Figher MC Magus is the Superior Magus

[CaffeinatedNinja]

I was messing with magus builds and such (have a thread on AoO, etc).

So I built up a fighter MC Magus, and compared it to regular Magus as a striker (spellstriking etc.)

It is ugly. Here is a chart of a fighter MC Magus with a Greatsword doing their one a fight spellstrike with a cantrip, then hitting two rounds of regular greatsword attacks (2 strikes in one, 3 strikes in the other since I let magus use an action for arcane cascale.

The other line is a magus going full nova. Using a top level shocking grasp, then cascade and strike twice, then another top level shocking grasp. Fighter can do this once an encounter, Magus can do it once a day.

https://imgur.com/a/iI7mxrr

Basically the damage is the same. For the magus mega once a day nova, vs the fighter does this every fight move.

So, moral here is. If you want to spellstrike and do damage, don't make a magus, make an MC Fighter.

[CaffeinatedNinja]

I should add, since I can’t edit this, that this really only applies to people that want a magus that just spell strikes.

If you want a magus that uses it’s slots to cast offensive non-spellstrike spells, nukes, debuffs, or big buffs, that is much harder to quantify, and I think it is where Magus strength lies.

But as a melee striker, even using spells, magus is not ideal.

[The Raven Black]

Fighter is the undisputed king of melee Strikers. TBH I do not expect another class to ever unseat them there.

[Captain Morgan]

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

I should add, since I can’t edit this, that this really only applies to people that want a magus that just spell strikes.

If you want a magus that uses it’s slots to cast offensive non-spellstrike spells, nukes, debuffs, or big buffs, that is much harder to quantify, and I think it is where Magus strength lies.

But as a melee striker, even using spells, magus is not ideal.

The Magus is going to also wind up with a larger array of cantrips to use, which means more ways to bypass resistance or trigger weakness. And will trigger weakness a lot more often with Cascade.

And these advantages will only increase if the Magus puts a similar investment in multiclass casting as a the fighter.

The thread title feels misleading since you acknowledge these differences. The fighter is only really superior at one thing, and it the same thing all martials are better than casters at. That doesn't make them a better magus, it makes them a better fighter.

[shroudb]

the main feature of fighter is strikes.
the main feature of magus is strikes+spells.

seems disengenius to disregard half of the class which are his spells, buffs, mobility, and focus powers and compare the thing that the fighter is best at, strikes.

tbh, if you want a fighter that simply does maximum damage with his strikes if the conditions are that everything is within a single move, doesnt do anything else than stand and strike, and etc, i'm pretty sure you can find a better MC than magus for that.

[HumbleGamer]

I am using a champion magus now.

Using a spellstrike per fight is cool ( though I can only choose between 2 cantrips ), but the eldritch archer does this every single round.

If I were to make a spellcombatant class I'd go for a magus.

I see really no reason to go for a Fighter, unless chasing powercreep and deep optimization ( I did a crit fishing one with wizard dedication once. It was fun though, but being able to strike with different elements and use high level spells is quite different ).

[CaffeinatedNinja]

shroudb wrote:

the main feature of fighter is strikes.

the main feature of magus is strikes+spells.

seems disengenius to disregard half of the class which are his spells, buffs, mobility, and focus powers and compare the thing that the fighter is best at, strikes.

tbh, if you want a fighter that simply does maximum damage with his strikes if the conditions are that everything is within a single move, doesnt do anything else than stand and strike, and etc, i'm pretty sure you can find a better MC than magus for that.

Well, I think the main thing I was trying to address is a lot of people seem to think magus is a striker (single target DPS) that can spike really high with spells.

That isn’t actually true, fighter magus is much better at that.

In fact, I would say that using your spell slots with an attack spell and a basic spellstrike is usually a waste. Kind of dissapointing given the class fantasy. I might give magus a +1 to hit as part of arcane cascade in homebrew. Need to math it out.

[Kelseus]

Thread title should be Fighters still good at hitting.

[shroudb]

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

shroudb wrote:

the main feature of fighter is strikes.

the main feature of magus is strikes+spells.

seems disengenius to disregard half of the class which are his spells, buffs, mobility, and focus powers and compare the thing that the fighter is best at, strikes.

tbh, if you want a fighter that simply does maximum damage with his strikes if the conditions are that everything is within a single move, doesnt do anything else than stand and strike, and etc, i'm pretty sure you can find a better MC than magus for that.

Well, I think the main thing I was trying to address is a lot of people seem to think magus is a striker (single target DPS) that can spike really high with spells.

That isn’t actually true, fighter magus is much better at that.

In fact, I would say that using your spell slots with an attack spell and a basic spellstrike is usually a waste. Kind of dissapointing given the class fantasy. I might give magus a +1 to hit as part of arcane cascade in homebrew. Need to math it out.

that's simply not true though.

You didnt compare them as "strikers" you compared them to someone who only do Strikes.

that's quite a big leap of interpetation of what's the role about.

Self-buffing, weaknesses, range, mobility, and etc are very good aspects for a striker, the fact that whiteboard math cannot account for those doesnt mean that in real games they are not real factors.

[CaffeinatedNinja]

shroudb wrote:

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

shroudb wrote:

the main feature of fighter is strikes.

the main feature of magus is strikes+spells.

seems disengenius to disregard half of the class which are his spells, buffs, mobility, and focus powers and compare the thing that the fighter is best at, strikes.

tbh, if you want a fighter that simply does maximum damage with his strikes if the conditions are that everything is within a single move, doesnt do anything else than stand and strike, and etc, i'm pretty sure you can find a better MC than magus for that.

