Errata: can't get Assurance in Deception with the Scholar background! Will have to grab it with a skill feat if we really want it.

Fun fact about magus analysis: it sort of bypasses the secret nature of recall knowledge. Because it only recharges spellstrike on a success or better, if the GM gives you information about the creature, but your spellstrike didn’t recharge, then you know that the information was false and that you must have crit failed the check. Normally you have no idea if the info you get is true or is false due to a critical failure. With this feat, you know based on whether you actually recharge spellstrike or not.

I'm so happy that in your final thoughts you give the players that came from 5e an encouragement to look at character builds from a different perspective when it comes to pf2e. It's really hard to come from the perspective of "My build will outshine everyone and everything" to "My character is good at one thing and it's impossible to outshine everyone." Otherwise, your forray into pf2e builds is amazing to see!

When I first started looking at P2E this was the class I immediately thought, "Colby is gonna love building this!"

Magus's damage definitely comes from its crits, since a single spellstrike crit gives you your weapons critical hit damage and your spells critical hit damage AND whatever the spells extra critical success effect is. I once did a spellstrike disintegrate crit for like 160+ damage and turned my sword into a lightsaber and just instadeleted an enemy. It was amazing.

IDK if your Pathfinder videos are doing good numbers but I've really been enjoying them, I appreciate the work you've been doing in them.

Magus gets their power from abusing weaknesses. Their damage seems lower than the rogue, but you can slap that dragon right in its 15 weakness to cold with runic impression to give your sword cold damage. Better yet, lets say the enemy is weak to cold and acid, you can runic impression to hit the cold and spell strike to hit the acid, triggering both! Really pays off to know your enemy, in true Witcher fashion.

Magus is a gish in a box and you can do one of ANY spell list by multiclassing (You end up with more multiclass spell list slots than your 4 arcane/magus ones lol)

Colby, small detail at 16:50, the scholar background gives you Assurance in the skill you picked to get trained in Between Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion. So at 1st level you have Assurance in Occultism, not Deception!

One cool little intangible in favor of an Elf: they are FAST. With 30-foot base speed, and both Nimble Elf (Ancestry feat) and Fleet (General feat) bumping their speed up to 40 feet per action by Level 3, the Laughing Shadow's conflux spell scales indirectly with that increase since it checks for half your movement speed. There's also something to be said for being as fast as every other character (and faster than some) even when you're wearing full plate. Edit: Added because I forgot- great video, and I'm glad you liked the Magus as much as we all hoped you would!

As a Canadian I greatly appreciate the shirt! Way to represent your colleagues to the north! As always great stuff Colby! I haven't even finished it yet but the first 15 minutes has me riveted!

Also "Mad-gi" with a little laugh is like peak dad joke energy. And I'm here for it!

Wooooo! Another character to add to the huge list of "characters Colby made that made me feel fuzzy"

colby: “we don’t just want to be able to choose between casting spells or making weapon attacks. we want our freaking weapon attacks to cast spells” 5e arcane archers in the back row: “YEAH!”

Magus is by far my favorite class in 2e, closely followed by champion. Excited to see this build

On chainmail, thanks to the noisy trait you still take the penalty to stealth checks. It's really meant for characters who don't have the strength to use Breastplate thanks to it's flexible trait. Breastplate is just better if you have the strength and coin to use it efficiently

“Magus with a Meteor Hammer” is near the top of the list of characters I really want to get a chance to play someday.

The rock music intro, the character concept, the casual swearing pass with Bastard sword, and all I can think of is Nazareth's song Hair of the Dog but the chorus is "Now you're a Magus... son of a Gish!"

