. You're probably better off just Striking once and casting it instead of using Striking Spell. That way you can atleast be sure it actually does something in the round you cast it, even if you miss with the Strike.

(I'm deliberately ignoring Slide Casting here for argument's sake. It does come with a great action econoy advantage of course.)

[Lelomenia]

Blave wrote:

Vampiric Touch doesn't even require an attack roll. You're probably better off just Striking once and casting it instead of using Striking Spell. That way you can atleast be sure it actually does something in the round you cast it, even if you miss with the Strike.

(I'm deliberately ignoring Slide Casting here for argument's sake. It does come with a great action econoy advantage of course.)

i actually like vampiric touch a lot here, as you can trigger your synthesis and isnt weakened by your bad spellcasting ability.