Magus Guide for Pathfinder Kingmaker Unfair Difficulty
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- Опубліковано 18 чер 2019
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I agree with most of the comments that Magus is actually an amazing class. The complaint that they have 15 BAB doesn't really make sense, when they can just add +5 to their weapon for up to 20 minutes (many times per rest) if they want to, bringing their attack bonus to 20, and exactly equal with a fighter. Of course you wouldn't normally want to do that - you get bane weapon at mid levels that adds +2d6 to every single attack for the cost of just 1 arcane enhancement point; you can enchant your weapon for elemental damage for +3d6, for 5d6 extra damage with every attack. This takes next to no micro, and is probably as good as a rogue since it works in situations where you can't sneak attack (or can't be bothered). Likewise, you can enchant any weapon with the brilliant energy enhancement, which means every. single. attack is a touch attack. Fighters can kiiiind of do this with shatter defenses but that's not a sure thing and needs them to hit a debuffed enemy first (and there's no reason you couldn't have shatter defenses on a magus, either). Regarding the arcane accuracy/ dimension strike complaint that you have to click it every turn - you don't, just right click it and it will activate at the start of each turn. Then right click it again to stop that happening. You can do this against bosses you can't otherwise hit.
In addition to all of that, if you cast a touch spell, you actually get a free weapon attack, which means if you are casting each round you get as many attacks as a fighter per round, but two of them are at full BAB, making you actually a bit better than a fighter at... fighting. You can set acid splash to auto cast and just get a bonus attack every round with your arcane archer, but that touch of fatigue cantrip will work for melee as well.
If you are using resistance penetrating weapons (Allslayer, Twin Crystals), you can maximise your damage rolls as a sword saint, or boost the crit multiplier, which can be crazy good for getting damage through bosses' damage resistance. Maximising 1d6 doesn't sound like much, until you consider that a lot of weapons deal a lot more dice of damage after you are buffed with legendary proportions and maybe use lead blades from a scroll or something. If your weapon is doing 5d6 damage, maximizing it and multiplying its crits is huge. Throw on bane weapon, which just adds 2d6 to the actual weapon, and you can do some pretty crazy damage that a fighter class cannot match.
If you absolutely still can't hit bosses, (in which case probably nobody can), magus has access to the dragon breath spell which you can keep in reserve. It deals elemental damage to the enemies (including bosses) but ignores spell resistance. This is something normal fighters can not do.
It is fascinating to listen to somebody telling you one wrong thing after the other while at the same time being totally conviced he has a great knowledge about the mechanics.
maybe cuz it works for him? also I would love to know what was wrong as I wanted to use this.
@@Dor_Z ...and you can look at rose`s answer in this comment section. he just mentinons a few things....
@@draxxgecko2635 ah thanks I will
Life....
The magus is not a buffer, is not a debuffer or controller. The magus is pure burst damage. His spells serve only 2 purposes; 1) To keep him alive until he has positioned next to the mobs and give him some staying power there until: 2)Use a barrage of critical touch spells combined with free regular critical attacks. That's it. The magus damage is nearly unparalled actually, during his burst.
He can't hit anything you say? That is completely wrong. Actually the magus is designed to hit ALWAYS (barring the 1s). This he accomplishes with a combination of touch weapon and/or spell attacks that can both hit against touch AC and hit incorporeals withought concealment and big AB bonuses from his arcane pool.
I think you have completely misanderstood the class, look more closely...
I wonder if Mono's opinion of the class might differ if he was to play with turn-based mode on. The micro-managing the Magus requires is not so much of an issue in turn-based mode. Not to mention it's a lot easier to position and execute spells without granting the attack of opportunity due to the free 5ft you can move to disengage if needed.
I'm playing a Sword Saint in a pure dex/Int build. Weapon finesse is the way to go. When you play your cards right, then he is a beast. Reserve a first level slot for shield and go to town with shocking grasp, acid touch ect.. every spell delivered with your melee attack can mean up to 60+ dmg per attack. So grab yourself a dueling sword or scimitar and rock this class.
So the Magus is only good if you use its abilities? Got it.
