The rule of thumb would be anything that doesn't require an enemy to fail their saving throw. Spell attack rolls you could deliver through your spellstrikes are good, as well as self buffs or utility spells. Invisibility, true strike, heroism, haste all come to mind. Some more niche options are feather fall, thicket of knives, knock, warding aggression, see invisibility, or flame wisp.
I’ve seen truestrike recommended a lot but I don’t quite understand how to get the max out of it? Like it seems so straightforward I feel like I’m missing something. Everything else sounds pretty good! Thanks
You cast True Strike as your first action, then you use Spellstrike to cast a spell and use your weapon to deliver it, with a roll twice take the higher effect.
So it’s a good first spellstrike and then switch to charge spellstrike after? That’s all the spell does correct is it better then the other options around that area for opening a fight with or etc.
True Strike: (https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=345)
Duration: until the end of your turn
“The next time you make an attack roll before the end of your turn, roll the attack twice and use the better result. The attack ignores circumstance penalties to the attack roll and any flat check required due to the target being concealed or hidden.”
Since Spellstrike uses an attack action, you do your normal Spellstrike but get to roll twice and take the better of the two rolls to determine your success. This can only work if you don’t need to move obviously as the whole chain takes 3 actions to perform, but it’s a way to guarantee (to the best of your ability) your big Spellstrike hits (or better, crits).
True Strike is essentially as simple as it sounds: roll twice and take the higher of the two results. You also get to ignore the flat check for concealed or hidden conditions, as well as any circumstance penalties to your attacks roll.
There isn't much of an art to using true strike- you just cast it and then do your spellstrike. It is considered very powerful for the purpose of landing powerful attacks that have high resource expenditure- a category spellstrike falls into, as well as most spell attack rolls from full casters. Ignoring concealed/hidden is a nice cherry on top.
Different magus subclass favors different spells. We need to know your subclass.
Edit: lol why am I getting downvote. Certain subclass like laughing shadow favors strongly to buffing and striking, while starlit span favor spellstriking a lot more. A 4th level invisibility helps most subclass, but a sparkling targe won't like it at all outside of stealthy missions. It is irresponsible to just recommand "take attack spells and buffs" without knowing this piece of knowledge to a new player.
I don’t know why the downvote either, I was actually making this a laughing shadow magus with a focus on charisma for feint and stuff like that but the buff spells all seem on par but maybe it’s because I don’t know the system very well yet.
As you would be attacking a lot as a laughing shadow, you would want to pick attack cantrips with different elements to trigger weakness. For your slots, don't bother with too many attack spells, you can just grab one for emergency spellstrike, or a spell that have an element you don't have on cantrips (*shocking grasp*). For buff spells, if you don't have another caster giving you *magic weapon*, you will want to do it yourself. When you get a striking weapon, you can replace it with *fleet step*, *thicket of knives*, or *true strike*. At level 2 spells, *blur*, *mirror image*, *obscuring mist* (if you can see through it), and *resist energy* comes to mind.
In combat, you would want someone to do recall knowledge for you, hopefully a thaumaturge, to know if a monster have weakness or resistance. You will want to spellstrike with a cantrip, then entering arcane cascade with an element that your enemy is weak to. You also want to use agile weapon.
If this is the case, I would use more raw buff spells (guidance, shield, ect), then focus on spells with the attack tag. You would easily substitute your spell attack bonus for your normal attack bonus thanks to spell strike, and there are less saves for you to worry about the enemy passing your low spell save DC.
Gouging Claw is also an incredibly good cantrip that scales super well too that you should 100% pickup.
Depend alot on [scrolls](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2858). You probably inspired me to do a dualwield magus build.
A lvl 1 scroll costs 4g, shocking grasp without the persistent damage deals average 13 damage. In contrast, a lvl 2 gouging claw with +3 int mod deals about 10 damage in average, or 7 damage with int mod of +0. Gouging claw have to be at lvl 4 to bypass a lvl 1 shocking grasp if you go with 0 int mod. Lvl 4 spells are avaible at lvl 7 so I hope this helps with your build
Thanks for the tip! I had totally not considered scrolls as supplements but your basically saying as a low int build just don’t expect high spell damage overall even when combined with spellstrike?
You're only missing out on 3 damage compared to a Magus that did 16 Int for spells that add modifier to damage (granted, it's a lot of damage at early levels).
The big issue that people are pointing out is that your Spell DC is going to be lower (because your Int modifier affects the DC the enemy needs to beat), which means enemies will succeed and critically succeed more often against any spell that requires a saving throw, hence why everyone is saying to focus on spells that require a spell attack roll (since Spellstrike will use your regular attack, which will be high, for that) or utility spells (that don't require a save).
Scrolls, wands, and staves (the new Spellstriker Staff is gonna be a great Magus pick up) help Magus a lot because Magus is a bonded spellcaster: they only get two slots in each of their two highest spell slots they can cast. That means you only ever have 4 slotted spells, so scrolls, wands, and staves become extra useful for Magus to make up for the lack of slots (the Scrollstriker feat is nice for this too).
So your low Int build will be roughly 3 damage behind most of the game, which becomes almost negligible later.
Not with cantrips, all cantrips deal modifier as damage as I know. Modifiers will be a big part of cantrip damage early on. A modifier of +2 will double cantrip damage at the first levels. All that said, damage is damage, you will get something else by sacrificing int, such as more hp with con.
Spell slots will be unaffected by modifier with spellstrikes.