I can't express how incredibly helpful and easy to understand your video is! I'm a 10 year DnD player going into my first PF2e game and your magus build is nearly identical to what I was trying to do with the class. I'm so excited to play it and watching your video really helped put all the pieces together. Down to the weapon of choice, ability scores, skills, feats, and spells, it was seriously exactly what I needed. I have a lot of trepidation going into a new system but I'm genuinely so much more at ease after watching your video. My grumpy skeleton magus is ready to take on the world! 💀

This is by and far one of my favorite subclasses for the magus, it's interesting to see a Strength-focused version of it! one thing i would consider is revisiting this particular build later on once you start flipping through other books. Whilst the Armor Proficiency feat does make the Magus trained in heavy armor, it doesn't increase in proficiency like light/medium armor do as a magus levels up, but if you were to take the Sentinel Dedication, it would not only give you heavy armor at level 2(a whole level earlier), but also allow your heavy armor proficiency to scale at the same rate as your light and medium armor. it also has a bunch of amazing feats to accompany it. worth looking into IMO.

Ooh, got here right on the notification this time! Glad you finally got around to the Gish of PF2e! 44:00 don't forget that because you boosted your intelligence, you become trained in another skill you weren't already trained in! Also worth mentioning: Armor Proficiency only grants you trained, with no future scaling. So at level 11 when you gain medium armor expertise, your heavy armor won't move up to expert. It doesn't matter if you stop at level 10, but if you continued it might take you by surprise

One combination that might be counter-intuitive is going with a Cleric Dedication, specifically one with a Fire Domain for the Fire Ray Focus Spell, which is a very strong on-hit usage for your Focus whenever you want to remove one enemy at the start of combat, and gaining access to a spell list the Magus usually cannot use with a ton of buffs and heals for party utility.

YES my first PF2E character is a STR based Laughing Shadow Magus!! I also took Gouging Claw (I describe it as my sword growing bones btw!) You have taught me well

Love your enthusiasm during the whole video, it's quiet and gleeful. 6:27 or my personal favorite, Laugh maniacally as you smash a fireball into an opponent at point blank. 32:23 Level 2 Tears people up a lot. Both of those feats are so sought after they're basically picked right after the other. Melee Magic Missile is just cool.

Probably one of the best Pathfinder videos I've watched from you thus far since subscribing since February. I can FEEL your 2e excitement from this side of the screen.

So pumped for seeing a Magus build! I'm actually playing as a Laughing Shadow Magus in my own game, so I'll have some level up guidance

"I love saying Bastard and not feeling guilty about it!" Hahaha as someone who grew up Mormon, I felt that.

I love your enthusiasm for this! The dense information provided is also provided smoothly. Thank you for the fun video!

Great video! Some suggestions: - As mentioned in the video, multiclass into Psychic (at L2) can get you Imaginary Weapon (at L6) and that is the true Magus meta DPR right now. Its both the best sustained DPR since the cantrip is a 1D8 + Spell casting mod and best burst damage because you can spend a focus point to 'amp it' to have it scale by 2D8 per level instead of 1D8 per level (basically makes it a tactical nuke, but conflicts with using conflux spells to recharge). Also the L8 spell swipe feat lets you hit two adjacent targets so if you're a melee magus with reach you can wreck some things. - Ancestries that can get re-rolls on attacks without action usage can be really good because the bulk of your DPR comes from the spell strike. So halfling can do this once per day at L9 with guiding luck (or figure out how to suck up to your GM for extra hero points). - Ancestries that can give you a familiar are good options (e.g., gnomes, kitsunes, etc.) since the familiar can help you feint with the partner in crime + independent traits (auto success on aid or crit aid if you're a master). They also can let you refocus focus points or get extra cantrips or extra spell slots. So trying to get a 4 trait familiar is actually really nice (this is typically why a Witch MC can be better than a wizard in addition to getting some better focus spell options if you want them). - There are also ancestries that can give you +2 status bonuses to skill checks (to support feinting) like the Android and Kashrishi or ancestries that can support free action focus point refocusing like kashrishi to support spell strikes with focus points or more conflux uses in clutch fights. - There are also a few ancestries or versatile heritages that can get you innate spells for true strike or bless to increase your accuracy. Those include things like android at L5, kobolds (via dragon paragon at L9), Asimars at L5, etc. - With respect to items you really want to look at Spellhearts, Spell Striking Staff, grimoires, and rings of wizardry. Spell hearts can land and easy 2 extra cantrips and the one you attach to your weapon will give you a 1d4 scaling to 1d8? of the same elemental damage on other strikes (not a big deal since you're unlikely to cast/strike) but can be nice for recharge turn if you electric arc + conflux spell if that conflux spell lets you strike as part of it. Spell Strikin staff has acid arrow and true strike on it but comes with a shifting rune so you can shift it into a gauntlet which works for getting more true strikes. The grimoires provide bonus spell slots (for more true strikes). The ring of wizardry also provides more spell slots as well. - Expansive Spellstrike is a trap feat and I'd strongly recommend against it. For the cost of one action saved you are coupling your spell slot to your strike. You can miss, which means you've just added a 35-45 (40% average) failure to your spell (and you lose the spell if you miss). You're always better just casting the spell (which might let you trigger arcane cascade or other feat effects) then doing a strike. Beyond that magus have an already trailing proficiency on save spells so you should likely avoid spells with spell saves. IMO you're better buffing yourself with your top spell slots, and using cantrips or focus spells for your spell strikes bundled with true strikes to up statistical damage. - In terms of Sustained DPR does the rogue still include enemies being flatfooted? That might bias the results due to Sneak Attack. Otherwise you might want to look at a cleric archetype for fire domain focus point (e.g., fire ray) or as mentioned above the psychic focus point spell. - You might run into some action economy issues with the bastard sword since its a free action to release a 2H grip but its an action to regrip.