Lol I solo unfair with an Abyssal Eldritch Scion Tiefling(the str bonus is +6). The ability to cast true strike and attack in the same turn makes it the most accurate early game. The weapon buff can be improved quite quickly & cheaply to 1 minute per level instead of just 1 minute, and gives you earlier access to +5 weapons. Late game, you can pick up the good Sorcerer spells you missed like Sense Vitals, Greater Heroism, Caustic Blood, and The summon monster spells. Much stronger than a fighter late game after buffing and topping off with transformation.
glad i read this comment. gonna try Magus after all
Yup. Tried a build from another youtuber, the tank magus. He hits pretty well with high str.
Yeah, tank magus (with the sword saint dex route) is no joke. Maybe you dont hit as hard as a barbarian but you are nearly untouchable EVEN vs touch attacks which are one of the nastier type of attacks
I like the Magus for your main character simply because it is decent to good at a lot of things. That way no matter what companions you have with you, your main character can fill the gap in the party. I usually go Dex based for the fighter half of the class with finesse weapons. That saves you from needing STR so much.
Dodge bonuses stack unlike other bonuses. as such dodge bonus is almost always better than other armor bonuses.
My current PC is a dex-based Eldritch Scion.
And it's working quite well.
Thanks for this video man. You are the only person I understand what is talking about playing this game. All guides sound fucking pompous thank you for this really.
You helped me build an amazing Inquisitor subclass, so I’m back again for Magus! Teach me, Obi-Wan.
Eldritch archer attacks don't work with melee touch spells like shocking grasp. You need some ranged touch attacks like basic cantrips to work.
yea, or disintegrate :D
Metamagic. Reach spell is what you are looking for.
Access to Brilliant Energy for Arcane Weapon (and Dimension Strike for Undead who are immune to Brilliant Energy) largely makes the 3/4 BAB a non-issue. Access to arcane spells helps greatly too, though there are some gaps in their list. It does require a lot of micro compared to a lot of classes, but it is by no means weak. And, of course, Saint is just Magus on steroids.
Finally just wanna say wow what a massive minefield to run through xD bit late too but still a hard thing to do. Good on you :D we can always use more guides and opinions!
Playing a magus Archer on the second to highest difficulty right now, and absolutely wrecking. I think the new turn based mode makes it much more worth while. Dropping maximized fireballs or scorching ray and then slinging 5 arrows with haste and my INT bonuses to hit is ridiculous. Can do well over 150dmg per turn at level 11.
Another good vid. Cheers
I would think point blank and precise shot would be important for landing hits against foes in melee. You're at -4 to hit without precise shot vs enemies in melee with ranged touch and auto attacks.
For an Eldrich Archer I think the better choice for first level attack spells would have been snowball and ray of enfeeblement, the touch spells would have been for the other 3 archetypes.
Looking at PnP extra arcane pool doesn't have a limit of 3... I wonder what the deal was there.
I think some detail into the mechanics of combat casting and provoking attacks of opportunity would help a bit here. I haven't done the complete research into how that works myself in the video game, but that would be very helpful!
I really like taking a few levels of Arcane Trickster with this class and turning the ranged spellstrike off to get a sneak attack vs touch AC in with the full attack action.
Also, you can dual wield thrown weapons with rapid shot (with hefty penalties) for an absolutely insane number of attacks. Greater Invis helps a lot here so you're swinging vs their flatfooted with a +2 for being invis.
Thanks again for all your content and your opinions!
I think your take on the magus class is slightly misinformed. Magus is more of a fighter than caster. The magus spell list is nothing to brag about, most of them are just defensive. Yes the BAB for magus is medium, but the ability to take fighter feats will slightly offset the lack of BAB. And the arcane pool most useful usage is to buff the magus's damage by adding fire, ice, sonic, lightning damage, not to mention the alignment damage if it is viable. There is this magus bonus called "Enduring Blade" that changes from 1 min arcane pool buff duration to 1 min / level. This greatly increases the damage by far. I love your pathfinder content and I hope this will give you an additional perspective of the magus class.
He don't like the class and you can feel it (no one have to love all the classes). Don't take into consideration arcana talents and weapon improvements. Only 3/4 bab but can self buff, improve weapon (bonus, dmg and other effects). Spelltrike improve critic range for your spells.
Not everything is perfect, lack of touch spells in the crpg, lack of some arcana that allow to pick some wizard spells, lack of some metamagic to improve the dmg... and I find the heavy armor à 13 really weird. Suffer from low Dex, or build around light armor and don't care about it
@Vampiresoap Well, Pathfinder was never designed with 'unfair' in mind, it's just a stat inflate hack, but you can see some people playing magus (sword saint mostly) on unfair. And with buff (spell + arcana) they can improve their hit chance and they have a second attack faster than a fighter. The funny part, is that Black was more positive on the druid that is often see as trash tier on unfair.