Well, I think the main thing I was trying to address is a lot of people seem to think magus is a striker (single target DPS) that can spike really high with spells.

That isn’t actually true, fighter magus is much better at that.

In fact, I would say that using your spell slots with an attack spell and a basic spellstrike is usually a waste. Kind of dissapointing given the class fantasy. I might give magus a +1 to hit as part of arcane cascade in homebrew. Need to math it out.

that's simply not true though.

You didnt compare them as "strikers" you compared them to someone who only do Strikes.

that's quite a big leap of interpetation of what's the role about.

Self-buffing, weaknesses, range, mobility, and etc are very good aspects for a striker, the fact that whiteboard math cannot account for those doesnt mean that in real games they are not real factors.

Absolutely fair.

Self Buffing, Magus is better than MC Fighter, at least if you use your top slots. However, if you use those for buffs your damage is way behind fighter. Tradeoffs.

Mobility is the same.
Range is the same.
Fighter can snag the focus powers through MC.

Weakness is a funny thing. It gets brought up a lot. But under 10% of enemies have elemental weaknesses. Of those, most of them are fire, most of the rest are ice. So once you have a fire rune you hit the majority.

Most of the rest of the weaknesses enemies have are cold iron, positive, etc, that magus have no special ability to hit.

[Temperans]

It's hilarious that Magus is defined as a Strike and seen by many as a "burst/nova" character. Which is the entire reason they were given only 4 spell slots of the top 2 highest spell levels.

But when you compare to the Fighter people suddenly start saying Magus is not a striker because he has access to all this buffs. Which they don't because they only have 4 spells. Even if you add the 2 from studious. A Fighter MC Wizard deals more damage, and has more spells.

Then when you stop talking about Fighter, once again people talk about how "Magus can do so much damage by using the top spells". Fun fact Magus is not spontaneous, they cannot switch spells mid day, they also have no access to flexible casting. They will never be as versatile as people in this thread are trying to make Magus out to be.

[HumbleGamer]

If a fighter MC wizard, so a Magus can do.

I see no real comparison there.

It also changes everything:

- 1 spellstrike per minute vs 1 spellstrike per round
- 2 cantrips vs 5/7 cantrips
- Slow spell progression ( 1 lvl 4 spell by lvl 12, vs 2 lvl 7 spells and 2 lvl 6 spells by lvl 13 )
- No hybrid study vs Hybrid study.

They are two different classes.

Would a fighter be able to deliver a better spellstrike ( and then better strikes ) given his +2 hit? Ofc he would, but what's the point?

[Captain Morgan]

Also, surely heightened grasp stops being the optimal spell for the Magus eventually?

[CaffeinatedNinja]

HumbleGamer wrote:

If a fighter MC wizard, so a Magus can do.

I see no real comparison there.

It also changes everything:

- 1 spellstrike per minute vs 1 spellstrike per round
- 2 cantrips vs 5/7 cantrips
- Slow spell progression ( 1 lvl 4 spell by lvl 12, vs 2 lvl 7 spells and 2 lvl 6 spells by lvl 13 )
- No hybrid study vs Hybrid study.

They are two different classes.

Would a fighter be able to deliver a better spellstrike ( and then better strikes ) given his +2 hit? Ofc he would, but what's the point?

To address your main point, 1 spellstrike per minute vs 1 per round. Yes. But when a fighter does the same damage as a cantrip spellstrike just swinging a sword, and can do that every round with no need to recharge, why is getting less spellstrikes a big deal?

A fighter spellstriking with just cantrips is roughly equal to a magus using one of their spells to spell strike (-1 from top level true)

Fighter blows away magus in off turns too.

[Kelseus]

Captain Morgan wrote:

Also, surely heightened grasp stops being the optimal spell for the Magus eventually?

There is another thread on that LINKE. Shocking Grasp is a bit behind Acid Arrow in average damage, depending on if you get the +1 to hit from it and if you are hitting someone in metal armor/made of metal. If you get more than 1 round of persistent damage Acid Arrow starts to pull ahead (level 6 slot 3d6 vs. 1d4+5).

Disintegrate is obviously better, doing almost as much damage on a successful save as Shocking Grasp does at the same level. And of course polar ray.

[HumbleGamer]

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

HumbleGamer wrote:

If a fighter MC wizard, so a Magus can do.

I see no real comparison there.

It also changes everything:

- 1 spellstrike per minute vs 1 spellstrike per round
- 2 cantrips vs 5/7 cantrips
- Slow spell progression ( 1 lvl 4 spell by lvl 12, vs 2 lvl 7 spells and 2 lvl 6 spells by lvl 13 )
- No hybrid study vs Hybrid study.

They are two different classes.

Would a fighter be able to deliver a better spellstrike ( and then better strikes ) given his +2 hit? Ofc he would, but what's the point?

To address your main point, 1 spellstrike per minute vs 1 per round. Yes. But when a fighter does the same damage as a cantrip spellstrike just swinging a sword, and can do that every round with no need to recharge, why is getting less spellstrikes a big deal?

Because not everything is about maximizing your DPR.

If you think about DPR, you'll always end up playing a fighter in any of your games.

[Temperans]

More Spellstrike per combat does not a Magus make. It's all about the quality of how you mix sword and magic.

Sure a Magus could do infinite spellstrikes with scaling cantrips. But they will always fall behind the Fighter regular attacks. Sure the Magus could nova 4x per day with 2 9th and 2 8th lv spells. But a Fighter can nova every combat with Spellstrike cantrips, with far greater chance to crit.