Another awesome Pathfinder build. You dug deep on this build. Unsure if it’s Pathfinder or just you being awesome, but we’ve found your Pathfinder builds to have serious ‘crunch’ that makes the build seem more well-oiled than their D&D counterparts. Either way, keep them coming!

LOVE the cross channel promotion. The Dungeon Dudes shirt looks great!

Thanks for going over this build! It really helps to see what kinda builds you do when I'm making my own characters.

Yes! Awesome work! This is the first video I've watched at 1.0x speed for months and I didn't mind a single second of it! So glad you finally did a Magus build. It absolutely cracks me up that your build is 99% identical to the build I'm currently playing too! And yes, my experience is the same as yours, the sustained DPR is lower if you never expend any resources. But it's still respectable, and you do also have the ability to burst ridiculously high when you choose to, arguably one of the highest in the game. I'm so glad you love it. I do too.

Thank you for the rundown Colby! These continue to be a great source of education for my foray into PF2e. Love having your analytical view on player options!

Thanks for diving into Pathfinder 2e. I have been playing DND 5e and love some of the concepts PF2e has. Your videos make it a lot easier to get into all the rules and options!

Thanks for the video Colby! The Magus was the first class that attracted me when I reviewed the options and I think you made a solid build 👍🏻

One thing that embodies the essence of the gish (creating something greater than the sum of its parts by mixing decent martial and magical abilities to be an equal with dedicated fighters and wizards) that the magus represents really well, on top of spellstrike, is that when in arcade cascade stance your flat bonus to damage will be on par with that of a fighter. The fighter, because of Legendary Weapon proficiency, at high level with greater weapon specialization get a +8 to damage with their weapons. The Magus, ending at Master (like most martials) ends with a +6. BUT, because of their stance it gains an additional 3 damage to achieve a +9. Because of their way of mixing their martial and magical prowess. It's just a detail, but you know where the devil is.

This was extremely helpful. Currently converting a character over to pathfinder and learning the magus and the system is still a bit daunting. Appreciate the work you do as always. Keep it up.

I just noticed that all the art behind Colby depict some kind of mage or warrior-mage hybrid. Fitting for this video.

Yesssss, so worth the wait. I currently have a player running a laughing shadow and sent this to him! This is great info as always. Thanks Colby!!

I still haven't tried out Pathfinder yet, but definitely enjoying these videos. I find the mechanics of different games really interesting. Thanks for a great video 🤓

Thanks for this, Colby. My magus is also a LS, though just 3rd level right now. Your build pointed out some good ideas that I'll be incorporating in my build.

Really proud with how you've approached your PF2E builds. Not many players ever take a moment to consider all aspects of the game when judging if something is fair or not. Keep up the good work my friend!

