Your gripes with CoC II

[Animalistic]

Do not be rude to people around you. And calling someone else male is not giving you a strong leg to stand on or for people to consider your arguments since then everyone will focus on the way you are expresing yourself, not on the points you are trying to make-

Lets look at this from your stand point. You are claiming that your exceptions of Azy were those of monogamous leaning lover, and that her getting together with Liaden is the game spitting in the face of your prior notions.
Now, as someone who does not really care for her, I will agree that prior to her quest line, Azy did not seem like a person that really seemed to fool around. Considering her then written content, I am going to have to agree with you there. But at the time, Azy was not really fully her own NPC, or much of a character in general, so I can think it stands to reason that you can add on top of her whatever the writer wants. So a yuri relationship is not that out of left field.

Now, that said, it does feel like the game did better job at distinguishing which characters were more whores/open relationship/only for you types with prior companions.
Cait tells you much, talking to Brint you can tell he constantly fucks and is much as a slut as cait, Arona is rapist Orc, Quin comes from rapist cult and talking to him confirms that he in fact loves sex.
And other, less slutty ones, also give off that idea somewhat.
Ryns is up in the air what writers want out of her (her whole libido mechanics makes mess of things), Berwyn fools around but mostly jerks off until you come along, Brienne and Kiyoko are designed waifus and they tell you as much.
Atugia is a... A buddy, not sure what Gard wants from her.

I feel that in wasps case the problem comes with how involved the quest line with Azy is. You go through all that trouble in making her your companion, only for her to end up with someone else. Now, people can claim that it was established during the quest, but prior to accpeting it, you would not know. Even then, the amount of build up for it during their introduction does not really seem to scream to me "Oy, you bloke, These two lasses are for each other, do you not think so?" And then getting forced into it does not sit well with a lot of people I would think.
Basically, my point being that unlike other companions that make their appeal perfectly clear from the start of their introduction. for Azy you need to go through a ringer just for an answer what her sexual and relationship content is going to be like.

So, yeah, I can be see both sides of the argument.

Still, I would like for game to fully embrace it and not dance around the issue. If you are going to give us false choice in getting her and Liaden together, just get them together. Do not constantly bormband the player with false "yes or no answer" like a pokemon game.

 

[LilLambAmy]

Do not be rude to people around you. And calling someone else male is not giving you a strong leg to stand on or for people to consider your arguments since then everyone will focus on the way you are expresing yourself, not on the points you are trying to make-

Lets look at this from your stand point. You are claiming that your exceptions of Azy were those of monogamous leaning lover, and that her getting together with Liaden is the game spitting in the face of your prior notions.
Now, as someone who does not really care for her, I will agree that prior to her quest line, Azy did not seem like a person that really seemed to fool around. Considering her then written content, I am going to have to agree with you there. But at the time, Azy was not really fully her own NPC, or much of a character in general, so I can think it stands to reason that you can add on top of her whatever the writer wants. So a yuri relationship is not that out of left field.

Now, that said, it does feel like the game did better job at distinguishing which characters were more whores/open relationship/only for you types with prior companions.
Cait tells you much, talking to Brint you can tell he constantly fucks and is much as a slut as cait, Arona is rapist Orc, Quin comes from rapist cult and talking to him confirms that he in fact loves sex.
And other, less slutty ones, also give off that idea somewhat.
Ryns is up in the air what writers want out of her (her whole libido mechanics makes mess of things), Berwyn fools around but mostly jerks off until you come along, Brienne and Kiyoko are designed waifus and they tell you as much.
Atugia is a... A buddy, not sure what Gard wants from her.

I feel that in wasps case the problem comes with how involved the quest line with Azy is. You go through all that trouble in making her your companion, only for her to end up with someone else. Now, people can claim that it was established during the quest, but prior to accpeting it, you would not know. Even then, the amount of build up for it during their introduction does not really seem to scream to me "Oy, you bloke, These two lasses are for each other, do you not think so?" And then getting forced into it does not sit well with a lot of people I would think.
Basically, my point being that unlike other companions that make their appeal perfectly clear from the start of their introduction. for Azy you need to go through a ringer just for an answer what her sexual and relationship content is going to be like.

