I am simply curious what some of the best spell replacements for Imaginary Weapon Spell Strike is. There is so much content that it is sometimes hard to go through all of the options but one of them is Fire Ray from the Fire Domain.
There's also withering grasp which does d12s and a tiny bit of persistent damage.
Note that fire ray, winter bolt and withering grasp are all available through green faith so it's easy to pick up any two you want.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And still be eligible for godless healing.
With the death of IW all magus are now pseudo-Druids. Bonus points for ancient elf too to be the 100 year old nature elf spell sword guy.
|
Cry of Destruction's damage upgrade isn't per target, it's upgraded against all creatures if you've damaged any enemy before on that turn (even one that isn't in the cone at all).
However, the new errata change intends to make Spellstrike's damage combined at least for weaknesses and resistances, as written in the blog post (though I can actually only find that actual change spelled out for the Spellstrike-like abilities like Eldritch Shot, Spellsling, and spellstrike ammunition, not for Spellstrike itself). So arguably CoD would only ever be d8's even with a hit on the Spellstrike now.
Another high damage-potential focus spell is Winter Bolt, though it understandably comes with its own risks (eating up to 2d12/rank no-save damage if they don't remove the bolt and get in your face instead). Fire Ray surely is the best all-rounder now
Combined for weaknesses and resistances does not mean the damages are dealt at the same time.
|
|
And still be eligible for godless healing.
With the death of IW all magus are now pseudo-Druids. Bonus points for ancient elf too to be the 100 year old nature elf spell sword guy.
100 year old righteous servant of Ragathiel elf spell bow lady here.
Very happy to have built her before Psychic arrived and that I did not change her Cleric MC Dedication when I rebuilt her for Remaster PFS.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
God bless ancient elf champion-investigator (or alchemist)-sixth pillar starlit span magus of Ragathiel. With all our archetypes combined we might just barely outshine a competently-but-not-amazingly built bow fighter.
(Still kinda mogged by eldrich archer ofc)
I don't understand the Imaginary Weapon nerf. There was no need to do such a thing as well as kill off one of the two best MC Archetypes in the game. That leaves only . . . Exemplar as the only other good MC and that's if your GM allows it.
Imaginary weapon was a little too good for melee magus, I think that's why it got nerfed.
What I'm wondering is, what am I missing because it looks like a magus could still use Imaginary Weapon to spellstrike with, it's just weaker now than it used to be.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Imaginary weapon was a little too good for melee magus, I think that's why it got nerfed.
What I'm wondering is, what am I missing because it looks like a magus could still use Imaginary Weapon to spellstrike with, it's just weaker now than it used to be.
You can spellstrike with the cantrip, but the mechanical change to how you amp (performing a free action immediately before the cast a spell activity) means it's not compatible with spellstrike (or act together).
But didn't the restriction on spell strike (in general) make the amp not useful?
One Target: The spell targets only the target of your Strike, even if it normally allows more targets. This includes area spells, which only the target attempts a saving throw against. Any ongoing effects of the area, such as the difficult terrain from scatter scree, affect only the target’s space. Some feats let you affect more creatures.
Well I guess it did increase the damage scaling even further by 2d8 instead of 1d8, even if you didn't get to target multiple enemies.
Now the new version when Amp'd increases by 2d6 instead of 1d6, but also a magus won't be able to amp stuff and spellstrike.
Edit: And just to clarify, the reason you can't amp and spell strike boils down to this line in the Amp rules:
Whenever you cast a psi cantrip, you can amp it by spending 1 Focus Point as a free action. [p]If the next action you take is to cast the psi cantrip, you add the amp effect.[/b] If the spell is a reaction or triggered free action, instead spend the Focus Point as part of that action to add the amped effect.
Because you're casting the psi cantrip as part of the container of spellstrike, you're not using a specific action to cast the cantrip? Is that how people are parsing it?
I vaguely recall an FAQ about actions and container actions and stuff that supports that interpretation. But in a plain text reading it's not disingenuous to think/argue once you're inside the container action of spellstrike, you're granted an action to cast a spell (which can be the psi cantrip) which could grant you the free action to amp.
Without the FAQ that I can only vaguely recall....I feel like it wouldn't be unreasonable to think you could still amp the psi cantrip as part of spell strike.