The only spot where Magus has some advantage is the early access to Magus feats. But the high level Magus feats are kind of meh in my opinion.

[CaffeinatedNinja]

Kelseus wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

Also, surely heightened grasp stops being the optimal spell for the Magus eventually?

There is another thread on that LINKE. Shocking Grasp is a bit behind Acid Arrow in average damage, depending on if you get the +1 to hit from it and if you are hitting someone in metal armor/made of metal. If you get more than 1 round of persistent damage Acid Arrow starts to pull ahead (level 6 slot 3d6 vs. 1d4+5).

Disintegrate is obviously better, doing almost as much damage on a successful save as Shocking Grasp does at the same level. And of course polar ray.

Actually disintegrate is worse, unless the target has particularly weak fort saves. Average fort saves are high and magus spell DC isn't great, more likely to make the save then fail it. A few people have done the math on it.

[shroudb]

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

Mobility is the same.
Range is the same.
Fighter can snag the focus powers through MC.

what are you even talking about?

all of those make me believe that not only you havent played, but you actually havent seen a magus in play...
a)
there are tons of mobility focused spells (that come along an attack) that fighter will never have access to.

and that's aside from class specific focus power that allows you to blink and strike for 1 action.

b)range is the same? sure, if the same is that one has access to long ranged spells and 5 ranged cantrips while the other has access to 2 cantrips that are aweful for him to use due to terrible proficiency with them

c)without the ability of free reenabling your spellstrikes (which you dont get when you MC) with the focus powers, you can snag them, but it's like their small crippled brothers.

d)ability to pick and choose every and all elements for your attack is something that you hilariously underplay. Apart from the weakness, that is a good chunk, there's also the resistance issue. and there are a TON of enemies with elemental resistances, where the fighter MC magus with his flaming weapon will do half of his damage due to no cantrip and no rune.

---

let alone that if you compare fighter mc magus, then the only fair comparrison would be magus mc wizard, and have enough spells to both boost his damage and self buff himself each and every fight of every day.

even without the MC, a staff and your Studious spells should cover a good chunk of your selfbuffing without hurting your main spells a lot. (at least for a staff magus)

as opposed to 1 spellstrike per day

------

again:

nothing against fighter, fighters are awesome, but i think the comparisson is pointless:
if you are picking MC magus as a fighter to have a 1/fight spellstrike just for whiteroom DPR comparissons, there are much better MCs that do that thing but better.

Fighter MC barbarian/rogue is probably heaps better in whiteroom dpr and it's even easier to get as a fighter (you dont need to waste stats in Int)

---

at this point of the comparison, if all you want to do is swing your sword to targets, why even pick MC magus?

Temperans wrote:

The only spot where Magus has some advantage is the early access to Magus feats. But the high level Magus feats are kind of meh in my opinion.

i actually like a lot of them.

at 10 you get an effective reach of 30+ feat with staff
at 12 double focus points is really nice since i love 1 action focus powers to fill in action gaps
at 14 i agree nothing stands out
at 16 you can get at will maximum level dispel magic
and at 18 3ple focus point is not bad (although tbh i would probably go for master spellcasting archtype if i was playing without free archetype)

[Watery Soup]

Kelseus wrote:

Thread title should be Fighters still good at hitting.

Not only that, but it should really be noted that that's a good thing.

The alternative is that fighters are no longer the best fighters; magus is superior in every way, nobody plays fighter any more, and power creeps up a little.

Over time, that is what kills entire game systems.

With the introduction of each new class, it should be celebrated that the CRB classes still have play value. It's great, and it shows good foresight and a long-term attitude for the system.

[Squiggit]

Watery Soup wrote:

Not only that, but it should really be noted that that's a good thing.

The alternative is that fighters are no longer the best fighters; magus is superior in every way, nobody plays fighter any more, and power creeps up a little.

Uh, that's definitely not the only alternative. Both classes shining in their own way is also an option and arguably a lot more ideal than either of the extremes you're presenting.

IDK why people keep trying to frame discussions like these in the form of extreme binaries.

Quote:

Over time, that is what kills entire game systems.

Does that actually hold up in practice though? Many of the most popular games, tabletop and video, have had issues with rampant, obvious power creep and were still wildly successful.

Whereas there are also plenty of examples of systems that made careful balancing a selling point and never took off.

I'm not sure power creep actually matters to most people except in the most extreme cases.

Quote:

With the introduction of each new class, it should be celebrated that the CRB classes still have play value.

I don't really see it as something to be celebrated either. It's kind of one of the most basic expectations you can have. And if that comes at the expense of the design of new things, then that's arguably just a different kind of misstep too.

[gesalt]

HumbleGamer wrote:

Because not everything is about maximizing your DPR.

If you think about DPR, you'll always end up playing a fighter in any of your games.

Isn't it? Just like casters are all about what you get in exchange for fewer spellslots than wizards and sorcs, martials are all about what you get in exchange for fighter's DPR (especially vs apl+x threats), feats, open action economy and overall great chassis.

What it comes down to here is would you rather a magus or magus/wizard or a fighter, fighter/magus or fighter/wizard in your party. And typically, if your party already has an occult or arcane caster, the answer is no, you really don't. Because the magus can't cast well and can't fight well.

I notice people really like to sing the praises of versatility, but that only ever really applies to the party as a whole. As individual characters, specialization with some versatility still beats being the jack of all trades. And the magus with its poor hp, spell progression and action economy simply don't bring anything useful to the table not already covered, and covered better, by other classes. In other words, in your typical two martial, two caster lineup, there's no mechanical reason to ever bring a magus over a proper member of either.