So, yeah, I can be see both sides of the argument.

Still, I would like for game to fully embrace it and not dance around the issue. If you are going to give us false choice in getting her and Liaden together, just get them together. Do not constantly bormband the player with false "yes or no answer" like a pokemon game.

The first person I directed it to basically called my opinion a waste in another post, then kept replying to me then followed me to this topic, and the other person jumped in so they deserve what they get from me. I don't take shit from men and never will.

 

[GEESE]

Oh shut the fuck up, Terf, and stop assuming every person who challenges you is this cis boogyman you've invented in your head.

 

[Animalistic]

The first person I directed it to basically called my opinion a waste in another post, then kept replying to me then followed me to this topic, and the other person jumped in so they deserve what they get from me. I don't take shit from men and never will.

I feel like picking out any specific group of people to not take shit from is not the best way to go about not taking shit. I, personally, would not take it from anyone.
It is smelly, after all, no matter from which butthole it comes from.

Basically, and this is comes from experience, when people are disregarding your opinion with the notions such as "you are complaining because you like to complain" and "not everything has to appeal to you" at least try to explain your reasoning further. It probably will be as effective as your prior attempt, that is to say, not much. But at least people will then be forced to look at your arguments rather than to look at different parts of your speech to tear down.

 

[wery12345]

You posted in here and then made a thread, people are gonna post in both, this is...hear me out....A forum. People are gonna post, just cause you seem to hate anyone male doesnt give you right to act like an asshole.

 

[Savin]

1 I am lesbian 2 eww 3 go be a petty male elsewhere.

Go be a petty sexist somewhere else.

 

[AKnottyMoose]

Some more fellas with strongfat/musclefat/bearish builds. Men are either chiselled Adonis' or trappy femboys. Livernus/Rroljar are cool, but a bit lacking in content.

 

[Animalistic]

That feel like it belongs more "What content would you like?" thread.

But than again, that one and this one are pretty much the same, it is just about how you word it.
For example "Shit man, I just want a femboy NPC besides Berwyn that has some meat to him. Like, come on, they either get abandoned or are one time content flings. June, Prince Nyze and Jun-Jun (some people call him that even if I do not see it) just got thrown into a wayside. That makes me big sad.

 

[AKnottyMoose]

That feel like it belongs more "What content would you like?" thread.

Yeah, I totally should've worded it more accurately. I think most people will get the point anyway though lol.

Ironic that CoC is lacking in cock.

 

[Tide Hunter]

Running a bimbo goblin Charmer who refuses to hurt people as my current main, I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. I had to settle on being the off-healer for the party to have all of my slots occupied with useful and effective powers.

Still, I think we shouldn't miss the fact that, being based on D&D bard, Charmer class seem to be designed as much around dealing magic damage and buffing the party as it is Resolve damage.

Honestly, the real problem is that as a Charmer, the level one perk is a sexiness boost while the only two abilities before level 6 involving physical health is Song of Storms for buffing and song of courage as a passive heal + buff. The Charmer has a lot of buffing abilities, but the problem is that it couldn't just focus on being a magical support, and it didn't spread out damage abilities or real damage buffs throughout the levels.

For a support you largely would just go White Mage, because their level one perk is useful for a healer. You can play as a damage-dealing White Mage, and pretty well too because of the damaging powers, but if you want to play as a damaging spellcaster, you should be a black mage who happens to learn white mage powers, because the level one perk of a White Mage is suited for a healer/supporter, while a Black Mage's level one perk is suited for a damage dealer.