Edit: Despite those issue, I feel like Imaginary Weapon still might be the best cantrip the magus could use when they don't want to spend higher level spell slots when spellstriking.
|
|
I don't understand the Imaginary Weapon nerf. There was no need to do such a thing as well as kill off one of the two best MC Archetypes in the game. That leaves only . . . Exemplar as the only other good MC and that's if your GM allows it.
The archetype was far too good. No other MC archetype granted you a Focus spell and a cantrip right away.
For many builds, the question was Why not Psychic MC ?, which is definitely something Paizo wants to avoid.
It follows the general Remaster trend of killing too strong archetypes, like Martial Artist, Mauler, Monk MC...
Spellstrike is Cast and Strike, and that's it. If you try to amp before Spellstrike, it does not work because your next action is Spellstrike. And there is zero room for a free action within Spellstrike itself.
I think this is true because of the aforementioned FAQ that I don't have a link for nor do I remember the text of, but baring this vaguely remember thing I can't don't know of a reason why you couldn't argue that you're doing the free action focus point spending for Amp inside the container of Spellstrike.
Fire Ray is a focus spell though. Not that it's bad, but you can't use it an unlimited amount of times in 1 combat.
Winter Bolt is interesting...but also a focus spell.
To your point, if you wanted to archetype for a focus spell it's likely cleric as the go to choice for a frequently usable, but not necessarily every turn of every combat*.
*Depends on how long combat lasts. And since you can't spellstrike every turn anyways, 2 casts of a focus spell likely gets you through most combat and it's not that challenging to get 3 focus points which likely sees you through a majority of comabts.
So...to your point probably archetype cleric for the focus spell and use gouging claw.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You'll only really use cleric at range so you can take advantage of high starting int with something like halfling to get +4 dex, +3 int, +2 wis, +1 con or elf +4 dex, +3 int, +2 wis, +0 con.
In melee you're almost always going to be doing ancient elf (champion) with +4 str, +2 con, +2 cha, +1 wis so you can take advantage of plate, fire ray and champ reaction with force fang at 2 for the 3rd focus point.
I didn't realize people we're choosing Imaginary Weapon only for its amped form. I thought they were also using it as a cantrip (pre-nerf). IMO legacy Imaginary Weapon was slightly better, especially so if something was immune to bleed. Or had some kind of physical damage reduction (not uncommon).
But yeah, I see your point. With the nerf, imaginary weapon as a cantrip isn't better than gouging claw. Or at least not enough to bother with taking an archetype.
I agree that with the state of things as it is, it's not unreasonable to see a magus going into cleric for just the focus spells. It also coincidentally just gives the magus (access to) more spells (via feats). And while the cleric list isn't typically as offensive as you might expect to see for a magus, the utility options it provides actually doesn't sound too bad.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I didn't realize people we're choosing Imaginary Weapon only for its amped form. I thought they were also using it as a cantrip (pre-nerf). IMO legacy Imaginary Weapon was slightly better, especially so if something was immune to bleed. Or had some kind of physical damage reduction (not uncommon).
But yeah, I see your point. With the nerf, imaginary weapon as a cantrip isn't better than gouging claw. Or at least not enough to bother with taking an archetype.
I agree that with the state of things as it is, it's not unreasonable to see a magus going into cleric for just the focus spells. It also coincidentally just gives the magus (access to) more spells (via feats). And while the cleric list isn't typically as offensive as you might expect to see for a magus, the utility options it provides actually doesn't sound too bad.
Access to Vital, Spirit and Holy damage, not to mention Heal, is great for a Magus.
And more generally, just access to more spell slots is good for the magus. It may not be top tier damage spells, but more spell slots = more good.
So what is the fastest way you can get 3 Focus points as as a Magus with te domain spell Fire Ray. Since they thought Psychic was too good. (Yeah but you had to give it something being a weaker caster) and this is why people sometimes argue...sometimes, always argue that casters have no true identity and the Psychic was the first one who's MC gave it an identity and Paizo killed it.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So what is the fastest way you can get 3 Focus points as as a Magus with te domain spell Fire Ray. Since they thought Psychic was too good. (Yeah but you had to give it something being a weaker caster) and this is why people sometimes argue...sometimes, always argue that casters have no true identity and the Psychic was the first one who's MC gave it an identity and Paizo killed it.
