Base Surge needs a buff, that’s true. But something like +25% dmg, maybe more spread dmg, spreading to more targets, and/or stronger primary target CC to stop muties like it used to would be enough. In practice that +25% dmg would let you meet flak and other breakpoints by default - or if perked let you use lesser charge levels for them, meaning faster and less peril -, letting you perk it for now newly available breakpoints of maniacs or extra crit dmg etc. instead. But its surprisingly long range and instant hits are a big advantage over Void in many situations.
I can’t say I agree with the rest of that though. With Purge, more blessings is always good ofc. But it already has Warp Nexus and a crit hit with anything Soulblaze adds 2 stacks at once. Since Soulblaze has a logarithmic dmg scale (+100% dmg for each new stack up to 4, +50% up to 8, +~40-20% up to 15 max) those extra crits make it absolutely crazy strong and really, really help with Soulblaze in general. This is why experienced people have always preferred Purge staves built for crits, even though by the details the crits themselves barely do any more damage. Its primary fire spam also adds a stack each while cleaving through and staggering almost everything. The utility of the primary spam is deceptively easy to miss, because the Soulblaze’s dmg curve makes it seem weak at first. But really it means that you can keep 20+ specials and ragers and some oggies staggered indefinitely, except that 5 seconds later they’re so stacked on Soulblaze they’ll die from just that.
But Trauma? Trauma has always been the best staff with the highest skill ceiling. With the deserved Void nerf it’s back to being just that. I’ve mained 2 psykers since release with prolly over 1k hours between the two of them on T5+, and I’ve mained Trauma since Jan. So FYI I’m a complete Trauma geek and a fan of that staff and can tell you tons of stuff about it 
(sorry, this will be long):
Like all weapons it has bad blessings that don’t even work right (cough Surge & Transfer Peril cough, to name a few), but it has some crazy good ones too. Warp Flurry is basically mandatory, since Trauma is all about reaching high charge levels quickly and maximizing peril efficiency. Despite the nerf to +25.5% cast speed from the +50% of before, it was buffed so now it lasts for 3-4 seconds no matter what you do. So you can now quell between blasts which with good timing means you can usually keep going indefinitely. Rending Shockwave shreds 40% armor with each full blast (brittleness caps at 80%), and while it doesn’t help you with your warp attacks it will turn Crushers with everything else into paper for your team.
The reasons for why Trauma shines are near impossible to sum up as they are so many. But I’ll try with another list:
- It does absolutely crazy levels of AoE damage. It kills all trash including flak (with +flak perk) with a single blast, and can kill all heavies in at most 3-4 full blasts depending on perks and/or talents & procs
- It can permanently CC everything in the game save for muties, while doing that damage
- Its aiming is weird and unique when you’re not used to it, but its very consistent outside of stairs. Mastering that aim and its breakpoints is absolutely possible, and absolutely vital to using it effectively
- If you learn its various charge level & enemy breakpoints for stagger, knockdown and killing, you can control and manipulate any enemy save for muties and bosses very accurately and quickly
- It can reach up or below levels, behind obstacles and corners, and it goes through enemies too
- It stagger is strongest at the epicenter and reduces with range outside it. The stronger your blast, the stronger the stagger both inside and outside the epicenter. Minimum charge blasts are enough to stagger horde at melee distance from the blast, while staggering elites in the epicenter. With fast aim, you can use this to instantly stagger that special about to attack you, or the horde around you or a teammate, etc. and then use the time bought by that stagger (and speed from now +1 stack for Warp Flurry) to kill whatever you just interrupted before they can recover.
- Like all staves, its primary fire is ridiculously underrated. The primary fire speed was buffed in patch #14 (it looks like a nerf but was really a massive buff). All the staves still benefit from a trick where with specific timing you can fire + tap quell to animation cancel + fire to increase its firing speed dramatically. For Purge learning this means better stagger and faster Soulblaze application. For everything else like Trauma, it means you can easily focus down snipers, ranged, specials, even elites from max range. You can also use it to easily finish mobs that almost died but not quite, instead of wasting extra time and peril on a charged shot or having to bother with melee.
- Especially elites have a weird stagger mechanic where once knocked down they get super high stagger resistance for a while. This makes it seem like you can’t stagger them again. But that resistance is gone the moment they can move again. So with for example Crushers, if you knock one down and can’t kill it before it gets up and attacks, make sure to time your last charged blast with enough peril so that the moment it starts moving (usually easiest to wait until their attack animation starts) you can blast it right back down again.
Now let’s put all of the above and more together, to see what this means in practice. A good Trauma user can CC any number of anything save for muties and bosses indefinitely, while also killing them very quickly. I’m literally talking about taking on 15 crushers and other heavies solo with whatever else is with them without even breaking a sweat. It can easily catch dogs, trappers, bursters etc. far behind that massive wall of elites standing in the way, where with any other staff they would just attack you through those elites. You can literally aim by nothing but sound, distance and a rough estimate of the map layout into areas 20m behind the big mass to kill specials nobody can even see, and even if you miss it’s likely they just got thrown to the ground while you’re free to try again. It can counter snipers and kill them in 0.5 seconds with 2 fast headshots or 3-4 body shots, and makes short work of any ranged at max distance so long as they aren’t moving erratically. A good Trauma combined with good positioning, awareness, good peril management and the Force Sword’s Deflector basically cannot die unless they either make a mistake, or as is lately far more common: the AI cheats and spawns 2-3 instant bursters on top of you or silent trappers behind you.
Sorry for the long post. Like I said I’m a huge Trauma nerd. 
Anyway, Voidstrike is in a great place rn and it’s definitely a strong staff. I also like that it can now be built in a few good ways too, either Transfer Peril & Warp Flurry for fast consistent damage, or Surge & Warp Nexus with crit talents and True Aim for crazy high burst and cleave. But as much fun as it is and as much as I love to use it, it doesn’t hold a candle to Trauma when it comes to clutching and carrying when things really get tough. Void was really popular before the buffs since patch #13 too, and honestly I think that’s mostly because it’s simple, easy and fun. Trauma’s biggest balancing factor is that it takes crazy long to really become good at it, and using it right is a lot of stress and effort. But my god is that staff strong and fun once you get it. 
Edit: Removed my dumb mistake thinking crits were calculated separately for each target. Apologies for that. 
Omg! I went and tested this out and you’re absolutely right. Idk where I got that idea. Jeez and I always try my best to make sure to test everything to make sure something like this doesn’t happen. 
But thanks so much for pointing this out! At least now I know better through my shame.