The level one perk is what defines a class, in my opinion. Because any character can learn and combine many powers with ease, the powers do not define a class. If you want to be a big shot, whether it's through heavy weapons or through tanking, the Warrior is your class. Some powers benefit either the two-hander or the sword and board, plus there's threat generators, but those are secondary to the perk, letting you ignore initiative penalties if you're swinging a giant greatsword, and letting you tank more efficiently through increased threat generation and stagger immunity. When the Warrior's Veteran perk lacked the initiative penalty bypasser, the Warrior (heavy and tank) playstyles were much worse off, because as a tank you want to go first so you can generate threat as fast as possible, but using equipment to help you survive being the main focus prevents you from going first and drawing attention before the damage dealers. As such, the Warrior was largely considered to be the worst class for the time, because its perk was not enough for its intended playstyle.

So, the Charmer. Its perk is a sexiness boost. This basically just says "You should focus on teasing." If you are not teasing, your perk is literally worthless to you. If you want to be dealing damage with spells, the Black Mage's perk is more useful. If you want to be supporting through heals, the White Mage's perk is more useful (Say, do resolve heals also work with the WM perk? I don't know as I've not tried that). The Charmer's perk is too selfish for a support, and doesn't boost spells like the Black Mage, so it implicitly pushes you to be a resolve damager.

But if you wanted to look at it power-wise, there's a lot to look at. Its starting encounter power is only useful for dealing resolve damage, both in its aoe resolve damage and its debuff. Its starting at-will does provide defensive buffs, but it's also a resolve healer. The one non-resolve ability is a single target weapon buff, which uses Spellpower rather than Presence. The other basic classes do not have the damage of their abilities split between two main stats, with the exception being the Thief's Estrus Flask, a power which also deals Resolve damage. You could argue the White Mage's Smite Evil and Charge Weapon count for this, but the actual damage that those abilities scale off of is just spellpower like the rest of their kit, the attack part only coming into play because it involves weapons.

For the Charmer, though, it starts out with abilities that scale off different stats. In the second level, though, its three powers seem to either not really scale or scale exclusively on Presence, despite two of them being spells. Then again, on level 4, they're all presence scaling, and even if one of them involves physical health rather than resolve, that still seems to be performance. It's focusing in on Presence. It looks like it's trending towards focusing in on one stat, and honestly, performance is a good main focus for the Charmer. After all, the D&D Bard uses charisma for its abilities and spells, to which performance seems like a counterpart.

Then you get to level 6, and that trend just trips and tumbles off a cliff. One ability has literally no scaling, just being cooldowns undowning themselves, and the other two are exclusively spellpower based. By level 6, a Charmer is either pretty much just not using Charmer powers, or they don't have spellpower built for. It is far too late to have the spellpower scaling powers get added here, particularly as they're physical/magical damage dealers, which conflicts with the damage type that charmers have been focusing on for basically their entire span up until level 6.

The charmer simply does not feel like a non-resolve damage dealer, because its only non-resolve damaging abilities scale off of a stat which most of its other abilities do not, and most of them come at level 6, past the point where a playstyle has already been defined, along with the perk of the Charmer class explicitly and only benefiting tease attacks. It's fine for a charmer to focus on supporting, but it seems to focus on resolve damage as a result of it abilities and its perk, so the random storm damage abilities just feel misplaced.

 

[Burnerbro]

the biggest issue seems to be that resolve is an entirely separate mechanic/resource from the rest of the gameplay loop and, while combat groups can literally avoid ever needing to invest in seducing people, there are plenty of opponents that are immune to seduction, so you HAVE to do combat once in a while

That is why being able to have two readied Power set-ups for the Champ and being able to swap between them is a must to make all the specialized skills viable outside of second runs on the bosses - with a potential restriction of only being able to do it once per fight and maybe only on the first turn of combat.

So, the Charmer. Its perk is a sexiness boost. This basically just says "You should focus on teasing." If you are not teasing, your perk is literally worthless to you. If you want to be dealing damage with spells, the Black Mage's perk is more useful. If you want to be supporting through heals, the White Mage's perk is more useful (Say, do resolve heals also work with the WM perk? I don't know as I've not tried that). The Charmer's perk is too selfish for a support, and doesn't boost spells like the Black Mage, so it implicitly pushes you to be a resolve damager.