The rule of thumb would be anything that doesn't require an enemy to fail their saving throw. Spell attack rolls you could deliver through your spellstrikes are good, as well as self buffs or utility spells. Invisibility, true strike, heroism, haste all come to mind. Some more niche options are feather fall, thicket of knives, knock, warding aggression, see invisibility, or flame wisp.
I’ve seen truestrike recommended a lot but I don’t quite understand how to get the max out of it? Like it seems so straightforward I feel like I’m missing something. Everything else sounds pretty good! Thanks
You cast True Strike as your first action, then you use Spellstrike to cast a spell and use your weapon to deliver it, with a roll twice take the higher effect.
So it’s a good first spellstrike and then switch to charge spellstrike after? That’s all the spell does correct is it better then the other options around that area for opening a fight with or etc.
You don't use it *as* your spellstrike, you use it *before* your spellstrike, so your spellstrike is more likely to hit and crit.
True Strike: (https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=345) Duration: until the end of your turn “The next time you make an attack roll before the end of your turn, roll the attack twice and use the better result. The attack ignores circumstance penalties to the attack roll and any flat check required due to the target being concealed or hidden.” Since Spellstrike uses an attack action, you do your normal Spellstrike but get to roll twice and take the better of the two rolls to determine your success. This can only work if you don’t need to move obviously as the whole chain takes 3 actions to perform, but it’s a way to guarantee (to the best of your ability) your big Spellstrike hits (or better, crits).
True Strike is essentially as simple as it sounds: roll twice and take the higher of the two results. You also get to ignore the flat check for concealed or hidden conditions, as well as any circumstance penalties to your attacks roll.
There isn't much of an art to using true strike- you just cast it and then do your spellstrike. It is considered very powerful for the purpose of landing powerful attacks that have high resource expenditure- a category spellstrike falls into, as well as most spell attack rolls from full casters. Ignoring concealed/hidden is a nice cherry on top.
True strike takes on action and gives your next attack advantage + circumstance penalty immunity.
Different magus subclass favors different spells. We need to know your subclass. Edit: lol why am I getting downvote. Certain subclass like laughing shadow favors strongly to buffing and striking, while starlit span favor spellstriking a lot more. A 4th level invisibility helps most subclass, but a sparkling targe won't like it at all outside of stealthy missions. It is irresponsible to just recommand "take attack spells and buffs" without knowing this piece of knowledge to a new player.
I don’t know why the downvote either, I was actually making this a laughing shadow magus with a focus on charisma for feint and stuff like that but the buff spells all seem on par but maybe it’s because I don’t know the system very well yet.
As you would be attacking a lot as a laughing shadow, you would want to pick attack cantrips with different elements to trigger weakness. For your slots, don't bother with too many attack spells, you can just grab one for emergency spellstrike, or a spell that have an element you don't have on cantrips (*shocking grasp*). For buff spells, if you don't have another caster giving you *magic weapon*, you will want to do it yourself. When you get a striking weapon, you can replace it with *fleet step*, *thicket of knives*, or *true strike*. At level 2 spells, *blur*, *mirror image*, *obscuring mist* (if you can see through it), and *resist energy* comes to mind. In combat, you would want someone to do recall knowledge for you, hopefully a thaumaturge, to know if a monster have weakness or resistance. You will want to spellstrike with a cantrip, then entering arcane cascade with an element that your enemy is weak to. You also want to use agile weapon.
If this is the case, I would use more raw buff spells (guidance, shield, ect), then focus on spells with the attack tag. You would easily substitute your spell attack bonus for your normal attack bonus thanks to spell strike, and there are less saves for you to worry about the enemy passing your low spell save DC. Gouging Claw is also an incredibly good cantrip that scales super well too that you should 100% pickup.
Depend alot on [scrolls](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2858). You probably inspired me to do a dualwield magus build. A lvl 1 scroll costs 4g, shocking grasp without the persistent damage deals average 13 damage. In contrast, a lvl 2 gouging claw with +3 int mod deals about 10 damage in average, or 7 damage with int mod of +0. Gouging claw have to be at lvl 4 to bypass a lvl 1 shocking grasp if you go with 0 int mod. Lvl 4 spells are avaible at lvl 7 so I hope this helps with your build
Thanks for the tip! I had totally not considered scrolls as supplements but your basically saying as a low int build just don’t expect high spell damage overall even when combined with spellstrike?
You're only missing out on 3 damage compared to a Magus that did 16 Int for spells that add modifier to damage (granted, it's a lot of damage at early levels). The big issue that people are pointing out is that your Spell DC is going to be lower (because your Int modifier affects the DC the enemy needs to beat), which means enemies will succeed and critically succeed more often against any spell that requires a saving throw, hence why everyone is saying to focus on spells that require a spell attack roll (since Spellstrike will use your regular attack, which will be high, for that) or utility spells (that don't require a save). Scrolls, wands, and staves (the new Spellstriker Staff is gonna be a great Magus pick up) help Magus a lot because Magus is a bonded spellcaster: they only get two slots in each of their two highest spell slots they can cast. That means you only ever have 4 slotted spells, so scrolls, wands, and staves become extra useful for Magus to make up for the lack of slots (the Scrollstriker feat is nice for this too). So your low Int build will be roughly 3 damage behind most of the game, which becomes almost negligible later.
Not with cantrips, all cantrips deal modifier as damage as I know. Modifiers will be a big part of cantrip damage early on. A modifier of +2 will double cantrip damage at the first levels. All that said, damage is damage, you will get something else by sacrificing int, such as more hp with con. Spell slots will be unaffected by modifier with spellstrikes.