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The instructions for how to graph magus damage are in the guide linked above. Hopefully accurate information will help inform everyone.
Please link any graphs/analysis you make below
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Sad to see
expected damage over 1 and 2 rounds, spell strike versus just attacking
Is that with crit boosts factored in?
expected damage over 1 and 2 rounds, spell strike versus just attackingIs that with crit boosts factored in?
If you mean a critical increasing the degree of success of the spell, then yes.
If you mean a critical increasing the degree of success of the spell, then yes.expected damage over 1 and 2 rounds, spell strike versus just attackingIs that with crit boosts factored in?
Yes, that's what I meant.
Can't say I didn't expect that result, sadly.I wonder how it compares to simply casting Electric Arc and Striking normally.
EDIT: I compared three full-round attack routines using it. Unless I messed it up, it seems neither Spell Striking with Electric Arc nor Striking and then casting Electric Arc quite catch up with simply standing and taking three Strikes.
Critking, I'd be interested to see how much shifting the accuracy of the first attack helps the spell striking. For example what happens if you give the attacks flanking and a +1 status bonus? The curve on accuracy boosts to the first attack, if the the crit rider is calculated correctly, should start to pull things into a more equal footing. I curious what the balancing number is.
I think this is the math that the developers are looking at and it would be good to know what that balance is.
Also, electric arc really feels like the wrong cantrip to test spell strike on. At the very least you should be looking at telekinetic projectile for the spellstrike.
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The instructions for how to graph magus damage are in the guide linked above. Hopefully accurate information will help inform everyone.
Please link any graphs/analysis you make below
I love people that are smarter than me and make neat tools like this.
Strongly agree with AnimatedPaper, even if I don't feel smart enough to manipulate the tool myself correctly.
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Also, electric arc really feels like the wrong cantrip to test spell strike on. At the very least you should be looking at telekinetic projectile for the spellstrike.
I feel it's the best cantrip for the magus to use, because the half damage contributes more with the magus's lower spell accuracy
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All of the calculations i’ve seen so far have assumed that nothing ever dies when you critical hit them with a weapon.
Oof. One of my biggest pet peeves with Starfinder crit-effect mania.
Also, electric arc really feels like the wrong cantrip to test spell strike on. At the very least you should be looking at telekinetic projectile for the spellstrike.I feel it's the best cantrip for the magus to use, because the half damage contributes more with the magus's lower spell accuracy
Maybe, but that is why I am curious about how much getting accuracy boosts shifts things in the Magus' favor. When a magus crits with the melee attack. Damage on a miss is relatively insignificant compared to attack roll spells.
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Also, electric arc really feels like the wrong cantrip to test spell strike on. At the very least you should be looking at telekinetic projectile for the spellstrike.
Fair point. Here are the results for that.
TKP fares slightly better, but is close to the same average result as Strike + non-striking Electric Arc, and still doesn't come close to triple attack.For completeness' sake, I also added a Strike then non-striking TKP routine and a non-striking TKP then Strike routine.
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If you mean a critical increasing the degree of success of the spell, then yes.expected damage over 1 and 2 rounds, spell strike versus just attackingIs that with crit boosts factored in?Yes, that's what I meant.
Can't say I didn't expect that result, sadly.
I wonder how it compares to simply casting Electric Arc and Striking normally.EDIT: I compared three full-round attack routines using it. Unless I messed it up, it seems neither Spell Striking with Electric Arc nor Striking and then casting Electric Arc quite catch up with simply standing and taking three Strikes.
The results didn't seem bad to me, they showed a benefit to using spell strike. I didn't use three strikes because slide let's you get a free move when using spell strike.
The people who are saying electric arc is always better are probably using the OPness of electric arc hitting two targets, I prefer to nerf it to just hit one target.
And people really underestimate third strikes, they're significant.
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Also, electric arc really feels like the wrong cantrip to test spell strike on. At the very least you should be looking at telekinetic projectile for the spellstrike.Fair point. Here are the results for that.
TKP fares slightly better, but is close to the same average result as Strike + non-striking Electric Arc, and still doesn't come close to triple attack.
For completeness' sake, I also added a Strike then non-striking TKP routine and a non-striking TKP then Strike routine.
Thank you for using the tool and sharing graphs
Also, electric arc really feels like the wrong cantrip to test spell strike on. At the very least you should be looking at telekinetic projectile for the spellstrike.Fair point. Here are the results for that.
TKP fares slightly better, but is close to the same average result as Strike + non-striking Electric Arc, and still doesn't come close to triple attack.
For completeness' sake, I also added a Strike then non-striking TKP routine and a non-striking TKP then Strike routine.
Thank you. Is it easy to see what happens if you add flanking and a +1status bonus to the relevant attack rolls? my theory is that the numbers start massively shifting in spell strikes favor when the chance of getting a crit on the 1st melee attack go up.