But if you wanted to look at it power-wise, there's a lot to look at. Its starting encounter power is only useful for dealing resolve damage, both in its aoe resolve damage and its debuff. Its starting at-will does provide defensive buffs, but it's also a resolve healer. The one non-resolve ability is a single target weapon buff, which uses Spellpower rather than Presence. The other basic classes do not have the damage of their abilities split between two main stats, with the exception being the Thief's Estrus Flask, a power which also deals Resolve damage. You could argue the White Mage's Smite Evil and Charge Weapon count for this, but the actual damage that those abilities scale off of is just spellpower like the rest of their kit, the attack part only coming into play because it involves weapons.

For the Charmer, though, it starts out with abilities that scale off different stats. In the second level, though, its three powers seem to either not really scale or scale exclusively on Presence, despite two of them being spells. Then again, on level 4, they're all presence scaling, and even if one of them involves physical health rather than resolve, that still seems to be performance. It's focusing in on Presence. It looks like it's trending towards focusing in on one stat, and honestly, performance is a good main focus for the Charmer. After all, the D&D Bard uses charisma for its abilities and spells, to which performance seems like a counterpart.

Then you get to level 6, and that trend just trips and tumbles off a cliff. One ability has literally no scaling, just being cooldowns undowning themselves, and the other two are exclusively spellpower based. By level 6, a Charmer is either pretty much just not using Charmer powers, or they don't have spellpower built for. It is far too late to have the spellpower scaling powers get added here, particularly as they're physical/magical damage dealers, which conflicts with the damage type that charmers have been focusing on for basically their entire span up until level 6.

The charmer simply does not feel like a non-resolve damage dealer, because its only non-resolve damaging abilities scale off of a stat which most of its other abilities do not, and most of them come at level 6, past the point where a playstyle has already been defined, along with the perk of the Charmer class explicitly and only benefiting tease attacks. It's fine for a charmer to focus on supporting, but it seems to focus on resolve damage as a result of it abilities and its perk, so the random storm damage abilities just feel misplaced.

I'm not sure how difficult it would be to change Charmer's spell-like damage dealing and buffing powers so they scale with Presence, bringing the class more in-line with its D&D inspiration that is entirely Charisma based in what it doe - but I agree that it will be a big help for the class, freeing a whole stat rank up on every level.

Perks are a bigger issue, because like you said they are the only class feature the player is stuck with in a game where any Powers from other classes can be learned. They also seem like the biggest clue the game gives the player about how to play the class, and yeah, just like the class description it tells us that your job as a Charmer is Resolve damage and Resolve healing.


Speaking of, the only resolve healing spell that I know of is Eternal Light, and it does work with the WM perk but only because it has a health component as well. More importantly, it is currently unavailable to the player, even though Atugia talks about teaching us some of her magic at some point. The Charmer powers that restore Resolve aren't spells, so they scale with Presence alone. Which is good for class cohesion, but hampers their effectiveness because there is currently no gear that will buff them.

Ironic that CoC is lacking in cock.

Cock we got plenty of, regular ass dudes they can be attached to - less so, but that is expected in a porn game, especially ones that aims to explore a lot of other fetishes. Because of that it ends up being mostly about your character's cock, all the hyper cocks of impossibly pretty lads and lasses your character can lay with, or both.

 

[GEESE]

Fenoxo games hold very little pretense to the demographic its aiming for. bless those ladywangs.

 

[quickpawmaud]

I wish the powers were on the second row or something rather than in a sub menu so you could see when they are up easily to use them. Every character only has like 4 powers and the at will power is already shown in the main menu outside of the sub menu so why not all of them? There is more than enough space on the bar most of them are empty.

