The fact it gives +100% stress for the remainder of the battle is also a dicentive unless you can be certain there's no risk of additional stress-nukes, or (in the case of bosses which typically cause above-average stress) a one-shot (or damn close to it). I could have setup recovery rounds via bleeds instead of forgoing that (or stress-healing) by using solo instead just to ensure a bigger finale.

There's very few worth finale'ing unless you want to blow up something ASAP or you get those rare/obnoxious/nasty mobs later in Vet/Champ. As said, I like having it stack up for if I feel like randomly taking a nuke out of my back pocket, or for positioning/deshuffle, but until then, doing other things would often trump wasting rounds on Solo (which you would take for Finale-centric builds where you are focusing on that rather than other tasks) - at least as far as generic trash-mobs go. and you'll still do more damage simply hitting dirk twice. Regardless of all that, it is a welcome change. Bosses come directly after a phase, so you lose all previous stacks - hence need to re-build it for a boss-fight. It resets each time you get phased to a new area, so you still have to use it sparingly. I still take it as an anti-shuffle or for having the option to take my buffed finale, buff it more by moving into position (Dirk) and blowing up, say, Endless Horses in one go.

Finale is a solid tool for one-shotting meaty targets on demand, yet at one-cast-per-battle he is by no means a boss killer, especially when all his other tools pale in comparison vs bosses, moreso when dealing with those impervious to bleeds or as part of compositions that really don't want Joe Soap dancing around and pushing others OOPosition. However, he is still infinitely better as a stress-healer primarily. The ramp-up isn't new, it's just slightly easier now thanks to practically all of his abilities increasing its potency, so even spamming stress-heals can help provide a whopping finale later.

Darkest dungeon jester final