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Hm, the "stand and attack three times" beating out Striking Spell with Electric Arc does not match my own math. I do suppose that the Striking Spell here does not assume a second round of attempting to attack with it, which heavily discounts the strength of the ability.
I don't think it's possible to fully sum the routine I have in mind with the tool, though.
R1.
Striking Spell - Electric Arc - Melee Strike
R2.
If that melee Strike hit or crit, repeat.
If that Strike missed,
- Melee Strike
-- Hit or crit, cast Electric Arc
-- Miss, Melee Strike + Melee Strike
I had calculated this with a 1d6 + Attr save cantrip (which doesn't exist for the Magus at the moment but I'm hoping could exist) and, at level 7, got a DPR number just shy of 28. And yes, that number is per round as I divided the R2 results by two.
Is there any way of accomplishing this sort of complex routine? I see Spell Strike miss is an option, but I'm not sure if the branching logic is viable, or if there are ways of combining these different routines into one dependent value.
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If you mean a critical increasing the degree of success of the spell, then yes.expected damage over 1 and 2 rounds, spell strike versus just attackingIs that with crit boosts factored in?Yes, that's what I meant.
Can't say I didn't expect that result, sadly.
I wonder how it compares to simply casting Electric Arc and Striking normally.EDIT: I compared three full-round attack routines using it. Unless I messed it up, it seems neither Spell Striking with Electric Arc nor Striking and then casting Electric Arc quite catch up with simply standing and taking three Strikes.
The results didn't seem bad to me, they showed a benefit to using spell strike. I didn't use three strikes because slide let's you get a free move when using spell strike.
The people who are saying electric arc is always better are probably using the OPness of electric arc hitting two targets, I prefer to nerf it to just hit one target.
And people really underestimate third strikes, they're significant.
Well this is the thing, though, isn't it? The advantage of Striking Spell isn't doing more damage. It's being able to trigger Slide Casting. So it's not something that you want to do if you don't need to move. Meaning it's not an every round tactic, which I think is confusing since it's the main ability that the Magus gets.
If the class wasn't trying to be the nova class and was instead the combine spell casting with doing other things class, then I think it would be a lot more appealing. It's so strange to me that there's no way to combine Striking Spell attacking and casting shield/parrying, for example (barring haste, which can benefit every other class in the same way). That seems like exactly the type of round that a Magus would want. On round 1, when you need to advance, casting and moving is great. On round 2, when you're much less likely to need to move (already have flank, can't get a flank, etc.), casting and moving doesn't help, and you turn into every other martial class, but without a source of bonus damage.
EDIT: I think an argument in Electric Arc's favor is that enemies are much more likely to have a moderate Reflex save and a High AC, so the chances they fail the save are higher than the chances the spell hits with an attack roll, even removing MAP.
If the class wasn't trying to be the nova class and was instead the combine spell casting with doing other things class, then I think it would be a lot more appealing. It's so strange to me that there's no way to combine Striking Spell attacking and casting shield/parrying, for example (barring haste, which can benefit every other class in the same way). That seems like exactly the type of round that a Magus would want. On round 1, when you need to advance, casting and moving is great. On round 2, when you're much less likely to need to move (already have flank, can't get a flank, etc.), casting and moving doesn't help, and you turn into every other martial class, but without a source of bonus damage.
Runic Impression is one way for the magus to have a pretty cool and powerful source of bonus damage, especially as you can tip the damage type encounter by encounter. I also still believe that if your first attack can be against a flanked enemy and you have a status bonus to attack, the cantrip option will come out ahead. If that is the case, the magus can choose whether to attack with a sword 3 times, or do the striking spell based on the likelihood of landing a crit with the first attack.
Hm, the "stand and attack three times" beating out Striking Spell with Electric Arc does not match my own math. I do suppose that the Striking Spell here does not assume a second round of attempting to attack with it, which heavily discounts the strength of the ability.
I don't think it's possible to fully sum the routine I have in mind with the tool, though.R1.
Striking Spell - Electric Arc - Melee StrikeR2.
If that melee Strike hit or crit, repeat.
If that Strike missed,
- Melee Strike
-- Hit or crit, cast Electric Arc
-- Miss, Melee Strike + Melee StrikeI had calculated this with a 1d6 + Attr save cantrip (which doesn't exist for the Magus at the moment but I'm hoping could exist) and, at level 7, got a DPR number just shy of 28. And yes, that number is per round as I divided the R2 results by two.
Is there any way of accomplishing this sort of complex routine? I see Spell Strike miss is an option, but I'm not sure if the branching logic is viable, or if there are ways of combining these different routines into one dependent value.
unfortunately no. The new tool I'm working on will be able to do that, but I'm not sure when I'll finish.