 

[GEESE]

I'm pretty sure its been heavily established that there's not going to be any new mechanics based off TFs- such as no flight or fast travel from having wings- with the ingame excuse that the champ wouldnt have the physique or knowledge to fly. So the succubus' large wing transformation feels like a bit of a red herring.

 

[Animalistic]

Your post reminds me, we realy do need a document document about TFs and their effects. Since I think there is a way to justify in universe what they can and can not accomplish. For example, our champion can never start as a being of flying race. So in universe explanation could be, that while we can fly for short amount of time, since they are only newly gained wings, it would take us a lot of times to master them. So as of now, we can only just fly in short bursts, nothing exceptional, basically a sprint. Or why people can recognize us despite changing gender or race. Or what is the limit to TFs effectiveness.
Just something to think about.

 

[wery12345]

Honestly the only TF that MIGHT get flight would be the Lumina Valkyre one. The succubus one can be more seen as Flavour text to say "yes you can fly with them, but no the champ will not try to use it in combat".

 

[Wint3rRyd3r]

Flying in combat doesn't seem like the best thing. It seems like it'd be hard to balance in air and do aerial maneuvers when carrying weapons and armor. Especially for harpies and bats since their wings are their arms. Besides, flying is a stance. A turn used to fly is a turn not using cleave.

 

[wery12345]

And a lot of the flying enemies are using ranged weapons with the shankers I think being the exception, but they are usually the first to die for it.

 

[Tide Hunter]

Crackle Powder is, essentially, Grease but for Storm. That's all well and good, but it's weird how it's a ranged exclusive power. Especially since every storm power is a spell attack (including Power wave, which is also a melee weapon spell attack), and of the two weapons that deal storm damage, both are catalysts. The fact that Grease is a spell while Crackle Powder is a weapon power doesn't make that much difference, as it uses accuracy and targets physical resistance either way (though I do wonder, if you have an accuracy-increasing offhand catalyst with the Metal Wand in the main hand, does that mean grease has a greater chance to succeed?).

What does make a difference is that CP is a ranged weapon power. This means that, unless you're using CP exclusively for the aoe stun and not the storm vulnerability, you practically need to be using the Metal Wand (or one of the other ranged catalysts, but unless the wiki is wrong, only MW provides spellpower/spellpenetration). As such, until you get to the Kitsune den, your spell stats will be less than if you were using the Spiral Staff, plus your options for synergistic powers will be much worse. And if you're instead using it for a purely ranged build, you'll be sorely disappointed, since the Metal Wand has a one-hander's damage and no stat boosts except for spell stats.

It feels like it takes longer to get a CP-storm build up on par with a grease thing, even before considering that grease has better synergies due to the powers of companions plus the existence of fire damage dealing summons. Just considering the standard combo, grease+fireball can be used with any weapon and can be gained from leveling up, while the storm counterparts of Crackle Powder and Arc Cannon need to be learnt, with AC coming from a dungeon/quest which is balanced for level 5, and the spell stats to equal the Spiraled Staff can only be used with CP with items acquired after said quest.

This honestly isn't a major issue. It's just a small gripe that I overexplained (and spent too long talking about). It's just annoying that Crackle Power is basically just restricted to a only be used with a Metal Wand mage, and is lacking in synergies with party members and summons, while also needing longer to get the build fully online plus the explicit expenditure of money to learn the ability. The only real upside is that stunned targets are easier to hit while prone targets are only unable to act, but that's not really enough to make it worth using unless your build is explicitly a Storm gimmick build.

 

[MarcoPolo121]

No way to track Kiyoko's children. If you want to give her 9 tails before she comes out of the Astral Plane you need to knock her up 32 times. Without knowing your progress it's hard to keep in scale.

 

[wery12345]

I think you can create a readable document using the save editor to see how many you have.

 

[SmithEK]

No way to track Kiyoko's children. If you want to give her 9 tails before she comes out of the Astral Plane you need to knock her up 32 times. Without knowing your progress it's hard to keep in scale.

Or sleep repeatedly for just over 100days.. or just under.