I don't care about unfair and I find the style/gameplay is more important than optimisation, but I think he has just missed the point of the maguc class (that is a lot more micro than others).
@@takkik282 I really like the class in P&P and flavour-wise, which makes it all the more disappointing that it's only barely playable on unfair difficulty. You're engaging in wishful thinking; the fact is that it is really weak under the relevant conditions. It's not that he doesn't like the class; it's that you like it so much that you're ignoring the poor implementation here and making excuses for it.
@@WiggaMachiavelli P&P is different to unfair difficulty. Above Challenging is a lot about optimization/min-max and not all classes are playable. It's more about pushing the limit of your builds.
All classes/archetypes are playable at normal/challenging.
But the one thing I hate about Kingmaker is that the dev have removed/not implemented all the non combat / flavour stuff of the classes. Playing a fighter, wizard or druid change nothing to the story/interactions.
@@takkik282 From the first paragraph it seems as though you just agree with the video.
Eldritch archer is very cool. Enchanted bow+range spells. Dex focused build.
I like starting as an Undead(bloodline) Magus, so by level 8 one have 10dr/mag, it starts at level 3 whit 5dr/magic, then after that have fun...
Hey dude, just dropped by to tell you that your videos are super good! Love your style! :)
The magus really isn't all that bad but among the different bastard mage classes I definitely prefer arcane trickster with sorcerer as the base class. The single-target damage potential is just simply unrivaled. It also is the only spellcaster class that keeps low grade spells viable even in the late game. Just put acid splash on auto and watch your enemies melt one by one under devastating ranged sneak attacks. Open up a fight with a Scorching Ray from stealth or invisibility and you already don't have to worry about one elite / mini boss / nuke mage less. You'll be one-hitting most of those round about level 10-12
Which has been the strongest class in unfair in your experience in playing?
He'd likely say Sylvan Sorc.
I have to agree that magus can't hit anything, but in the late game, a proper built buffed sword saint can literally oneshot an enemy boss in any difficulty
I’ll save everyone the trouble of listening to this video. He’s basically about as wrong as it’s possible to be... Both eldritch scion and sword saint make great tanks with good dps and unmatched burst potential. Especially, if you dip into monk for help with your ac and crane feats. If you go eldritch scion and dip scaled fist this goes a long way towards making them less MAD. By the end of act one they'll have all of their stacking armor bonuses online alongside defensive spells like blur, shield and, mirror image. They'll be practically unhittable. This guy is too hung up on their mediocre BAB. It can make things tough, but it certainly doesn't ruin the class. Especially considering they can manually buff their hit chance with their arcane pool, and use it to add brilliant weapon. This means they can target touch ac with their auto attacks. These two things, plus the arcane accuracy arcana actually make you probably the most accurate class in the game aside from a slayer using shatter defenses or a ranger fighting their favored enemy. So yeah, his complaints about their BAB dont make sense. Not to mention the fact that they can also use their arcane pool to buff their crit chance and crit multiplier while auto maxing their base damage on crits and their touch spells inherit their weapons crit chance. So if they wanna blow a lot of resources they can put out truly stupid amounts of damage a few times a day by dishing out really big crits on attacks and spells with good reliability. On top of all of that goodness, if you have the call of the wild mod, you can take feats from the pnp game like metamagic intensified spell to add to your burst damage, You could also look at blinding or staggering critical to make ur crits extra devastating since you'll be doing so many of them. Just look around on the internet and you'll find that basically everyone except for this dude widely considers the magus (especially sword saint) to be one of the most effective classes. Even in this comments section you can see that anyone who's actually played the magus( cause this dude definitely hasn't) thinks he's got it wrong.
Thanks, I had played the game with the Magus before and it was pretty powerful, however i had forgotten why it was powerful and went looking online, I might try out what you said uptop.
