Am I missing something with charge abilities?

[Neonivek]

So far in my experience charge has been complete garbage even when I stack everything in its favor. It takes so long to charge up one attack that really the empty tome is just better.

Are they meant to be that unimportant? Like a slight bonus? Or am I just not getting it?

[Mama Jo]

Mechanically speaking, they become effectively worthless as the game progresses simply due to power creep. I think the only decent one I've found so far is Jonathan's, and that's only because I was experimenting with only Coat of Arms weapons. Even then, once you've sufficiently leveled any of them up, the benefit becomes negligible compared to stacking the right items and weapon synergies. So just think of it as a bonus or a character-specific mechanic that makes sense, but isn't necessarily super important. Kind of like Alucard's list of spells and their specific triggers; nice, but not something you'd run a build around.

[Moonbane]

2 of them is useful
Jonathan's for spamming super high damage troll bomb at a very short cd. VERY powerful. Takes like 3-4s to charge the troll bomb doing 7000+ damage. Jonathan's charge ability scales with speed. So he really wants wings and sonic dash.
Dont underestimate this one, its a very strong build as the last rank of troll bomb superloads the damage. And the charge smoothly bypasses the lenghty cd.

Carmilla - Vampire witch on flying skull. At super high levels of curse she can trigger all dominus abilities pretty much constantly. You will be able to charge in like 3 seconds for a massive volley.

[Circe]

Charlotte's works well if you get Sanctuary. Sanctuary's screenwipe effect has a bit of a cooldown, but the charge sidesteps that, giving you extra uses of it and the ability to effectively deploy one on demand with a little bit of practice.

Also, it kills Reapers, guaranteed. I managed to drop eight of them without the Shroud or Corridor until I slipped up on timing it. How *useful* that is, well, that's a matter for you to decide. But it's funny.

If you go for a full library build (all spellbooks, Gemini), it's honestly kind of ridiculous. Sixteen spellbooks all firing at once, glorious.

[Moonbane]

Should note you can have both Jonathan and Charlotte with the duo character option. Both have their own charge.

[Moonbane]

Been playing with Space Guy and using Sanctuary. His innate ability to reset cooldowns combined with the arcana doing the same can skyrocket Sanctuary in potency due to wipe happening a lot more frequently.