There is an option of taking Cleric archetype as they get nice focus spells like Fire Ray or Cry of Destruction with auto scaling and you can spellstrike with theese every combat. Psychic's also get their focus spells some of which is even stronger

I have been hesitant about Magus. Thank you Colby for the guide on this!

1e Magus was one of my absolute favorites, so excited to watch this!

Funny thing about the Laughing Shadow Magus: Nothing prevents you from playing it with a two handed weapon, like a greatsword, greataxe or maul. Yes, you lose on the extra damage from arcane cascade, but you more than make up for it by bumping your weapon from a D8 to a D12. Also, my favourite gish is a Psychic (or Sorcerer) with a Champion Dedication! You can definitely make up for your lower accuracy by having absurds amounts of damage with options like Magic Weapon on levels 1-3, Organsight from levels 5+, and True Strike for... all levels.

By the way on the 2nd Telekinetic Maneuver spell. It resulted in sort of instant enemy deaths for a magus I played because our GM was very happy to let us fight atop a narrow mountain path and a bridge. Two times my enemy flew, failed their Grab an Edge and died in some pretty cool scenes. So I am a fan of that choice. Oh and as for runes. Look into getting a Conducting rune on your weapon as well. It is a way to gain a free action that allows you to add an additional d8 energy damage if you used one of four or five energy types and may synergize with some Magus playstyles.

Omgg this is awesome. Finally getting to going through your Pathfinder vids and its a fun way to learn the system

I put your videos on while I am working and it puts me in the zone. you got that FM radio voice

Great summary at the end of this video, and great that you can see beyond single target DPR! Keep these coming please

So, I wouldn't blame you at all for leaving this class til much later in your PF2e schedule, but I'm really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Thaumaturge. They're the class that stands out most to me for being interesting and different from anything 5e has to offer, and I feel like I've gotten lost down multiple rabbit holes trying to understand how one would perform haha! (If I ever get to just play, I'm sure that'll stop being a problem, but until then I have to live vicariously through your channel XD )

I play 5e now but magus was the first ever class I played and helped me to cement the greatness of dnd glad to see a video on them.

This is the video i've been waiting for, Pathfinder 2e supports Gishes better than any other system imho. Loving your Pathfinder stuff! And really loved your take about game balance at the end. Spot on. You could clip that and put it somewhere public and it would make a great sharable response to many of the 5e players coming to PF2 who complain that casters are no longer OP.

Ooo. A super-GISH sounds like great fun!

I always like to hear your builds while doing assignments, cooking, baking, anything that i can passively complete. Love your vids man.

Yeah!!! Another awesome Pathfinder build by Deep Dive Colby!!! As a 5e person transitioning into Pathfinder I'm really happy to see these!

So awesome that you gave a shoutout to David Wilcox and "The Kid" !!!! Now I have to go listen to that album again. I bought that CD when he was selling them from a suitcase after a show in Austin, TX many, many years ago. Love it!!

Thank you for always giving me something to look forward to on Tuesdays.

So happy to see more Pathfinder videos. I feel like your characters are perfectly in tune with what I like haha - ninja, gishes, and thieves! Now I just need to convince my playgroup to switch to PF2E so I can try some of these builds! Also really stoked to see how the Magus plays as a true gish - your enthusiasm has sold me on it.

It's worth noting that Crafting is an excellent skill for a Magus because it allows you to create your own scrolls (which means you can keep True Strikes on hand indefinitely), and wands (longstrider!) as well as cherry pick the specific magical gear you and your group need most. It's a great way to bring utility to your team and doesn't require a ton of skill feats to work well. Definitely recommend.

Very excited for this one! For my first pf2e campaign I was planning on playing a laughing shadow magus!

Great video, Colby. I'm currently playing a Staff Magus (Twisted Tree), and absolutely love the diversity it gives you as a fighting class. :)

I would love to see more PF2e, as well as some DC20 love

Dimensional assault: “Nothing personnel, kid”

::stares at folder of theorycraft characters::

I am also a big fan of the spellsword archetype, so the magus was the first class that caught my eye when I started looking into Pathfinder! However, the nimble striker that you favor is not my preferred fantasy - I love the heavily armored, hulking, brutish battlemage archetype. Thus, this build is basically my favorite.

