The Surge staff is practically a single target weapon (the lightning bounces off 2 other targets but it does 1/2 and 1/4 damage respectively) with stagger but no weakspot damage.
Right now its DPS is quite inferior to any gun I possess, not because of how high its damage can get, but because of charge time and peril generation.
ATM the Voidstrike staff can do everything the Surge can do and it has AoE + AoE stagger + weakspot damage and has negligeable peril generation.
Once the bug-crazed period of the Surge staff comes to an end, it will once again be forgotten.
I suggest to buff this weapon, if not by raw damage, by allowing it to deal the full damage on the secondary targets, or reducing its peril generation to the Voidstrike level.
It should be buffed to what it is in its bugged state right now. Itâs not that good even while benefiting from bio lightning empowered psionics. I tried it out myself and it was alright, but nothing gamebreaking. Especially when things like the Columnus V infantry autogun exists.
In most of the run it all goes to overkill anyway.
It takes 2 charges to kill a special without the bug, and it takes 2 charges with the bug because a little sliver of health remains.
The difference is noticeable with ogryns and maniacs, but even so, we should not have to reach 90%+ peril to kill a single maniac, or have to quell to kill a single ogryn.
There are weapons far stronger than the surge staff that can kill enemies before the whole lightning animation has finished.
Or have a blessing that affects the number of target jumps, or something unique for each staff, since all of the blessings for all of the force staves are pretty boring.
I feel like having both Warp Nexus and Warp Flurry are mandatory to make the staff functional.
If one of those had to be replaced (letâs say the Nexus and lose the crit chance) the new buff would have to be extremely powerful to make it worth while, otherwise there would be no advancement in the overall scale of the weapon.
âŚand if one blessing is obviously superior to the rest, it becomes mandatory.
No, the buff should be inherent to the staff, not as a blessing.
But then the mandatory blessings on the staff are the boring +crit, +charge speed ones. I agree that the staff itself needs some buffs, but the blessing variety is also in a bad place for all the staves.
Buffing surge to be similar to the way it is now is such a bad take, 1 shotting flamers, gunners, hounds and bursters (and anything with less hp) with the bug is ridiculous because it doesnât require you to aim at all and is done almost instantly if you already have it charged and waiting for them to appear. No gun has that great of kill time on all these targets, not to mention killing crushers with 2 or 3 shocks. Surge should not be a priority sniping tool but a CC weapon; deal decent damage to a few targets in front of them. It still has infinite âammoâ over other guns and a faster âreloadâ, quelling takes 2 seconds max.
I have done a few runs using the bug where I could still not take a kill because a vet with a plasma or a lasgun would kill them faster than the time it takes to charge the shot and inflict the damage.
The staff is not just the damage dealt, itâs also all the mechanical workings around it.
Preparing a shot takes time, and you can shoot once every second only if you donât fully charge.
If a hit staggers you, you lose your shot and you have to start charging all over.
While charging you walk slowly, and unless you took the quell keystone, while quelling you also walk slowly.
Quelling âfastâ also requires a keystone, these 2 keystones lock in so many builds they need to be moved to the top of the tree.
Yes, the shot attaches to the first enemy the reticle passes over, but that also means that itâs harder to actually hit what you want and there is no weakspot bonus.
I have used guns and I know they also have this same mechanic even though in a smaller radius: revolvers, lasguns, autoguns are easiet to hit with when not actually aiming.
The lasgun in particular seems like it attaches itself to the target.
I donât think this is a bad design though, itâs a chaotic game and people canât be expected to have perfect aim.
Then itâs a failed weapon.
I can cover that role much better with Smite and use the Voidstrike, which ATM is the far superior option.
I have used a lasgun with a vet, I know what âinfinite ammoâ really feels like.
Quelling takes 2 seconds every 4 seconds of usage, not really a good RoF.
If the âoneshottingâ (which works only on a fully charged attack) is the thing that makes you revolt, then halving the peril generation would be a good alternative: no more oneshots and a more usable staff.
After an admittedly limited number of tries (other staves were just more useful), I have to agree that itâs not a weapon that feels great. A friend noted the lackluster sound design, and without a bug to fuel it (that I had to search for to actually figure out), the effect it has on the battle is usually negligible.
I could see a minor base damage buff on, for sure.
But instead of a bigger buff, Iâd prefer its role to be fleshed out more.
Say, slightly better modifiers versus carapace and unyielding and the option to charge for longer for a bigger effect (essentially just x2 charge time, x1.8 charge effect with an effect curve that keeps the middle at 0.5/0.5, aka what we have now). That way, one could precharge it to face a crusher or a special around the corner, while not overly buffing itâs ability of quick kill shots.
And preferable a few blessing options that lean into the specifics of the staff:
Repeat charge speed, jump to more targets, cause brittle against targets, exploding enemies deal AoE damage, that kind of thing.
Because it would be nice to have a mid range option thatâs strong against priority targets and armoured patrols, to go with a melee weapon for hordes and other squishies.
Kind of the opposite of the Purgatus staff, if one disregards the similarity in range. Then weâd only need a precision staff, and we would have covered all the different areas of ranged combat at least somewhat.
Fixed issue where the Nomanus Mk VI Surge Force Staff received the âSmiteâ Bonuses from âEmpowered Psionicsâ.
Now that itâs fixed, we can get back the the Meta âShoutâ Vets and unkillable Ogryns builds. They even nerfed Assail a bit, just to make sure that Pskyers know they are only needed for their Bubbles.
Lol. Canât have weapons one shotting any of those enemies. Oh wait. The weapons with real power one shot 6 of those enemies. Not just one. Maybe step out of sedition. âBad takeâ, Lol. Thanks for the laugh.
I can already tell you because the surge staff is a terrible weapon. It was when it was a cc stick, it is now. Even when it was bugged, it wasnât very good, but at least it mostly one shot whatever it was peril dumping into.
So; before all the EP fun etc I used to use the surge staff almost exclusively.
I say this anecdotally, as I havenât tested, but you could pretty much charge separate âvolleysâ repeatedly over 4-5 bursts, and vent it to 50% in a second. It was, pretty much, âalways upâ for 2ndry fire with a high stats version.
It might not have done much damage, but it stun-locked like a trooper.
Since the changes, I think that it accrues peril MUCH faster than it did before. I think Iâm now venting after every 2 or 3 charges. Iâm not sure if the EP kills are creating peril, I havenât really investigated, but I would much prefer a reversion to how it was. Multi-enemy stun-locks, low peril accrual, lower damage. I donât think the new version does a lot of damage tbf; it looks spectacular, but the numbers (for me) donât match the appearance.
Yeah; thatâs still not something Iâve really reconciled. FS made a âgrenadeâ skill, that does what a staff does? But the advantage of the staff I guess is repeatability; whereas smite is a high cost alternative - is that the balancing factor? Iâd love a staff that does assail⌠see how that sits!
tbh I donât like that Smite has been added, but given Iâm using the staff anyway Iâve not really used it.
In terms of stunlock the staff has no advantages. It does more damage than Smite, though.
If you want to help your party by keeping enemies locked, Smite does it for longer, for a MUCH larger number of enemies, and for pretty much the same cost, if not lower.
In terms of stunlocking the few enemies that are attacking you, Void just throws them on the ground which makes them take longer to get back on their feet.
Darktide still has the issue where a lighter stagger will overwrite a heavier stagger or knockdown state, so even knockdowns have an element of unreliability to them.
Currently surge staff doesnât feel great to use, and it seems like it deals even less damage to flak and carapace, where I distinctly remember them doing more damage to armour, even if only a little more.
