spellcastersuck

I find the combat of this game pretty underwhelming. It is in fact the main reason I haven't finished it yet. Most encounters can be finished with the exact same strategy, mainly because they are way too similar to one another. Spellcasters are pretty dull. While not exactly real-time, Divinity: Original Sin had a much better combat, and I hoped PoE would be on par with it, at least in terms of strategic depth.

Have you ever equipped an item that affects focus before?

I had this problem too. Re-enable tutorial tips and wait for the next tip. Do not disable it again.

You are actually correct, the x1.2 damage shows even if you do not take any of these talents, and only after taking biting whip the display changes. Also, after some tests, it seems that even though it displays x2.4 damage, the increase is definetely not x2.4, but less than that.

The talent Draining Whip currently adds, besides +2 focus on hit, the following passive effect: Soul Whip Passive Focus bellow maximum Effects: self: x1.2 Damage Guess what, it is the same effect of Biting whip: Soul Whip Passive Focus bellow maximum Effects: self: x1.2 Damage The effects stack if you get both talents. If you have both talents, when you enter in combat, you will see that your attacks are doing x2.4 damage (not x1.4 or x1.44, as it would be expected). This can be easily verified by checking your character sheet during combat, where the x2.4 damage will be displayed if you have both talents. And indeed, it does x2.4 damage, for both auto-attacks and abilities. So, unless you are fine with your mind blades dealing 60 damage at level 4, I highly recommend you to choose only one of the talents until a patch comes and fix it. If you have been playing cypher, got both talents and is finding the game too easy, that might be the reason. Does anybody knows how can I remove my talents? I only know console commands that add them.

When I killed them, I killed inside homes (when no one but them were inside) or in the wild (like the broken bridge leading to defiance bay). When I killed them around default NPCs, the NPCs become hostile and I lose rep, so I avoid killing them inside the open city or inside an inn.

I am level 4, using a cypher and chose two talents: biting whip and drain whip. My grazes with mind blades can easily do 20-25 damage and hits can go up to 45. My arbalest grazes for 43 damage. All of them against guls (which have no damage resistance). I have 19 Might. Is that normal? Or is biting whip bugged?

Apparently, killing backers (the NPCs with yellow textbox) have no negative consequences, except when other legitimate NPCs are inside the line of sight. They grant some decent loot early on, and you get the pleasure of defiling the avatars of someone else. I personally think that all these colorful Marty Stus and Mary Sues are distracting and feel completely out of place, and until a mod that removes them appears, I will just pretend I am polishing the game through purges.

They should give cantrips (level 0 spells) that can be cast on a per encounter basis. Weak, but useful spells. This would deal with the problems of spellcasters (a ray of frost that deals little damage to anyone caught in the beam and a single target stuck spell, for example).

I think many people here in this forum, me among them, have found classes like wizard too situational and boring to play because their main abilities are too limited. It is true that when a spellcaster fights with its full power, he/she pretty much dominates the battlefield, and it is actually cool to have this "hidden power" somewhat limited. Spells are way too powerful to be available on a per encounter base at earlier levels, and so I agree that their uses should be limited. However, when wizards are not casting spells, they are just an annoying, boring-to-play burden that drain xp from the party. In order to ammeliorate this problem, I believe cantrips (level 0 spells) available per encounter should have been created for a wizard to maintain some semblance of usefullness during the battle. Simple spells like a weak ray of frost that deals little damage to anyone caught in the beam and a single target "stuck" spell (duration 6 seconds or other minor value) would greatly enhance the gameplay without removing the strategic mechanic of saving spells. What do you people think?