Been rolling a few ideas back and forth since the psyker staves feel a bit underwhelming in general feel and imbuing the telekinetic discipline our pskyer is ostensibly using.
It feels like the staff attack designs are based on the basic powers of each of the most common disciplines (except telepathy):
Purgatus - Flame Breath - Pyromancy
Surge - Smite - Biomancy
Void - Force Bolt - Telekinesis
Trauma - Conflagration - Ashqy but without the burn
And apart from Purgatus, they all have the rather lacklustre feeling (mostly because of the projectile speed) Force Bolt primary fire.
I think partialy the issue is they pivoted to having the class system in a time where the psyker design was still “on paper” so to speak, so they came up with some generic staves that could be made quickly (apart from surge, seems like they really wanted smite to be in there, but trauma is conflag without burn, purgatus is flamestorm, void is fireball with projectile drop turned off) and luckily they correspond to various disciplines’ more basic powers.
But even the more telekinetic of the staves don’t feel particularly telekinetic because of the little visual motif of the warp, the blue burns and flames from being hit by a primary Force Bolt or void/trauma secondaries.
So with that preamble with why I’m dissatisfied with the exising staves:
Existing:
Trauma - Instead of a radiating explosion, inverse it so it’s a vortex effect (sucks them into a point) or upend it so it’s an AoE crush effect (knockdown but no knock away).
Void - Secondary keeps the ball of force, but while fully charged it either causes any survivors (usually elites or specials) being hit directly by the ball explosion (not passthrough) has a lift effect similar to VT2’s Deepwood staff or the passthrough sucks in enemies along its wake.
Force Bolt - Keep Force Bolt as is for one staff, but have variations on others that involve throwing debris (shogun, single precion projectile, bursts, lots of variations), or a hitscan and invisible psychic “punch”. In a sea of gaudy blue fire/burn effects an attack without as much visual feedback would stand out.
New:
Blade staff (maybe replace the void staff?)
Primary: nearly invisible blades shoot out, wide enough to hit 2 enemies if they’re really close to each other, modest cleave. Slower rate of fire than Force Bolt.
Secondary: Charge up for a larger, faster blade that can scythe through enemies.
Special: Imbue the staff with a blade of pure telekinetic force allowing the next special to cleave once with power, cleave and armour piercing similar to the power sword.
Twister staff
Primary: Rapidly thrown (around autopistol rate) smaller debris that visually spins into a target (but otherwise acts as a fast straight line projectile).
Secondary: Place a small, stationary tornado of debris similar to the firespout of the Coruscation staff for a few seconds. Staggers and damages enemies in the tornado and inflicts bleed. No limit to how much you can have out (except peril)
Special: A peril costing push similar to the old Force Sword one.
Shield staff
Primary: Invisible hitscan “punches”. A bit less damage than Force Bolt but faster.
Secondary: While charging blocks range fire similar to deflector, but constantly generates peril even when not being hit by ranged fire. The shield can then be fired off at a speed a bit faster than a sprint and it goes off still blocking ranged, bowling enemies aside and doing some damage similar to the current void secondary. Longer charge gives bigger shield, starts off about the size of a slabshield, maxes at about 3 slabshield widths. Can only have one active shield (on staff or fired) at a time.
Special: Short (like VT2 Parry) window where you personally are immune to ranged attack, costs perils.
Crush staff
Primary: Slower firing and moving, larger crushed ball of debris.
Secondary: Similar to Brain Burst but on a stick, it’s a full body crush. Channeled similar to Brain Burst. Slows targeted enemy movement. If the targeted enemy dies (in any way) while the ability is channeled on them they explode as the forces recoil out, damaging, staggering and knocking down enemies around them. Longer channel does more damage. Can do a bit of a burst of damage if primary fire is clicked while channeling but costs more peril and ends the crush. You can move while channeling.
Special: Small, fast and peril costing non-damaging AoE stagger (similar to smaller-than-minimum size trauma)
Although I do understand that if they bring out new classes that focus on other disciplines having a bunch of staves that focuses on one discipline could be a bit jarring but they’re already handwaving that psykers can use other disciplines’ abilities by channelling through the staves.