AndreaColombo

Not really; it's more of a psychological barrier on my part (I never go below 7 in any stat on any build, Wizards being the only exception as I go down to 5 on CON and RES.)

If you take The Dichotomous Soul with this build, Scion of Flame would get you more bang for your buck than Apprentice's Sneak Attack (+20% damage with Turning Wheel as well as to the fiery twin as opposed to +15% against targets with afflictions.) In that case, it might also be worth enchanting your weapons with burning lash instead of shocking lash, so the lash itself would also benefit from it. Alternatively, you could take Heart of the Storm to get +20% damage on your lashes and Swift Strikes, but the twins wouldn't benefit from it at all (and if you don't take The Dichotomous Soul to begin with, Apprentice's Sneak Attack would likely remain the better choice.) If only I could fit a Secrets of Rime there somewhere, now... And if you want to play this build with Zahua but don't want to dress him up as a Vailian (RP-wise it would indeed be weird), you can enchant the Monk outfit he comes with. It's got the same characteristics as a robe but looks a lot cooler on Monks (but you'll need to invest Durgan ingots on it to get rid of the 15% recovery penalty.) You'd miss out on the hat, which is indeed pretty classy, but oh you know. EDIT: Considering how this Monk is light-armored and likely to gain wounds speedily (also thanks to Lesser Wounds), Rooting Pain might be a good ability to have too. Crush AoE damage per every wound is good when you accumulate wounds quickly.

I generally min/max Wizards even more and go all the way down to 5 CON / 5 RES so I can pump DEX and MIG. A typical spread would look like this for me: 14 Might 5 Constitution 20 Dexterity (+1 Elf racial; +1 Deadfire Arcipelago) 18 Perception 16 Intellect 5 Resolve The reason I go for 20 DEX is that it is a lot easier to boost Accuracy than it is to boost Action Speed in the game, and a speedy caster is a powerful caster (I always get +3 DEX from resting in Caed Nua and +2 from Rauatai Sweet Pie for a total of 25 DEX, which amounts to a whopping +45% Action Speed.) 18 PER is usually enough, as I tend to get +2 from items for a total of +10 Accuracy which is more than enough for my spells to land all the time (plus, as I said, boosting Accuracy is rather easy.) If you choose Wood Elf as your sub-race, you get another +5 Accuracy against distant targets, which are 90% of your targets as a Wizard (not sure whether Marksman also works with spells; if it did, that would be another +5 Accuracy.)

I've just tried to repro by simply entering combat, but it didn't work. I still had the belt after combat. Might be an issue related to that specific fight with Concelhaut.

I agree MCA's characters have very good plot hooks and stories, even though sometimes they really come off as exceedingly wordy and one-dimensional (but that might be a side-effect of their having been largely rewritten.) I disagree, however, that other NPCs in PoE are "boring, terrible, and/or had bad personalities." I personally find Sagani boring, but I do enjoy the others. They are definitely more "realistic" (as in down to earth) compared to the gimmicky, overly cliched characters we had in the BG games. Minsc was good because ... high STR score and a hamster that soon became a gimmicky source of comedic relief? Jaheira was massively annoying with her irritatingly self-righteous and patronizing personality; Keldorn, Ajantis, and Nalia are as cliched as it gets; Valygar was massively sullen and one-dimensional; Cernd ... we all know about Cernd. By contrast, Edér is a bro who never goes over-the-top and has relatable reactions throughout his personal story. Aloth has a problem with Iselmyr as well as a moral conundrum that stems from his (mostly) unwillingly duplicitous association with the Leaden Key, and provides some comedic relief when Edér hits on Iselmyr. Hiravias is funny and has a rather interesting personal story, peppered with his dual-deity devotion that you have the power to steer one way or another. DoC has very good dialog and a rather good backstory. I'll take PoE characters over BG's any time, but of course YMMV.

Well, technically you can gain attribute points throughout the course of the game, but these gains are very specific and limited in scope (can't say much more than that if I'm to avoid spoilers) so you can't really count on it to remedy a stat you've dumped. As L4wlight mentioned, Wizards tend to stay in the back casting spells and therefore do not require CON and RES. Sure, a Wizard that goes for CON and RES is not necessarily helpless but PER is a lot more important than both. Besides, there are spells that can turn your Wizard into a melee powerhouse regardless of their starting attributes. If you have a Priest in your party, you can get +35 Accuracy for everyone using Devotions for the Faithful + Scroll of Valor, then stack another +10 on top of it for a single character with Champion's Boon. That's plenty.

Is that leprechaun Hiravias? EDIT: Nvm, I've just seen TariToons' tweet that explicitly says he is.

^ FoD's a great ability, though.

You mean the "Nature Servant Awaits" party, right?

Sounds like a bug. You may want to post a saved game exhibiting the issue in the tech forums.

That's fair, but you need to understand that the game was not balanced around the assumption that you'd make a solo run. There are areas and/or encounters that are going to be too difficult to tackle solo, which is why TCS players tend to use meta-knowledge to skip them. Level 4 could be fine for Madmhr Bridge if you were in a party but for solo yeah, it's a bit early on. What was your character build?

What level were you? Xaurips notoriously have paralyzing spears but they shouldn't be too much of an issue. Madmhr Bridge is an optional area, by the way: You don't need to go there and, quite frankly, unless you're doing the bounties (which are usually skipped by TCS players) there ain't much reason too.

So I've just tested The Dichotomous Soul with the elemental talents and they appear to work with it. My Monk's base damage was 20-25, which means the minimum damage expected from the twins was 20 * 1.2 = 24. I've had them attack a party member a number of times and never got a hit below 24. I also appreciated how powerful the twins really are; the time has come for me to work on a Monk build (as though we didn't have enough of those already )

That's a bug. IIRC, Josh mentioned on SA that the log would mention when a target was immune to a particular affliction you were trying to bestow.

Yes.

While I like the idea of a "No Sleep for the Watcher" mode (it is cool and I've always liked the slogan to boot), I know I would likely not use it. Because powergaming. Eh.

Sentinel's Girdle did have a tendency to disappear from the inventory after enering/exiting combat mode. I thought it was related to the ring slot bug, but apparently not. These disappearing-item bugs are preoccupying, mostly because 2.02 was meant to have fixed them.

Fairly sure that fixing Bittercut will also fix both Stormcaller and Firebrand (seems to be the same bug.) Dichotomous Soul is trickier to test but I should be able to create a test case for it. Taking for granted their base damage is the same as the Monk's, if the Monk is naked and has the talents we can calculate the minimum we expect from the twins. If it doesn't work, I'll post the save and write up steps (either tonight or over the weekend.) Fingers crossed for 3.0 eh

Some consumables hold the key to great power in this game

Better A.I. and encounter design would be most welcome; most refreshing.

That's A.I. more than path finding. A.I. should periodically reevaluate its target to see if it makes sense to change it (e.g. if someone's outrunning me and I pass by someone else while chasing, I should probably stop and attack the latter.) Well, A.I. should be doing a lot of things, to be honest... But you can't always get what you want, can you?

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3706905&userid=17931&perpage=40&pagenumber=9

From SA: (HELL YES!)

After all, it's no secret that PoE's lead designer loves cheese (and so do we.)