Ancient elf champion or cleric -> force fang -> domain feat. 3 focus points and fire ray by level 4.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So what is the fastest way you can get 3 Focus points as as a Magus with te domain spell Fire Ray. Since they thought Psychic was too good. (Yeah but you had to give it something being a weaker caster) and this is why people sometimes argue...sometimes, always argue that casters have no true identity and the Psychic was the first one who's MC gave it an identity and Paizo killed it.Ancient elf champion or cleric -> force fang -> domain feat. 3 focus points and fire ray by level 4.
Which is likely enough to sustain you through most combats. Just need to be able to refocus after each combat (which shouldn't be hard).
So what is the fastest way you can get 3 Focus points as as a Magus with te domain spell Fire Ray. Since they thought Psychic was too good. (Yeah but you had to give it something being a weaker caster) and this is why people sometimes argue...sometimes, always argue that casters have no true identity and the Psychic was the first one who's MC gave it an identity and Paizo killed it.
To answer the question directly: the earliest you can max out your focus pool as a Magus with fire ray is at level 4, by picking an ancient elf for Champion Dedication at 1st level, Force Fang at 2nd level, and Basic Devotion into Deity's Domain for fire ray at 4th level. If you go for another heritage, you can instead pick Force Fang at 6th level, the same level at which you'd previously get imaginary weapon and a maxed-out focus pool through the Psychic MC archetype. I definitely agree the Psychic MC was overnerfed and the Psychic class in general was done dirty in the remaster, with the net result of that change being that every Magus who was once a Psychic is now a Champion instead.
Thinking on it now....Magus would have made for a cool archetype you could have added to any spell casting class. But would have been too difficult to balance due to the variety of class features different spell casters have with a need to balance.
Alternatively, if each casting class had a subclass specialty that was essentially "magus".
Thinking on it now....Magus would have made for a cool archetype you could have added to any spell casting class. But would have been too difficult to balance due to the variety of class features different spell casters have with a need to balance.
Eldritch Archer is right there you know. As usual for pf2e, it's better on a martial than a caster.
You could also just add the magus archetype to anyone, but I assume you mean a full version and not just a 1/fight ability.
Thinking on it now....Magus would have made for a cool archetype you could have added to any spell casting class. But would have been too difficult to balance due to the variety of class features different spell casters have with a need to balance.Eldritch Archer is right there you know. As usual for pf2e, it's better on a martial than a caster.
You could also just add the magus archetype to anyone, but I assume you mean a full version and not just a 1/fight ability.
Yeah, the magus dedication is crap because of the cooldown on spellstrike. Doesn't fulfill the fantasy at all IMO.
And Eldritch Archer is good is you wanted to play a ranged weapon spellstriker, but doesn't help if you wanted melee.
I don't understand the Imaginary Weapon nerf. There was no need to do such a thing as well as kill off one of the two best MC Archetypes in the game. That leaves only . . . Exemplar as the only other good MC and that's if your GM allows it.
You don't understand that Imaginary Weapon and Exemplar cleary stepped outside the normal range of damage expectations that they had established?
For me it was as a distinct change where they went off the rails.
You don't understand that Imaginary Weapon and Exemplar cleary stepped outside the normal range of damage expectations that they had established?
For me it was as a distinct change where they went off the rails.
It's funny because fire ray's damage is almost identical in damage. When you factor in the secondary damage or a provoked reaction attack it's actually slightly better until you get to maximum de/buffing.
Psychic had better archetype slots and IW had a better damage type though. It could also be entered with int which was more convenient for stats.
It's funny because fire ray's damage is almost identical in damage.You don't understand that Imaginary Weapon and Exemplar cleary stepped outside the normal range of damage expectations that they had established?
For me it was as a distinct change where they went off the rails.
I used past tense. If you thought Fire Rays damage was the same then you don't understand.
I used past tense. If you thought Fire Rays damage was the same then you don't understand.It's funny because fire ray's damage is almost identical in damage.You don't understand that Imaginary Weapon and Exemplar cleary stepped outside the normal range of damage expectations that they had established?
For me it was as a distinct change where they went off the rails.
I am considering the past tense. 2d8 scaling vs 2d6 and 1d6 patch on the ground.
If you mean something else though then yeah I'm not getting it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't understand the Imaginary Weapon nerf. There was no need to do such a thing as well as kill off one of the two best MC Archetypes in the game. That leaves only . . . Exemplar as the only other good MC and that's if your GM allows it.
If you think exemplar and pre-remaster psychic are the only good MC archetypes I have a bridge to sell you.