[HumbleGamer]

gesalt wrote:

Because the magus can't cast well and can't fight well.

Well, then I suppose we are playing different games.

Or, giving the fact some of us appreciate the magus while some other don't, that the Magus is not the class for everybody.

For example, CaffeinatedNinja would prefer ( or be more at ease ) to have a fighter with magus/wizard dedication rather than a Magus.

But I mostly think that the major issue was the expectations any of us had before the book ( I didn't expect a hybrid being able to hit good as a martial and cast good as a spellcaster, and even now I consider either magus and summoner way too much, for different reasons ).

[Kelseus]

Maybe, I'm just throwing this out there, people want to play something other than a fighter? Maybe hitting the hardest isn't the only way to play the game?

[CaffeinatedNinja]

shroudb wrote:

all of those make me believe that not only you havent played, but you actually havent seen a magus in play...

a)
there are tons of mobility focused spells (that come along an attack) that fighter will never have access to.

and that's aside from class specific focus power that allows you to blink and strike for 1 action.

My post was discussing a Fighter MC Magus. He can access those same spells (if slightly later) I assume you are referring to blink strike and the like? Fighter MC also gets the teleport focus spell.

shroudb wrote:

b)range is the same? sure, if the same is that one has access to long ranged spells and 5 ranged cantrips while the other has access to 2 cantrips that are aweful for him to use due to terrible proficiency with them

Fighter MC has the same arcane proficiency most of the time, except for lvls 9-11 and 15-17.

shroudb wrote:

c)without the ability of free reenabling your spellstrikes (which you dont get when you MC) with the focus powers, you can snag them, but it's like their small crippled brothers.

Yes. But why do you re-energize your spell strike? To do damage? Fighter does more just swinging a 2handed sword than a cantrip spell strike, as I pointed out.

shroudb wrote:

d)ability to pick and choose every and all elements for your attack is something that you hilariously underplay. Apart from the weakness, that is a good chunk, there's also the resistance issue. and there are a TON of enemies with elemental resistances, where the fighter MC magus with his flaming weapon will do half of his damage due to no cantrip and no rune.

Uh, what? A fighter with a flaming sword only loses the 1d6 from the fire rune if the enemy resists it. The rest of the damage goes through as usual. And the magus with the fire rune has the same issue.

As for weaknesses, there really aren't a "good chunk" only 10% (slightly under) of enemies have an elemental weakness. Most of those are fire, most of the rest are ice.

shroudb wrote:

let alone that if you compare fighter mc magus, then the only fair comparrison would be magus mc wizard, and have enough spells to both boost his damage and self buff himself each and every fight of every day.

even without the MC, a staff and your Studious spells should cover a good chunk of your selfbuffing without hurting your main spells a lot. (at least for a staff magus)

as opposed to 1 spellstrike per day

Fair. Magus with wizard MC has more utility spells. But those are mostly just that, utility. Usually not worth the actions casting a low level spell in combat, since that is a round you aren't hitting. Obviously that varies though, depending on the situation and the spell.

But, I stand by my analysis at the end. My premise was not the fighter MC Magus is superior in all ways, but that it is better at being a DPSer, EVEN if magus is blowing spells on attacks.

Basically, Magus sacrifices an awful lot as a martial, damage (even including spellstrike), hp, and is really MAD, for 4 spells (2 more with studious spells)

Magus is fundamentally worse than a fighter as a martial if it isn't using one of those spells, which it can't do all the time in long days. Now, are the times it can use those spells worth all they give up? Maybe. But if you are using them to cast shocking grasp, the answer is no.

[Golurkcanfly]

One thing I see brought up for Magus frequently is being able to exploit weaknesses.

For that, I'm not sure if people have played the game enough to really realize just how rare non-good non-cold iron weaknesses are.

Good and Cold Iron weaknesses drastically outnumber all other weaknesses combined, and most of those "other weaknesses" are just fire. There's what, less than 10% of creatures with non-good non-cold iron weaknesses?

And martials exploit those weaknesses naturally just by having the property runes on their weapons, which are already considered some of the best runes because they flat-out add damage.

But yeah, the Magus sacrifices quite a bit to kinda be worse off than a Multiclass Fighter in pretty much every way. This is exacerbated by issues with the feature the entire class is built around having additional downsides merely to play catch-up, some of which are explicitly intentional (needing to recharge) and others that come about through other rule interactions (Provoking AoO).

[shroudb]

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

But if you are using them to cast shocking grasp, the answer is no.

and here lies the crux of our difference in opinion:

i dont think a good magus should have 4xShocking grasp as his prepared spells.

when we are talking raw damage, as many (including myself) have said, there's little to compare with fighter.

but that's all that fighter excels at, so it's ok.

You should not be building (imo) other classes to simply try to compete against something that one class is best at. That's like picking divine sorcerer, using only Heal, and compare it to an optimised heal focused Cleric and their amount of free heals from thier Font.

A "striker's" duty is to consistently put good damage on the board. A magus can do that, be more flexible against which foes he can output that damage, work around enemies that are resistant to his damge, either move around in the battlefield to find optimal spots to output that damage, work around range issues, have a bit of utility on the side, and etcetc

this is the "package" of the class abilities+spells. For the most part, a staff+6 spells per day can get you through an average day if you dont spend 2/3rds of that trying to increase your average damage of a single round by 10 points or so.

