Once the update hits I will redo her. Just don't want to waste time before major changes, so I stopped updating. Mostly she needs her spells to be updated for the meta and a few touches to ramp DC. Some better feat economy won't hurt her either.

Now that we're getting the opportunity to respec our main character in the enhanced edition, are there any builds that really benefit from different early vs late game feat/stat loadouts - depending on either buff or equipment availability?

Scion and kineticist most likely. Although respec is not an option for challenging and above, so those are dubious gains. I guess if you want to play unfair with respec and don't care about achievements it's an option.

Kineticist can do pretty crezy things even if you can't respec the 1st level choices. Like going Ice>electricity and respeccing into Ice>earth>fire after Armags for kineticist 19/scaled 1.

The obvious answer would be to respec away all those animal companions and change spells from will to fort. But then you cannot take them at level 1. Hm, totally different meta.

Pretty sure you won't be able to change level 1 choices, but that remains to be seen. Can always start with monk I guess.
Anyhow respec shenanigans I'm not terribly interested about as they are locked to casual difficulties. I would love to change under-performing companions, but that's not an option eitehr even with respec on.

I have been running unfair on a 5 man party recently and have a sage sorc and pure alchemist (jubi) as mainstays in my party for exactly these purposes.

before act 4 (barbarians) the alchemist is mvp of the group in terms of bursting and debilitating enemies down before they do too much bad stuff to your frontliners.

after level 13 or so the sorc is even and probably caught up in effectiveness and power (this is also delays as I do want some damage from the sorc so I splash in arcane trickster)
once you hit level 15 on the sorc toon and have AT at level 10 and aoe dps sneaks it is game over for the alch in terms of power, especially considering all those metamagic rods you get throughout the game. you have better flecible control with heightened spell whatever and sick burst damage with the trickster sneak levels. conjuration school which gives you cc and stuff like level 6 acid ray spell and that rod with +4dc conjuration dc just synergizes too well.

of course having both on the party synergizes extremely well because the alch can focus on bombs and effects like knockdown/blind while the sorc does the nauseated stuff and they complement each other and when the alch takes a slight backseat in the later part of the game the sorc picks it up.

also a side note "pit" spells are gimmicks but they have been for some reason pretty consistent in terms of having enemies fall into them....I did not have much problems as most enemies don't seem to beat my dc on them and fall in. of course the most dangerous enemies do resist them and that is where the alchemist blinding bombs come in to increase the chance of the frontliners and not dropping.

Woohoo new patch is here. Hype.

Any chance you could tell me if the patch broke your dex scion and sylvan sorc build when you get to test it?

Tested crane wing. Still works with everything, so most builds are in the clear.

Awesome. Thanks for the fast reply! I hope they can hotfix the portrait bug. It's the only thing keeping me from playing right now.

What I always wanted to ask, do you stream?

Would be interesting to see you play.

Nah. Too lazy for it. Maybe one day...

Awww. Be sure to send me a message if you ever decide to do so!

Wow, dex scion early game has to be most painful thing I've experienced yet.

I'm really considering restarting as Sylvan sorc and just endure the pain of lvling regongar instead.

I have no idea of how to ease the pain or lvl faster since I need a full party to kill stuff and I can't cheese skill check xp due to no trickery early game.

Only way to speedlevel early is going in a small party. Tickery is ok, but it's not that much. Generally you just have to endure your way to agile pick in old sycamore and it gets easier after. Scion earlygame is not that bad. You shoot stuff with crossbow and that's about it. Given your dex is pretty solid it's not that bad.