This build sounds like so much fun, thanks for sharing!

When you get access to all books, try a Necromancer~! (Any class with access to the Arcane or Divine list works) They're a summoner in PF2e but they have a lot of unique spells (Like a level 2 spell that makes your minions explode.)

Absolutely loving all the 2e content. I’ve been thinking about transitioning my hexblade character into pathfinder as a laughing shadow magus and this has given me a lot to think about. Great content as always!

Alright here we go on another exciting episode of: Colby takes Assurance in every skill. Honestly tho I found ur channel because of pf2e and I've watched every vid you've made about it twice. You have a great voice!

I've been waiting for this video since I found your channel, and doubly so since you found PF2E! I loved the magus in PF1, but it's been so long I honestly was confused by the language for magus in PF2E.

Soo nice. I asked for it and you delivered. Thank you very much. I will try this build very soon 😁

I work Tuesday through Saturday so Tuesdays are my Mondays. Your videos are the highlight of my day. Thanks for helping Tuesdays not suck. Always great builds

A great thing about PF2e is that while they pretty strictly restrain the ability to be a spellcaster and a warrior (most full casters don't get full weapon proficiency and magus doesn't get full casting) it isn't that bad even if some of the aspect falls behind a little on a character dedicated to that. Clerics get a limited version of Spellstrikes, you can build a champion/ranger/monk that has a decent spell arsenal, bards can be okay with weapons with its AoE buffs. There's gishy stuff everywhere.

So excited to see this build! I'm currently playing a strength based laughing shadow in a campaign and he is SO MUCH FUN

I ended up playing a hobgoblin sparkling targe magus for my first pf 2e character. Best spell tank ive ever played

New sub! Luv the idea and explanation of your build! Definitely applying some of your mechanics to my first D&D character played in over 25 years. Recently joined a campaign with friends that still play! Magus instantly appealed to me as a I also enjoy the concept of a melee caster.

I've never done anything with Pathfinder but my friend bought a great 5e Magus homebrew that I used up to level 14 and it was a blast! Happy it's still getting love even outside 5e and of course I love your videos.

Oh yeah, shadowblade... Waiting what happens when Colby discovers the Mind Smith archetype... :D Awesome video, as ever! Just a quick note about Bastard Swords (or any weapons with Two-Hand trait): changing grip from 1h to 2h takes an interact action. The build is already action starved, so d8 may be more frequent than d12. Changing grip from 2h to 1h is release, therefore free.

Magus is my favorite class, bar none! Absolutely love the spellsword archetype.

Love the PF2e content. There is some discussion on all the variety of options to choose from!

I've been planning a magus who is also going to go for a bit of monk stuff, and I considered laughing shadow a lot, but in the end I'll be going for the shield magus subclass, to have a bit of a Captain America feel.

Now I get why he joked on Twitter that he Laughs in Magus.

Great job, and the lighting looks better in most of the shots.

Glad you like the Magus. The white room math makes a lot of people undervalue it, but I'm glad you caught the fact that spell casting is spell casting, with all the powerful versatility that entails. Also, your decision to go Strength here highlights one small gripe I do have with PF2e: the existence of Bulwark on heavy armor makes Dex builds niche unless you're specifically investing in the Dexterity skills, and even then there's Assurance.

Great work on this video. Two quick notes that I think are important to mention. One skill feat I'd definitely recommend as a Magus/Wizard is Magical Shorthand. That will help you scribe spells to your book much quicker and cheaper, and it will allow you to reattempt to add spells that you've failed previously. Great option as a prepared caster. Secondly and possibly more importantly.. At level 8 you unlock the ability to add an elemental damage property rune to your weapon and a second rune at level 10. This could potentially add 2d6 damage to your DPR calculations and is a really important option for anyone trying to optimize damage. That plus the magus always being able to exploit the elemental and magical weaknesses of an enemy if they have them leaves gishes pretty great in fights. :)

This seems really cool. If we are looking at something based in 3.5 though…I have to mention Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords. Could have been called the Gish’s Guide to Gishing. Love that book, personally

Love your video, recently I myself decided to dive into Magus as our GM gave us the opportunity to change our characters for kind of spinoff. I decided to go Twisting Tree Magus, as it uses staff and spells in there as effective as attacks and I wasn't disappointed. Maybe the damage is not as good as fighter's, but the flavor itself is so satisfying!