---

is this as much raw damage as a fighter can output? No.
But then again, is there anything that can output as much raw (whiteroom) damage as something like a Fighter/Barb or a Fighter/Rogue? Again: No, not really.
Is he still a striker? Yes.

--

so, my viewpoint is that if the single one thing you care about is pure, raw, single target damage in only-standarised encounters, then even Fighter MC magus is "bad" using your standards, you should only be playing fighter/barb using this logic.

[HumbleGamer]

Golurkcanfly wrote:

One thing I see brought up for Magus frequently is being able to exploit weaknesses.

For that, I'm not sure if people have played the game enough to really realize just how rare non-good non-cold iron weaknesses are.

Good and Cold Iron weaknesses drastically outnumber all other weaknesses combined, and most of those "other weaknesses" are just fire. There's what, less than 10% of creatures with non-good non-cold iron weaknesses?

Here's the current chart.

ps: through adapted cantrip ( which is a lvl 1 ancestry, for example ), a magus can easily get access to divine lance

Quote:

Through study of multiple magical traditions, you've altered a spell to suit your spellcasting style. Choose one cantrip from a magical tradition other than your own. If you have a spell repertoire or a spellbook, replace one of the cantrips you know or have in your spellbook with the chosen spell. If you prepare spells without a spellbook (if you're a cleric or druid, for example), one of your cantrips must always be the chosen spell, and you prepare the rest normally. You can cast this cantrip as a spell of your class's tradition.

Resulting in being able to deal Good damage on spellstrike and geing able to give his arcane cascade the "good" damage.

This, in addition to his cold iron weapon, is going to cover for all weaknesses in the game ( apart from silver and alignment damage ).

So, still a point for the magus ( compared to a fighter using a cold iron sword with a flaming rune ).

[Golurkcanfly]

HumbleGamer wrote:

Golurkcanfly wrote:

One thing I see brought up for Magus frequently is being able to exploit weaknesses.

For that, I'm not sure if people have played the game enough to really realize just how rare non-good non-cold iron weaknesses are.

Good and Cold Iron weaknesses drastically outnumber all other weaknesses combined, and most of those "other weaknesses" are just fire. There's what, less than 10% of creatures with non-good non-cold iron weaknesses?

Here's the current chart.

ps: through adapted cantrip ( which is a lvl 1 ancestry, for example ), a magus can easily get access to divine lance

Quote:

Through study of multiple magical traditions, you've altered a spell to suit your spellcasting style. Choose one cantrip from a magical tradition other than your own. If you have a spell repertoire or a spellbook, replace one of the cantrips you know or have in your spellbook with the chosen spell. If you prepare spells without a spellbook (if you're a cleric or druid, for example), one of your cantrips must always be the chosen spell, and you prepare the rest normally. You can cast this cantrip as a spell of your class's tradition.

Resulting in being able to deal Good damage on spellstrike and geing able to give his arcane cascade the "good" damage.

This, in addition to his cold iron weapon, is going to cover for all weaknesses in the game ( apart from silver and alignment damage ).

So, still a point for the magus ( compared to a fighter using a cold iron sword with a flaming rune ).

So, if the Magus chooses a specific ancestry for a specific spell, then it has a point over other martials.

Shame about the other 99% of Magi.

[CaffeinatedNinja]

I mean yeah, but if you go down that route fighter can take a cleric archetype and get fire ray, so it basically can spellstrike once a fight as well as if Magus were burning one of two top spell slots.

I think my overall point, which to be fair I hid with a bit of bombastic language, is that the class fantasy of magus is kind of hitting for big damage with spellstrikes as a martial.

But looking at numbers, fighter MC is way better at doing that.

If Magus goes all out, blowing both top spell slots in a 3 round rotation, it does… the same thing fighter magus does at the start of every fight just by existing. And magus can only do that once a day. Fighter does it every fight, in a far sturdier package.

If they both just use cantrips, fighter magus blows it out if the water.

Spellstrikes with slotted spells are just a really poor damage spike compared to what people think, they are a bad use of your very very limited resources.

Also frankly, arcane cascade is a pain to use, and barely worth it half the time. 3 damage at lvl 20? The whole hitting weakness thing is great in theory, and if weaknesses were more common and more varied it would be good, but they aren’t.

Also, fighter doing their 2 strike routing for more damage than magus spellstrike is nice as it is separate actions. Dart in, hit once, dart out. First strike kill ‘em? Hit someone else or move.

[YuriP]

Golurkcanfly wrote:

So, if the Magus chooses a specific ancestry for a specific spell, then it has a point over other martials.

Shame about the other 99% of Magi.

This already happens to many spellcasters.

A Human/Elf/Gnome/Tengu Bard could cast Electric Arc while others ancestries cannot. An ancestry provide a beneficial that helps some classes isn't uncommon.

[Golurkcanfly]

YuriP wrote:

Golurkcanfly wrote:

So, if the Magus chooses a specific ancestry for a specific spell, then it has a point over other martials.

Shame about the other 99% of Magi.

This already happens to many spellcasters.

A Human/Elf/Gnome/Tengu Bard could cast Electric Arc while others ancestries cannot. An ancestry provide a beneficial that helps some classes isn't uncommon.

Yes, and those corner cases shouldn't be the point to balance around.

Especially when Good damage can still be applied to runes and the weakness often overlaps with Cold Iron.

Being able to exploit elemental weaknesses is heavily overvalued and should barely be considered as a benefit that the Magus gets over other martials.

[CaffeinatedNinja]

Golurkcanfly wrote:

Being able to exploit elemental weaknesses is heavily overvalued and should barely be considered as a benefit that the Magus gets over other martials.