 

[MyOldName]

No way to track Kiyoko's children. If you want to give her 9 tails before she comes out of the Astral Plane you need to knock her up 32 times. Without knowing your progress it's hard to keep in scale.

Possibly you can use 'Save to file', open the save file in a text editor and search for "KIYOKO_NUM_KITS".

 

[Bobonga]

On the topic of Crackle powder and Storm dmg.

1. Grease can't hit flying enemies, CP can and disrupts flight. As of version 0.4.14 Grease does hit flying targets. Credits to Burnerbro for pointing this out.

2. You can use the metal wand with an offhand catalyst for similar stats as the spiraled staff. Or even the new shield orb for crit immunity, but - 10 crit.

3. If you still want to use the spiraled staff: Changing your equipment mid-combat doesn't cost a turn. So you can use any ranged weapon and just swap to the spiraled staff the next turn and then cast arc cannon or whatever.

4. Storm dmg will (probably) be more viable in the long run. All demons have a innate 33% fire resistance and we will be fighting more of those. If we also visit a dessert or volcanic region, it is save to assume that most enemies will have fire resistance.

5. Synergies: Main problem is that only the PC can deal storm dmg. So by using CP you have only one attack that takes advantage of the debuff. And that is only if the enemy has just 1 action and you out speed them. The obvious attack choice is arc cannon.

5.1 You can use "Song of Storms" which gives the PC's attack power as storm dmg, and give it to an ally. So 1 round SoS, 2 round CP, 3 round arc cannon. This isn't that great since you usually want to stun turn 1.

5.2. Primal scar debuffs the enemies fire, frost and strom resistance by 50% for 3 rounds. It's only a single target hit, but the PC can get 2 storm attacks off and the debuffs can synergies with companions like winter knight Brint or Kiyoko.

5.3. This is theoretical but celestial smite should be able to stun everything, since it stuns if the target if it has a holy and/or storm weakness. I do not know if this is only for initial weaknesses or debuffs as well.

5.4. Grand finale does 45 + spellpower % storm dmg on a single target. The catch is that it is a encounter power, but if it kills it has no cooldown. It also mentions that it hits on metal resistance. Not sure if that's good or bad. For reference arc cannon does 40 + spellpower % storm dmg.

5.5 Leanenstone. Deals 20 + cunning + willpower storm dmg to all enemies and staggers. If you level Cunning and WP you will get between 54 and 60 storm dmg. Arc cannon can max hit for about 88 and also crit.

In conclusion it would be better to build for single target nuking with leanenstones as a mop up. Also song of storms can be a devastating buff. My min/maxed caster has a spellpower of 100 and I don't even have the tira vestments yet.

 

[Burnerbro]

1. Grease can't hit flying enemies, CP can and disrupts flight.

As of 0.4.14, it can and it does. Has it been changed in one of the backer patches?

 

[Bobonga]

As of 0.4.14, it can and it does. Has it been changed in one of the backer patches?

I didn't know that. It's been while since I used grease. I will change it.

 

[Prent]

No way to track Kiyoko's children. If you want to give her 9 tails before she comes out of the Astral Plane you need to knock her up 32 times. Without knowing your progress it's hard to keep in scale.

just look at her tails? they always come in, in the same order, so just look for the one on the bottom left and you'll know.

 

[mikethor007]

Possibly you can use 'Save to file', open the save file in a text editor and search for "KIYOKO_NUM_KITS".

It's weird, Kiyoko actually has TWO flags for tracking the number of kits. One for the kits she has while in the astral plane, and one for the kits she has after being freed.

 

[Prent]

I really wish the temple of Mallach wasn't as annoyingly far away from town as it is. I know objectively it's not a big deal, but just looking at it on the map makes me not wanna go.

It doesn't help that there's basically nothing between it and Hawkethorne either.