If the class wasn't trying to be the nova class and was instead the combine spell casting with doing other things class, then I think it would be a lot more appealing. It's so strange to me that there's no way to combine Striking Spell attacking and casting shield/parrying, for example (barring haste, which can benefit every other class in the same way).
That was my personal hope for the class. Since the biggest problem with casting/striking in PF2 is the action economy, I thought the Magus class would be all about finding ways to get around that. I kind of like the idea of Sustaining Steel for that reason, as the temp hit points allow you to "shield block" that much damage each round. A random idea I had for the ranged option would be to create a magical "partial cover" for you to Hide behind after you take your shot.
The crit fishing is interesting, but ultimately I think that would be more appealing on a pure caster class. Magus is supposed to be a Gish, so should do as much as possible to enable Gish gameplay in my opinion. The crit effects on spells is more of a caster ideal (to me); if an Arcanist, Shaman, or Mesmerist had an option to shift the odds on a crit effect, that would be damn awesome. The Mesmerist especially if it had a way to get around the incap effects like the current interpretation.
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If the class wasn't trying to be the nova class and was instead the combine spell casting with doing other things class, then I think it would be a lot more appealing. It's so strange to me that there's no way to combine Striking Spell attacking and casting shield/parrying, for example (barring haste, which can benefit every other class in the same way). That seems like exactly the type of round that a Magus would want. On round 1, when you need to advance, casting and moving is great. On round 2, when you're much less likely to need to move (already have flank, can't get a flank, etc.), casting and moving doesn't help, and you turn into every other martial class, but without a source of bonus damage.Runic Impression is one way for the magus to have a pretty cool and powerful source of bonus damage, especially as you can tip the damage type encounter by encounter. I also still believe that if your first attack can be against a flanked enemy and you have a status bonus to attack, the cantrip option will come out ahead. If that is the case, the magus can choose whether to attack with a sword 3 times, or do the striking spell based on the likelihood of landing a crit with the first attack.
Runic Impression is, again, about versatility, not extra damage. It's at the same level that everyone else is going to be buying their first damaging property rune anyway.
The sources of extra damage that are not spells for Magus are Bespell Strike (requires expending a resource), Energize Strikes (a decent boost, but also 6th level. At least this works with cantrip casting), Bespell Persistence (12th level, same drawback as Bespell Strike).
So at level 4, whenever you're already expending a resource to deal extra damage, you can get an extra 1d6 for 2 rounds. At level 6, you can get a static bonus for a minute without expending a resource (better), and at level 12 you can inflict persistent damage by expending a resource.
In comparison, Barbarian gets Rage damage from level 1 for 1 action/fight as many times as they need it and can take Sudden Charge to still be able to attack round 1 when they need to move a large distance. Rogue gets +1d6 by positioning correctly in combat and has multiple different class abilities designed around making it easier to get that damage. Swashbuckler gets both a static bonus and an extra 2d6, and damage on a miss, potentially every round, without expending any resources. Investigator gets 1d6 for spending an action every round, sometimes as a free action. Ranger gets either +1d8 or a better accuracy boost than Striking Spell gives (Outwit doesn't get a damage boost directly, but you know that going in and are likely building for something else) and Ranger can take an animal companion at level 1 for an additional boost. Champion gets their reaction from level 1, which can be a damage boost for Paladin, but they're also getting the best defenses in the game. Fighter has multiple 1st level feats that can provide a damage boost, plus the best accuracy in the game.
Even Eldritch Archer, the closest thing to a Magus we had before the playtest, has Enchanting Arrow at 4 to give a scaling +2d6/3d6/4d6 for spending an extra action. (had the levels mixed up)
Eldritch Archer starts at 6th, so nothing's at 4th.
At 8th they can get the bonus damage for the extra action.
There's a chance that the Magus will have very similar abilities, but they didn't need to be playtested, likely due to tighter math and fewer variables.
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Eldritch Archer starts at 6th, so nothing's at 4th.
At 8th they can get the bonus damage for the extra action.There's a chance that the Magus will have very similar abilities, but they didn't need to be playtested, likely due to tighter math and fewer variables.
Yeah, sorry. Mixed up levels on Eldritch Archer. It's possible that Magus will end up with similar abilities, but I don't think that we can assume that anything is planned for the class that isn't in the playtest, and we can't evaluate what is in the playtest by assuming that it will have abilities that it doesn't. Pointing out that the abilities that it has are subpar is a form of asking for it to have something comparable to other classes.
unfortunately no. The new tool I'm working on will be able to do that, but I'm not sure when I'll finish.Hm, the "stand and attack three times" beating out Striking Spell with Electric Arc does not match my own math. I do suppose that the Striking Spell here does not assume a second round of attempting to attack with it, which heavily discounts the strength of the ability.
I don't think it's possible to fully sum the routine I have in mind with the tool, though.R1.
Striking Spell - Electric Arc - Melee StrikeR2.