As others have noted, Magus' DPR seems low but your crits are absolutely nuclear because you get a two for one special (plus spell crit effects). However this can lead to Magus feeling really swingy - you only get one reliable attack per round (sometimes less), and normal hits aren't as spectacular as you'd expect, so you can go long spells in between getting your awesome moments. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the class after getting to play your Rogue version for a while! Also very much a class that loves team support - if you can get someone to bring enemies to you, saving movement, or you can get party members to buff you and debuff your target to land those nuclear crits, this class can really carry a party's DPS.

Haha I was waiting for this!!! One of my 5e players will be a magus in another table so this video came right on time! If you want some other diferent ways to play a gish, I higly recomend you to also give a look at summoners, the name can be deceptive bc it reminds of minion masters but in actuality you have a main creature (dragon, spirit, animal or even angel) bound to you, making you play two characters at once, the caster (summoner) and the brawler (your eidolon). Its a very interesting and strong gish, but a lot of people disregard it due to it being kinda complex (not really when you get the jist of it) and, knowing you, I imagine you would like to work with what seems to be an underdog with a lot of potential

Awesome build. Magus may be my favourite PF2 build. Still getting used to PF2 (Bard lvl2). It is a crunchier system that me and my group are enjoying very much.

Very nice video and good to see you keep going! A note on levels, if you’d like to hear from ongoing playtesters. I normally run my tests at level 1, 8 and 14 because class-defining features and proficiency increases tend to focus around those points. Have a look at lv8 feats for most classes, you should notice the juice pretty easily.

I really enjoy the way you break down all of the choices you make and why for your builds and theory crafting. I have been watching your 2e builds since your first stop on Rules Lawyer videos. I think you could really like the gnome for this build. Paizo recently adopted the Alternate Ancestry Boosts option for all ancestries, meaning every ancestry can get ability boosts like a human. No flaws and 2 boosts of your choice. This lets you get a gnome with +2 int, +2 str. Why gnome? Wellspring heritage: Get an additional arcane cantrip. Lev 1 ancestry feat: Animal accomplice gets you a free familiar at level 1 (For familiar focus and cantrip connection ). Level 3 ancestral paragon gets you a level 1 ancestry feat. You can get First World Magic, which gives you a primal cantrip, but treats it as arcane for your spell proficiency progression. At level 3, you got 4 additional cantrips you can cast via ancestry feats, covering every damage type needed. And finally, at level 5, you can grab energized font, which grants you another once a day focus point, due to wellspring heritage. Gnome is my go to choice whenever I am looking at classes that feature extensive use of focus points, like the magus.

Love your new PF2e videos! Was a huge fan of your armorer video from 5e, would love to see what you can do with the armor inventor once you get to that book!

Thanks for doing more PF2e content, its super appreciated seeing examples in both systems! It's fun to watch, exciting to see the possibilities, and always something to learn from these! :D Example, True strike being something I would have overlooked until the explanation you provided! A question I suppose, Would there be an interest in Character build Idea's to get inspiration from concerning future PF2e content?

Thank you for another entertaining video :) It made my evening so much better :)

I've been waiting for this video. We all knew you'd love the magus! I guess the next big Mark will be you researching combining monk and magus being able to spell strikethrough your unarmed attacks.

I like the level 10 assumption for builds beyond what you stated: Paizo makes a fair bit of 1-10 APs to supplement their standard 1-20 APs and I’ve gathered that a lot of people actually prefer that for a shorter, faster paced campaign with a tight, quickly resolved narrative.

I'm loving the builds for pf2e. Please keep them coming.