 

[Tide Hunter]

2. You can use the metal wand with an offhand catalyst for similar stats as the spiraled staff.

Yes, I am aware. Like I said, once you get to the Fox Den, the build finally reaches the same spot as grease+fireball, in that you can get the same spellpower and spellpenetration, because the Fox Den secondary catalysts are the first secondary catalysts with 10 in both. And also that you finally get Arc Cannon at the Fox Den.

3. If you still want to use the spiraled staff: Changing your equipment mid-combat doesn't cost a turn. So you can use any ranged weapon and just swap to the spiraled staff the next turn and then cast arc cannon or whatever.

I honestly just never think about using the inventory during combat.

4. Storm dmg will (probably) be more viable in the long run. All demons have a innate 33% fire resistance and we will be fighting more of those. If we also visit a dessert or volcanic region, it is save to assume that most enemies will have fire resistance.

It may very well be more viable in the long run. I know it's better in the Undermountain, because imps are demons and have no resistances (or weaknesses) to Storm Damage, but also, the Earth Elemental is a construct and as such has a 100% weakness to Storm Damage. My main point wasn't about long-term viability, it's about how it takes much longer to reach parity on an individual bases as grease+fireball, in that you need to go through an entire dungeon to get equivalent stats and the spell needed to complete the combo given the restrictions in how you equip it. Plus, it lacks the synergies that grease has which means that it's still just worse overall even though some enemies have fire resistances.

5.1 You can use "Song of Storms" which gives the PC's attack power as storm dmg, and give it to an ally. So 1 round SoS, 2 round CP, 3 round arc cannon. This isn't that great since you usually want to stun turn 1.

5.2. Primal scar debuffs the enemies fire, frost and strom resistance by 50% for 3 rounds. It's only a single target hit, but the PC can get 2 storm attacks off and the debuffs can synergies with companions like winter knight Brint or Kiyoko.

5.3. This is theoretical but celestial smite should be able to stun everything, since it stuns if the target if it has a holy and/or storm weakness. I do not know if this is only for initial weaknesses or debuffs as well.

Song of Storms, Primal Scar, and Celestial Smite are all recharge powers, meaning they can not be used concurrently with Arc Cannon and Crackle Powder. Also, Celestial Smite and Primal Scar are level 6, which just factors back into how it takes longer to reach its normal state than Grease+Fireball. Oh, also, just ran a test on Celestial Smite theoretically stunning enemies impacted by Crackle Powder.

Spoiler: Screenshot

Azy, as an enemy, is neutral to both Holy Damage and Storm Damage, which means that the resistance change from Crackle Powder would let her be stunned by Celestial Smite. And you can tell by the text that the stun attempts to proc: If the stun would not have actually gone off, I don't believe it would have said anything. However, there's an issue, in that Crackle Powder already triggered a stun the turn before, and combatants gain stun/prone immunity for a few turns after getting hit by one of the two, so Celestial Smite's stun fails, despite procing.

5.4. Grand finale does 45 + spellpower % storm dmg on a single target. The catch is that it is a encounter power, but if it kills it has no cooldown. It also mentions that it hits on metal resistance. Not sure if that's good or bad. For reference arc cannon does 40 + spellpower % storm dmg.

Grand Finale is just a finisher tool. I think it can be useful, paired with Arc Cannon and Crackle Powder, but CP's vulnerability wears off before you're able to use it if you use AC first. Instead, GF would pretty much just be for finishing off foes, which it already is used for.

5.5 Leanenstone. Deals 20 + cunning + willpower storm dmg to all enemies and staggers. If you level Cunning and WP you will get between 54 and 60 storm dmg. Arc cannon can max hit for about 88 and also crit.

The leananstone is a decent enough aoe item, but it is an item, meaning it can only be used by the champ. CP and AC have the same cooldown, so there's never really a time where you'll use a Leananstone over an AC if using with CP, unless you just don't have the Arc Cannon. It can be a stop-gap of sorts until you reach the Arc Cannon, I guess, though at 80 electrum for a single one, it's a bit pricey for the early game too.