If that melee Strike hit or crit, repeat.
If that Strike missed,
- Melee Strike
-- Hit or crit, cast Electric Arc
-- Miss, Melee Strike + Melee StrikeI had calculated this with a 1d6 + Attr save cantrip (which doesn't exist for the Magus at the moment but I'm hoping could exist) and, at level 7, got a DPR number just shy of 28. And yes, that number is per round as I divided the R2 results by two.
Is there any way of accomplishing this sort of complex routine? I see Spell Strike miss is an option, but I'm not sure if the branching logic is viable, or if there are ways of combining these different routines into one dependent value.
This tool is great, either way. Thank you for all the hard work!
I don't understand how folks are sharing the graphs on this forum but I did 6 variations:
A1. magus attack 18 attribute + magus attack 18 attribute -5a
A2. magus attack 18 attribute+2a + magus attack 18 attribute -3a
A3. magus attack 18 attribute+3a + magus attack 18 attribute -2a
B1. magus attack 18 attribute + striking spell + telekinetic projectile 16a
B2. magus attack 18 attribute+2a + striking spell + telekinetic projectile 16a+2a
B3. magus attack 18 attribute+3a + striking spell + telekinetic projectile 16a+3
and as I suspected, the value of getting a +2 (such as from flanking) and then getting an additional +1 push striking spell (with the slide for movement) pretty well ahead of just making two strikes.
A1 vs B1 at level 1: 10.625 vs 10.586
A2 vs B2 at level 1: 13.175 vs 14.106
A3 vs B3 at level 1: 14.45 vs 15.915
A1 vs B1 at level 10: 24.375 vs 26.188
A2 vs B2 at level 10: 30.225 vs 35.356
A3 vs B3 at level 10: 33.15 vs 40.37
A1 vs B1 at level 20: 47.5 vs 51.925
A2 vs B2 at level 20: 58.9 vs 70.8
A3 vs B3 at level 20: 64.6 vs 80.545
Attack + spell strike with a cantrip is better than attacking 2 times. It gets even better the more you can stack bonuses onto the first attack (like flanking and a status bonus). When you are using spell slot spells the numbers jump really far.
None of these ever surpass magus attack + electric arc vs 2 targets (but just barely when factoring in flanking and a +1 status bonus), but that just means that the magus is only better off not using spell strike when they are going to target multiple targets and only use a cantrip. That doesn't make the spell strike feature broken. Also at higher levels, a +1 status bonus alone is pretty weak. It is much more likely to be +2 or eventually even +3.
Adding true strike on top of the bonuses boosts B3 ( attack + telekinetic+ 3)to:
Lv1: 19.06
Lvl10: 47.585
Lvl20: 94.605
A waste of true strike, especially at lower level, but this out paces 3 martial attacks by a good margin.
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Now run it just attacking three times. I think what you're going to find is that it only makes sense to use the cantrip on a round that you have to move to get a flank. If you don't need to move, and attacking has all of the same modifiers that striking spell does, you will be better off attacking three times than using a cantrip with Striking spell.
Which brings it back to the actual benefit of Striking Spell being Slide Casting.
Also, give the Magus the benefit of an agile weapon (d6, but -4 MAP).
Not having to move at all is GM dependent, but the idea that you can not move and keep attacking with flanking more than one or two rounds a combat is only going to be true if the rest of the party actively moves the combat around your character. A possible and good strategy, but probably not one enough to assume more than 50% of the time. With sliding, at the very least the assumption should be that the magus is attacking with flanking every round they use striking spell.
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But that's only relevant for flanking. And that bonus goes away for any brand of Magus except Slide Casting.
Every other static bonus that you have for the Magus (status, etc.) will apply to the Magus when they are only attacking with their weapon. And attacking 3 times is going to come out ahead in those situations.
A little comparison with sudden bolt vs a flatfooted target
You out damage the fighter against low AC targets at level 3, but from level 4 on pretty much equal over two rounds.
Probably not worth using single target damage spells.
How magus weapon damage compares to a fighter and a caster with mauler dedication.
It seems fine, you do reasonable damage
75-80% fighter damage 1-20
A caster with mauler dedication does 60-45%
This is with no feats (I think magus feats really need work, especially at low level, before Martial Caster I don't like any).
My spreadsheet isn't anywhere near as fancy as the tool here, but I did create a bit of a scratch pad to mess with numbers and calculate a 2-round Striking Spell routine with the Magus. It's all manual number entry (and calculation of average die rolls) but it's been useful for me to go through things like Agile and quickly compare to Eldritch Shot.
Right now the spell is always a saving throw based spell, but I'll try to accommodate spell attacks later today when I play with it. I think this should be useful for comparing Magus optimal Striking Spell routines compared to supported routines from this tool.
WARNING: spreadsheet is ugly as sin.