This. I wish it weren't the case, but it is.

[HumbleGamer]

Golurkcanfly wrote:

HumbleGamer wrote:

Golurkcanfly wrote:

One thing I see brought up for Magus frequently is being able to exploit weaknesses.

For that, I'm not sure if people have played the game enough to really realize just how rare non-good non-cold iron weaknesses are.

Good and Cold Iron weaknesses drastically outnumber all other weaknesses combined, and most of those "other weaknesses" are just fire. There's what, less than 10% of creatures with non-good non-cold iron weaknesses?

Here's the current chart.

ps: through adapted cantrip ( which is a lvl 1 ancestry, for example ), a magus can easily get access to divine lance

Quote:

Through study of multiple magical traditions, you've altered a spell to suit your spellcasting style. Choose one cantrip from a magical tradition other than your own. If you have a spell repertoire or a spellbook, replace one of the cantrips you know or have in your spellbook with the chosen spell. If you prepare spells without a spellbook (if you're a cleric or druid, for example), one of your cantrips must always be the chosen spell, and you prepare the rest normally. You can cast this cantrip as a spell of your class's tradition.

Resulting in being able to deal Good damage on spellstrike and geing able to give his arcane cascade the "good" damage.

This, in addition to his cold iron weapon, is going to cover for all weaknesses in the game ( apart from silver and alignment damage ).

So, still a point for the magus ( compared to a fighter using a cold iron sword with a flaming rune ).

So, if the Magus chooses a specific ancestry for a specific spell, then it has a point over other martials.

Shame about the other 99% of Magi.

You got it wrong.

The magus can already deal

- Piercing/Slashing/Bludgeoning ( telekinetic Projectile )
- Frost ( ray of frost )
- Fire ( produce flame )
- Acid ( Acid Splash )
- Force ( Force Fang )

On a spellstrike

He can also activate specific damage through arcane cascade

Quote:

You divert a portion of the spell's magical power and keep it cycling through your body and weapon using specialized forms, breathing, or footwork. While you're in the stance, your melee Strikes deal 1 extra damage. This damage increases to 2 if you have weapon specialization and 3 if you have greater weapon specialization. Any Strike that benefits from this damage gains the arcane trait, making it magical.

If your most recent spell before entering the stance was one that can deal damage, the damage from the stance is the same type that spell could deal (or one type of your choice if the spell could deal multiple types of damage). If the spell couldn't deal damage, this stance's bonus damage depends on the spell's school.

Abjuration or Evocation force
Conjuration or Transmutation same type as your weapon or unarmed attack
Divination, Enchantment, or Illusion mental
Necromancy negative

- Mental ( Daze + arcane cascade )

- Negative / Positive ( Chill touch + arcane cascade )

The magus weapons can be made of:

- Silver
- Adamantite
- Cold Iron

This is something 100% magus can do it.

The adopted cantrip allows the magus to also add Good Damage to the list of damage he can do.

He can achieve it through a dedication ( Cleric, oracle, Witch, etc... ) or through an ancestry feat.

Pretty different.

It's like saying "I can trigger 11 kind of damage out of 12. I am useless since the 12th is not been given by default and I am forced to take it with a single ancestry feat or a dedication"

The hard life of a magus, you know ( The worst it can happen is that weaknesses overlaps ).

The fighter, on the other hand, can trigger... well, let's just pass on this, ok?

[Captain Morgan]

This whole mentality that you have to be the best at one specific thing to be worth playing at all feels super gross to me, and a hybrid class was never going to satisfy it. Of COURSE the magus is a worse martial than a fighter and a worst caster than a wizard. It is a better caster than a fighter and a better martial than a wizard. That is the point.

Who exactly is treating the magus as the god of nova damage? That just feels like a hold over from their PF1 role. Speaking personally, I don't think spell strike would make my top 5 list of reasons to play the class. (And no, weakness wouldn't be on that list either. That was one small thing I was appending onto a much longer list CaffeinatedNinja made. I don't know why people are running with it so much.) It has tons of unique abilities between hybrid study, conflux spells, and class feats. I don't want to play a magus to out-spike the fighter. I want to play a magus to teleport around stabbing people or turning my staff into a viable martial weapon. I want to be able to problem solve by preparing just the right spell but still mix it up in melee.

[CaffeinatedNinja]

Captain Morgan wrote:

Who exactly is treating the magus as the god of nova damage? That just feels like a hold over from their PF1 role. Speaking personally, I don't think spell strike would make my top 5 list of reasons to play the class. (And no, weakness wouldn't be on that list either. That was one small thing I was appending onto a much longer list CaffeinatedNinja made. I don't know why people are running with it so much.) It has tons of unique abilities between hybrid study, conflux spells, and class feats. I don't want to play a magus to out-spike the fighter. I want to play a magus to teleport around stabbing people or turning my staff into a viable martial weapon. I want to be able to problem solve by preparing just the right spell but still mix it up in melee.

Sure, Magus has some stuff. And I never said other styles of magus weren't good. I specifically phrased this whole post that if you want to be go-spellstrike-for-damage magus, which lots seem to, Magus isn't actually that good at it.

But to address your specific points. Fighter MC can teleport around stabbing people better than Magus. The staff into martial is nice, but it is flavor, not some superior mechanical option.

As for problem solve by preparing just the right spell, you are talking about spell utility, which magus has very little off with 4 (and 2 hybrid study) spells.

