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ABILITIES
Powers
ANGEL ABILITIESORIGINAL ABILITIES
SERAPH ABILITIES
Frankly, Cas is more than a little overpowered. Canon tends to deal with this by... conveniently forgetting he has certain powers, which doesn't give me the best recourse to deal with it. For example, Cas can read and even control human minds to a certain extent, but he only uses these powers rarely, and occasionally just for gags. Later, he stops using this power almost completely, and no reasoning is ever given for it. One can assume he came to understand it's an invasion of privacy, but obviously there are situations in which this wouldn't matter.
Basically, the only way for me to deal with this is either come up with my own reasons why these powers are used sparingly, or banish them to the back burner and ask people not to think about it too much.
Weaknesses
Despite Castiel's many, many strengths, he's not entirely without weaknesses.Minor:
• Angel warding
• Angel banishing sigils
• Magic dampening spells and items
• Powerful spells
Major:
• Angel blades (a one-hit kill when stabbed in a vital area)
• The Lance of Michael
• Powerful demons (such as Lilith)
• Leviathan
• Princes of Hell
• Archangels
• Grace removal
Angel blades are for a long time the only thing that can kill an angel, but it only takes one stab, so it is quite a big weakness. Archangels also have the ability to reduce lower ranking angels to nothing with a snap of their fingers. And with the use of an angel blade, anyone can remove a weakened or captured angel's grace, thus rendering them mortal.
When rendered mortal, by having his grace stolen or depleted, Castiel is all but human. While he retains his knowledge of Heaven, spells, etc. he loses all of his powers, his super strength, etc. which means he's quite hapless (even Endverse!Cas, who is fairly well accomplished with firearms by the time Dean meets him, calls himself useless. Original Universe!Cas is much less savvy by comparison.)
Castiel also seems to have a particular weakness to/fear of pain, when something successfully bypasses his invulnerability. You might expect him to have a high pain tolerance, but it actually seems more likely that this is solely a result of his powers. Because when he does experience pain, his reactions tend to be more extreme than, say, Sam or Dean's. (As an example, when Cas is being attacked with the Lance of Michael, he crawls, whimpering, away from the demon wielding it, even before he's been hurt. On a different occasion, when Dean attacks him under the influence of the Mark of Cain, Castiel tries to restrain him non-violently, but Dean's brutality forces him to go on the defensive. We see him flinch, hold his face, stagger, and collapse from pain, incapable of retaliating as a result of it.) These moments in particular stand out as a contrast to his stoicism, although perhaps it's not surprising that a being who never has to experience pain and discomfort under normal circumstances would not be particularly great at reacting to it.