There are two problems with the combo.
1. Action economy. Magus action economy is tight enough without adding in DaS. It only seems like you could rely on the trick if you had free action DaS. The Investigator has several feats to let you do that more reliably. But the magus archetype only lets you spell strike once per combat. So point for the magus if they can snag the quick lead persuit feats.
2. As always, you need something else to do if DaS says you'll get a bad strike. Another point in favor of the magus, who has more cantrips and spell slots to use instead.
|
I started my Magus with investigator archetype and quickly realized that i need something to do if DaS fails me - like casting buffs (or electric arc as a last resort).
As soon as imagniary weapon got online my spell slots are mostly buffs.
Takes some time until you can grab skill mastery though, until then your skill monkey times are limited.
I can imagine that the one spellstrike a magus archetype would give an investigator would still be nice, just saving it for that juicy crit coming up.
When I play a magus I usually use my slots for buffs, utility and AoEs. Spellstrikes, I'll do with cantrips. At that point, DaS isn't really all that useful because I'm not that worried about missing and "wasting" a cantrip.
Yup.
Similarly, if I am playing an Investigator, having spells to use if DaS rolls low is nice, but other spellcasting classes do it better than Magus. The 1/combat Spellstrike is a cute trick, but it is probably being done with a cantrip anyway and doesn't add all that much damage over what Strategic Strike adds.
You aren't really playing Investigator for its DPR or spike damage potential in the first place, ... right?
As always, a big trouble with Devise is campaign structure and GM friendliness. The power of this tactic change a lot depending on how often you get the free action. If you aren't, Devise>Spellstrike is your whole turn, which diminishes its usability by a lot for non-archer magi, but it can be an okay way to extend yourself if you're relying on slotted spells for big spellstrikes by letting you dodge obvious misses. I don't hate it but I'm not super excited about it, especially if I'm not playing FA.
... I do actually like Investigator MC Magus here though. Because you're already devising, and you only get one spellstrike per combat, you can kind of just let it sit in your back pocket until you get an interesting roll, and getting strategic and spellstrike on the same roll is pretty meaty. Not to mention Investigator likes having cantrips in their back pocket anyways. Same problem as before that you're very campaign dependent, but since the whole class lives or dies on having stuff to investigate this is presumably something you discussed pre-creation and therefore are probably going to be in a safer place, maybe.
The bigger problem is that cantrip spellstrikes aren't that exciting, but your slots don't scale well (and bonded archetype casting kind of sucks). So if you want to juice up your spellstrike you're looking at another archetype (probably cleric or psychic) for a focus attack, which means five feats on archetyping which is pretty expensive and slow to hit a satisfying point.
Just a fast note here, remember that your DaS only applies to the adversary you use it on.
So, you can Das, roll a 1, then Strike, or Spellstrike *someone else*, and that 1 does not apply, and you roll as normal. You could, of course, roll low again, but that's always a risk.
As for the OP's question, I'd say that would be more campaign-dependent, but in most cases, I'd lean Magic with Investigator Archetype so that you could Spellstrike more often.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Just a fast note here, remember that your DaS only applies to the adversary you use it on.
So, you can Das, roll a 1, then Strike, or Spellstrike *someone else*, and that 1 does not apply, and you roll as normal.
Note on the note.
As Squiggit mentions, this is campaign dependent. Or more accurately, combat scenario dependent.
It relies on there being a *someone else* to target.
And it has to either be *someone* that is within reach, or you have to be able to switch quickly to ranged attacks.
Defending DaS with 'just attack someone else' is a lot more complex of advice than people give it credit for.