It sounds like you are bringing class flavor into a mechanical discussion. I love the magus flavor, but if you want to play a magus as a spellstriker (which seems to be how it is sold in large part) fighter MC is better.

[Kyrone]

Captain Morgan wrote:

Also, surely heightened grasp stops being the optimal spell for the Magus eventually?

Mostly Shocking Grasp is only totally ahead at spell lvls 1/3/5

(SG = Shocking Grasp)

1) SG 13 average damage.
2) Acid Arrow 17 (20.5 2 ticks), SG 19.5
3) SG 26
4) SG 32.5, Chromatic Ray average 36.25 with 25% to spike to 50
5) SG 39
6) SG 45.5, Heaven Thunder Sphere and Hydraulic Push catches up with the same damage and will now be ahead because 7 scaling compared to 6.5.
7) Heaven Thunder Sphere 52.5
8) Polar Ray because of the Drained increasing the damage between 22 and 40 damage depending of enemy lvl at this point.

[CaffeinatedNinja]

HumbleGamer wrote:

You got it wrong.

The magus can already deal

- Piercing/Slashing/Bludgeoning ( telekinetic Projectile )
- Frost ( ray of frost )
- Fire ( produce flame )
- Acid ( Acid Splash )
- Force ( Force Fang )
- Mental ( Daze + arcane cascade )
- Negative / Positive ( Chill touch + arcane cascade )

You listed all the different damage types magus can deal. Yeah. But here is the thing. If things aren't weak to those, it doesn't really matter. I won't list the weapon material weaknesses since those are available to anyone.

First off, Chill Touch never does positive damage. It does Negative. If the target is undead, it just flat foots them.

So, lets look at the rest.
2280 Monsters
Fire weakness - 104
Cold Weakness - 64
Electricity Weakness - 13
Acid Weakness - 2
Mental Weakness - 5
Negative Weakness - 9

Not including the physical resists (not many of them at all, about 50 total) as you can't arcane cascade those and any martial can hit them normally

197 out of 228. 8.6% (11% if you really want to toss in physical resists)

Take away fire, since fire rune is super easy to get. 4%. 4% of enemies are vulnerable to your cool arcane cascade move.

THAT is the point I was making. You can't just look at the the number of things magus can hit, you have to see if it MATTERS.

If magus were exactly the same, but most enemmies had a varied elemental weakness, it would be great. But they don't. The issue here is technically not with the Magus, but with the bestiary. Kind of the same reason versatile/p is so bad in practice, because there are I think 7 creatures that Piercing is better than Slashing against.

[HumbleGamer]

You have all source of damage.

Your "There are more enemies who doesn't have weaknesses to what a magus do" means almost nothing.

The game is about versatility and possibilities.
Magus has plenty in terms of damage, damage reduction, teleport, debuffing, buffing and so on.

The fighter is good at hit.
That's it.

As for the runes, yes. A character might invest into a fire rune.
A magus is not forced to to so.

He can invest into a different one ( force damage, for example, saving the spellstrike for elemental damage ).

Which means that while the fighter won't get benefit from using his fire rune against a fiend or fire elemental ( examples ), the magus will simply get them almost all the time by using force damage and using spellstrike to deal damage and, eventually, trigger an enemy weakness.

You might also use the runic focus point to get the rune you want without having to expend golds on your weapon.

Really, I don't get how can't you be satisfied with all these possibilities the class has.

Also

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

But to address your specific points. Fighter MC can teleport around stabbing people better than Magus.

Mind to explain this one?

How can a fighter MC teleport around better than a Magus MC.

[CaffeinatedNinja]

HumbleGamer wrote:

You have all source of damage.

Your "There are more enemies who doesn't have weaknesses to what a magus do" means almost nothing.

The game is about versatility and possibilities.
Magus has plenty in terms of damage, damage reduction, teleport, debuffing, buffing and so on.

The fighter is good at hit.
That's it.

As for the runes, yes. A character might invest into a fire rune.
A magus is not forced to to so.

He can invest into a different one ( force damage, for example, saving the spellstrike for elemental damage ).

Which means that while the fighter won't get benefit from using his fire rune against a fiend or fire elemental ( examples ), the magus will simply get them almost all the time by using force damage and using spellstrike to deal damage and, eventually, trigger an enemy weakness.

You might also use the runic focus point to get the rune you want without having to expend golds on your weapon.

Really, I don't get how can't you be satisfied with all these possibilities the class has.

Possibilities matter depending how frequent there are chances to exploit them. I never said that the magus hitting different damage types was nothing, I said it was a minor point, and not something to balance the game around. And when it comes to runes, weaknesses are far more important than resists. A resist may cost you 1d6 damage, but if you hit a weakness at that point you are doing 10/15/20 damage! Not comparable

Doing force damage with arcane cascade is kind of a so what. Arcane cascade damage is 1/2/3, that extra damage barely matters. It matters if it can hit a weakness doing 5/10/15/20.

So, long story short, Magus's extra ability to hit weaknesses matters maybe 5% of the time. A nice ribbon, but that is about it.

HumbleGamer wrote:

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

But to address your specific points. Fighter MC can teleport around stabbing people better than Magus.

Mind to explain this one?

How can a fighter MC teleport around better than a Magus MC.

Sure. I probably phrased that poorly. Fighter MC Magus can't teleport better (once he picks up the spell he teleports the same distance) but he can do it with a 2handed weapon and hit a LOT harder when he teleport strikes.

Although, to be fair, Laughing Shadow does get a nice lvl 10 feat that lets him go invis to escape or make the enemy flatfooted.