@@dannykemper4784 In my experience Nerd Commando has good advice to give and really understands the pathfinder system. He also makes builds that are really fun and not just optimized out the nose so that they can make it through unfair difficulty. I think he has a build like what I mentioned too! An eldritch scion dipping monk. :)
I love how everyone is a total master of rules and genius when it comes to what does and does not work in Pathfinder and yet 2 years after this video I still see on Pathfinder Steam Profile that only 7% players finnished the game and 0,5% players finished the game on Unfair... What you are describing certainly works on Normal and Hard but on Unfair you want to eaither avoid combat and trigger quest rewards which only require you to be present at some events, or you want a character that is not good, nor great. You want a character that is capable of beating 22AC on level one. Yes Magus does damage in middle and late game. But if you are not able to get through the tutorial it is worth literally nothing. You do not want a class that needs 3 or more Abilities at maximum to be able to finish a tutorial. The main issue a magus has is the fact that he has to hit total AC not touch AC since he delivers his attacks with a weapon attack. Yes they can crit.. Nice... They also need 20 STR / 20DEX plus Finesse to be able to hit.. You need more than 10 HP or you die in a single hit on lower level and you also need Your Spellcasting ability since on unfair resting is so punishing and impossible in the tutorial.
@@m3divh don't you see the irony in how you started your comment trashing on people who think they know best about what does or doesn't work only to write a long post about how you know best and you know what does and doesn't work LMAO a little self awareness goes a long way bud
@@rose.i I do not, I did finish it on Unfair.
Playing Wrath of the Righteous and chose Magus. I guess it's real power is to sound cool while being decent. True, you can't really hit anything without a lot of work put into.
easiest fix for this class in the game? impliment intensify spell. I dont like most of the builds people have put out there for his class. They never use metamagics. You have to use metamagics with this class for more touch casts and more powerful casts. I admit it is a very risky playstyle when you could lose a spell to a bad weapon attack roll but as I've said before. the risk would be worth it with more reward. ie intensify spell.
You know, I'm actually wondering if this guide holds water in turn-based mode. I'm not sure about his overall effectiveness, but his mechanics became much less janky
this guide doesn't hold water even in rtwp I've soloed the game on unfair as everything from sword saint to draconic sorc this dude spouts off about how anything that doesn't have a pet or full bab is unplayable just look at his own unfair playthrough its a full party of sylvan sorcs I think it's safe to say that this dudes game knowledge is pretty poor and he consistently gets a lot wrong it's a real shame that he's the only guy with a full series of videos detailing the classes and what they do you should look at Nerd commando he only does builds but if you have the time to check out his channel the dude knows his shit
I will try Piranha Strike elf magus with rapier for the crit, lets see what I can do
3 levels of knifemaster and just dump stat str and con. super buff dex for the weap finesse use the cha/dex asimar and get all the def buff spells and metamagic
Class would have worked if it was turn base combat.
And now we do
I am running a Bard/Eldritch Scion.
you actually choose the wrong touch spells...
For anyone watching this and getting a bad vibe about the class, I want to add my 2 cents. TLDR, the class is strong and works well but the unfair difficulty and the lack of turn based gameplay takes away some of the strong points. Still, really versatile class thanks to arcanas and spells. It's up to you as a magus to be prepared and prepare your choices (spells, scrolls and feats) accordingly.
I agree with some of your points, but i dont think the class is at fault nor it is bad. Unfair just hurts what you want to do which is to crit like a madman. Also, playing magus without turn order really hurts your 5ft activity. Playing with turn mode on solves literally 70% of your complains on the class.
I believe you are not selling the dex magus build high enough. It is really strong and not that hard to do. Wand of mage armor, shield and highest dex and int, fencing grace and you are good to go basically at lvl 3 (or even lvl 1 or 2 if u multiclass 1 lvl to fighter). There is a reason why those feats that allow dex-to-dmg dont work with spellcombat and spellstrike in PnP. Because it's busted as hell.
Also, Sword Saint from lvl 3 upwards is really strong.
I dont understand how the magus is not as good as fighter. Any class that can use magic is by default at least B tier, specially those who take spells from the wizard spell list. Fighter with decent build only gets close to C- tier.
Really hurts that you cannot create scrolls (you or an allied caster) like in PnP and you really want some scrolls to increase even more your variety
What is PnP
Tabletop Pen and Paper where each take a turn, where each encounter last max 5 rounds and each character is super accurate to each action that it's basically a visual novel.
You do realize turn based mode has been in the game for quite some time now, right...?
Pretty late to the Show, though i gotta say i agree on them being pretty trash on that difficulty as a pure class.
However, i build a scaled fist 2/ paladin 2/ eldritch scion 16, which actually went really well exept for the need to micro manage every round, which can get tireing. Still, good Video :)
Magus: best tank in unfair, incredible damage and burst, powerful self buff, fantastic survivability.
