Yup, until mine got CoC, she was pretty much a freeloader in my party. Did 2-5 damage per swing on average, with 8 (or was it 6) swings per round max. With CoC she's doing insane amounts of damage, and paralyzing, and poisoning, and doing instant kills much more often. I killed three level 13 or 14 rattkin goons in three rounds (ninja, samurai and bishop) with CoC, where each one took more than 3 rounds before getting CoC. Instant kills are suddenly very frequent in my game, compared to an occasional one here, and another one there. Maybe on average 1 in every 7 fights with 2 crit hitters. Now I think I'm getting at least one in every fight, if there's at least 3 opponents
For skills I'd go with staff&wand, crit hit and close combat first. Then probably alchemy, and maybe spell realms or perhaps lock&trap/picpocket. For attributes I haven't been able to decide between dex/sen/str and speed (yes, I have put points into speed occasionally), so don't have anything maxxed yet at level, ummm, 13 I think it was, maybe 14, been levelling so fast after getting CoC that I've lost track