[Jokey the Unfunny Comedian]

Magi are, without a doubt, the greatest users of the simple staff in the game due to the Twisted Tree Hybrid study.

Because fighters now are not the unquestioned best at using every single weapon in the game, they are now low-tier trash best lost to the dustbin of history.

[Golurkcanfly]

The Magus just has some questionable downsides for it's strengths which already have reasonable balance decisions. Spellstrike is balanced by needing to recharge. They only get 4-6 spells per day, so their spellcasting isn't that great (especially when they are behind on proficiency). They also have rather poor class feats, with some particularly questionable choices (why is Raise a Tome two feats just to have a token benefit over normal shield usage?). They're inherently MAD, so they will have less defenses since they can't invest in defensive stats as freely. They also have a much tighter action economy, so aren't as flexible in that regard.

But on top of that, they have less HP and provoke AoO for using their primary feature that is supposed to be used in melee (so, not like an Archer who is punished for bad positioning and can just Step out of AoO range).

Now, Starlit Span gets around this, but that's a rather character-defining option and doesn't help the other subclasses. Reach also helps somewhat, but that drastically limits options when Reach is already stronger for other reasons. It's needlessly punishing for the majority of Magi when the benefits it gets are either already balanced by other elements *or* are incredibly token.

[Watery Soup]

Captain Morgan wrote:

Who exactly is treating the magus as the god of nova damage?

1E players

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

As for weaknesses, there really aren't a "good chunk" only 10% (slightly under) of enemies have an elemental weakness. Most of those are fire, most of the rest are ice.

You're counting wrong. Versatility in damage type is also valuable when enemies have resistances to physical damage - you get bonus damage when there's an actual weakness, yes, but you also get non-resistance damage when there's a resistance.

(To pre-empt the "martials carry different types of weapons" counterargument: Martials can only keep so many backup weapons in tier - primary weapon gets +1 striking at level 4, but the secondary weapon may not get +1 striking for a while after that.)

At some point, resistance physical (e.g., incorporeal) becomes relevant.

[Squiggit]

Captain Morgan wrote:

This whole mentality that you have to be the best at one specific thing to be worth playing at all feels super gross to me, and a hybrid class was never going to satisfy it. Of COURSE the magus is a worse martial than a fighter and a worst caster than a wizard. It is a better caster than a fighter and a better martial than a wizard. That is the point.

All issues of preference aside, I think you're kind of missing the point a bit.

The complaint, as far as I can read it, isn't that the Magus isn't the best martial in the game. It's the the magus, putting all their resources into one gimmick that they can only pull off a couple times a day, doesn't actually excel very much at doing that thing. The fighter being better than the magus is almost irrespective of that, it's just used as a comparison point because clearly for a lot of people, the Magus sells itself on these peaks and valleys, but apparently its peaks aren't actually really peaks.

Watery Soup wrote:

1E players

None of the people playing a Magus in any of my current games have ever even played PF1, but they nova with their spell slots because they think its cool.

[CaffeinatedNinja]

Watery Soup wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

Who exactly is treating the magus as the god of nova damage?

1E players

To be fair, spellstrike as described does sound like it is big damage. And if using your very limited daily resources with it can't outdamage a fighter over more than 1 round then it is kind of meh.

[CaffeinatedNinja]

Squiggit wrote:

The complaint, as far as I can read it, isn't that the Magus isn't the best martial in the game. It's the the magus, putting all their resources into one gimmick that they can only pull off a couple times a day, doesn't actually excel very much at doing that thing. The fighter being better than the magus is almost irrespective of that, it's just used as a comparison point because clearly for a lot of people, the Magus sells itself on these peaks and valleys, but apparently its peaks aren't actually really peaks.

Succintly put, thank you.

Squiggit wrote:

Watery Soup wrote:

1E players

None of the people playing a Magus in any of my current games have ever even played PF1, but they nova with their spell slots because they think its cool.

Exactly. The classes flavor is doing the big spellstrike. Which while flashy, is actually bad. Classes should be GOOD at what their flavor is to do, that is why a lot of people play them.

Magus has issues with that, both in the AoO thing, in their spellstrike not being a lot of damage, and their action econ making it hard to pull off.

I LIKE Magus, I just want to improve it. The designer did a great job improving Magus from the playtest. But when you make big changes, it is hard to nail it right away, basic design principles. Magus needs a bit of iterating. Nothing massive or class changing, but remove a few stumbling blocks, kick up the spellstrike damage maybe, etc.

[Watery Soup]

Squiggit wrote:

None of the people playing a Magus in any of my current games have ever even played PF1, but they nova with their spell slots because they think its cool.

Sounds like they are having a lot of fun despite magus being a terrible class.

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

spellstrike as described does sound like it is big damage.

Sure, and fighters do big damage too. And a fighter's big damage is bigger than a magus's big damage, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I think everything is exactly the way it's supposed to work, except for the irrational expectation that the magus is going to be a better fighter than the fighter.

If the fighter is not the king of elemental-less DPR damage, something is really wrong.

[Squiggit]

Watery Soup wrote:

I think everything is exactly the way it's supposed to work, except for the irrational expectation that the magus is going to be a better fighter than the fighter.

An expectation that, again, no one has put forward.

[Watery Soup]

Squiggit wrote:

Watery Soup wrote:

I think everything is exactly the way it's supposed to work, except for the irrational expectation that the magus is going to be a better fighter than the fighter.

An expectation that, again, no one has put forward.

Then why are we measuring things by DPR/DPS?

[Squiggit]

We aren't, we're talking about nova damage.