"he can't hit anything and doesn't have good spells"
... Sure, a frontliner with displacement, mirror image, wings, heroism and shield must feel awful.
iam sorry Mono i love you and has been enjoying your content for the past year, but i think your opinion toward magus is a little bit miss and lack of experience from real hours of playthrough. i have been testing some of viable class for unfair run (like sorcerer multiclass, kineticist, inquisitor) and i think magus (especially sword saint) is easily categorized as the best class to have decent damage dealer and good enough AC for this playthrough (even if you struggling enough early you may take a dip on monk and vivi). i hope you dont mind i share some my experience here and i hope you have a good new year eve! take care man and wish all the best for the incoming year, cheers bruf!!
So just play a kineticist knight, gotcha.
As for your build with the arcane archer... it sucks. pure and simple. No precise strike lvl 1? then why go human? you gimped the character to have 5 less to hit against anything in melee within 30ft. not worth it. Your spell choice has already been pointed out a ton as what you want are ranged touch attack spells to go with your spell strikes, magic missile do not work with this since it's not a ranged touch attack, level 1 these are snowball and ray of enfeeblement. The other choices for spells comes down to dps and buffs that are useful. Grab true strike to hit hard hitting stuff. Grab enlarge person because in this game it works for ranged dmg. Most of the time you will be using the acid splash cantrip on autocast for low lvl content while buffing yourself with enlarge person, tossing in a truestike when fighting bosses or harder to hit foes. Snowball does not come in to play until level 3+ for me as an extra boost of throwaway damage. You should have some other character use grease in low lvls.
The extra arcane pool is not important until you get your spell recall due to the enchantment being the only thing you spend it on and it lasts a minute. should be no problem to use it before a fight and rest when you run out of it.
Since you didn't talk about the other levels I leave this here too.
In pen-nd-paper magus is a mess too, great glass canon, but a mess. Huge micromanaging every. single. turn. Unfun as hell to play.
magus isn't a mess in pnp he's just as good or even better than all the other 2/3 caster classes idk what huge micromanaging you're talking about either cause your turn just looks like spell combat full attack or move and attack or move and cast a spell maybe activate an arcana like I'm playing a bard and I have way more going on managing performances trying to proc sneak attack for my rogue dip and casting pre-combat buffs too your comment makes me question if you've ever actually played a magus or been in a party with one I've been playing a campaign with a kensai for the past year and he's our main tank and can do absurd burst damage once he crit while using perfect strike and intensified shocking grasp then the dice spiked and he basically one shot the BBEG we were fighting so yeah all this is to say you're full of it dude
Magus is dog 🐶 😭
wtf is a subclass? All I'm seeing here are multiclassing and archetypes.
Also I did do some testing. You could potentially use the base magus with a ranged weapon + enlarge person. This allows you to deliver your touch attack spell and full attack from behind the tank using spellstrike and not spell combat.
Another thing you can do it to use spell combat and not spell strike to use disintegrate and your full attack as a full round action, while this forces you to stand still it's still a fuck ton of dps. Thinking about it we can get 40d6 + 3 attacks worth of weapon damage. Each attack being enchanted with keen, and +4.
Grabbing the Enduring blade instead of the shitty arcane accuracy(last 1 round and drains you pool fast as fuck all for some int to hit -.- fk that!) allows our weapon enchants to last for a minute/level so we don't have to worry about keeping it up as much. (i know this was a bit of a deal breaker for you so i figured i'd mention it.)
Going dexterity based forces us to grab weapon finess and fencing or slashing grace which hinder our feat progression a bit getting us less extra arcane pool, but we do get good dc and saves. If we grab the agile rapier that you can get early on then we can skip the grace feats for a while.
Going strength allow us to grab whatever weapon we want. 1h for any spell and 2h for touch spells only.
As for hitting things... I need to do more testings xD potentially you could use truestike with quicken spell and use another spell while using both spell combat and spell strike allowing a +20 to hit with vamp touch+ single melee. It's ok but nothing to backflip over i guess.
ps. in order for other spells to work with spell combat you just need to position the magus next to the opponent, if you don't he will simply cast it at range and skip the melee like a normal wizard. ds.
Magus is the main class, its subclasses would be the Eldritch Scion, Sword Saint and Eldritch Archer. Basically you either go with the main Magus or 1 of its subclasses, than you can multiclass into other main/sub classes and/or prestige classes to your heart's content.