Whats so special about magus?

[GreenBob]

i thought he was somehow supposed to be able to apply his spell damage at the end of a physical attack, so far all he does is cast spells and wield a sword poorly :(

[Ando]

he can at lvl 2 u get the ability for that. Works the way that u cast a "Touch ranged" Spell beforehand (you see him casting IG) and then attack the enemy. If he hits with his weapon the enemy gets damaged from the spell too. Hope this helps :)

[Antinous]

Yeah, only works with Touch spell.

[raubrey]

There is Spell Strike and Spell Combat...both improve with levels, fairly quickly. He won't ever be the major damage dealer but may do damage when others don't. Very decent class in my opinion.

[Yandros The Mad]

Use two handers with high STR and spellstrike (lvl2) with touch spells. Amazing damage and hit chances with arcane accuracy.

At level 4 you have access to Frigid Touch which does not allow saves and garantee debuff.

A lot of necro touch spells are freaking amazing on maguses.

[GreenBob]

gotcha. ive been field testing this orc, and it appears you can apply arcane strikes to fists i know what im doing with my monk build next.

[GreenBob]

i actually understand him now, hes like red mage not neccessarily the best at anything but if you build him right hell be able to target most weaknesses thanks everyone. already ♥♥♥♥♥♥ this guy up though, gave him magic missiles thinking the gauranteed damage would be the bomb with melee attacks ohh well.

[Kain Yusanagi]

Originally posted by Yandros:

Use two handers with high STR and spellstrike (lvl2) with touch spells. Amazing damage and hit chances with arcane accuracy.

At level 4 you have access to Frigid Touch which does not allow saves and garantee debuff.

A lot of necro touch spells are freaking amazing on maguses.

Er, not really. Frigid Touch isn't BAD, for when you can pick it up, but metamagic'd Shocking Grasp tends to be a better spell still. Corrosive Touch is great for when you need to break through Spell Resistance. It's really too bad that they don't have Intensifying Spell metamagic, as it doubles the damage dice of Shocking Grasp.

[PopsurSocks]

Touch spells bypass the AC of enemies with high armour (not from Dex), so your Magus will often be doing more dmg to certain bosses than your regular Fighters.

Also, the Sword Saint build I'm doing from this guy's Youtube channel looks like a massive late game carry (Think massive, massive, crits)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM_f0McHhF8&t=439s

[Syzy]

Magnus can do some cool ♥♥♥♥. An eldrich one that gets stoneskin as a spell via level ups and takes the undead bloodline stacks a ton of DR for example.

[GreenBob]

i really really want to hybrid a monk/magus now. im getting tired of this two hander im playing hes strong but its pretty vanilla as far as gameplay goes

[pete3great]

Magi - especially human magi who are Sword Saints/Eldritch Archers - benefit from a single level dip into fighter. You don't lose much by giving up a level of Magi, but if you begin as a human fighter for one level, you gain two extra feats. Sword saints and edlritch archers should also build towards dex, not strength. Putting off taking Magi levels until the trading post allows you to start strong by taking weapon finesse/fencing grace or point blank shot/precise shot. As a human, the third feat can go towards weapon focus, or dodge. Congrats, your character is now a scewer. Future feats should go towards improving your use of your chosen weapons, anything that improves your spell penetration, mobility, and things like outflank. You're not a melee hammer, you're a chisel - a tool for doing the fine work. I can see some strength builds working, but I really like my rapier. Your spell choice should tend towards touch attacks and buffs.

The Eldritch Scion is a whole other bag. I've not had the time to experiment with it, but off hand I'd say, unlike a sorcerer build, Undead Bloodline is the way to go. It gives the most free touch attacks as far as I can tell.

Also, I'm convinced there's a kinfe master/sword saint build out there that could make a monster. I just haven't figured out what that build is yet.

[Lane]

What I dont get is why would you ever want to apply touch spell through weapon attack instead of the touch spell itself? touch spell would ignore target's armor while weapon won't... Can someone tell me in what scenario is it beneficial?

[Yandros The Mad]

Well a magus w/ abyssal bloodline / vivi 1 is not a chisel it's the freaking hammer :p !

[solthusx]

Originally posted by pete3great:

Magi - especially human magi who are Sword Saints/Eldritch Archers - benefit from a single level dip into fighter. You don't lose much by giving up a level of Magi, but if you begin as a human fighter for one level, you gain two extra feats. Sword saints and edlritch archers should also build towards dex, not strength. Putting off taking Magi levels until the trading post allows you to start strong by taking weapon finesse/fencing grace or point blank shot/precise shot. As a human, the third feat can go towards weapon focus, or dodge. Congrats, your character is now a scewer. Future feats should go towards improving your use of your chosen weapons, anything that improves your spell penetration, mobility, and things like outflank. You're not a melee hammer, you're a chisel - a tool for doing the fine work. I can see some strength builds working, but I really like my rapier. Your spell choice should tend towards touch attacks and buffs.

The Eldritch Scion is a whole other bag. I've not had the time to experiment with it, but off hand I'd say, unlike a sorcerer build, Undead Bloodline is the way to go. It gives the most free touch attacks as far as I can tell.

Also, I'm convinced there's a kinfe master/sword saint build out there that could make a monster. I just haven't figured out what that build is yet.

Sword Saints get Weapon Focus with their chosen weapon for free. So that's one feat slot freed up to use on other things.

I've heard that Rogue/Sword Saint can put out some insane damage. Haven't seen a build that uses the knife master archetype yet though.

[pete3great]

Originally posted by Lane:

What I dont get is why would you ever want to apply touch spell through weapon attack instead of the touch spell itself? touch spell would ignore target's armor while weapon won't... Can someone tell me in what scenario is it beneficial?

Think of the Magus like having made-to-order magic weapons. They're also less squishy (or at least harder to hit) than a typical arcane caster - meaning they're more likely to survive to deliver those touch attacks. That said, they're still not tanks, and they're definitely not for players who hate micromanaging their parties.