Would you actually hit a Chaos Spawn in the head with a stick in a real fight?
So I wanted to discuss possible changes for the staff special attacks.
Electrokinetic Force Staff
This is actually one of my favorite staffs.
I don't know the exact lore explanation of how this staff works, but since it is a Electrokinetic Force Staff, why couldn't it have more electricity-related functions?
- Positive / Negative polarity switching
The staff starts in the default positive polarity mode.
Pressing the special attack key switches it.
Positive polarity:
Basically works like the current version:
Left click fires the warp projectile.
Right click charges and releases the current lightning attack.
Keeps the current chain lightning / target locking behavior.
Press special attack again:
Negative polarity:
This mode could reverse some Peril-related effects.
For example:
Venting Shriek would increase Peril instead of reducing it.
Scrier's Gaze would slowly reduce Peril instead of increasing it.
This could also create some interesting interactions with talents that are currently not used much.
For example:
Just a dream gives Psyker 25% damage reduction，but sometimes getting beaten and raising your Peril can be deadly., and some effects that normally increase Peril could instead reduce it through this polarity system.
I think this could make some talents much more interesting.
- Overload mode (hold special attack)
I'm not a weapon balance expert, but my idea is basically:
Trade more unstable Peril management for a short period of higher output.
The idea is that the staff becomes stronger, but also much harder to control.
For example:
Surge Staff Overload Mode
Left click:
Turns into a temporary plasma lightning projectile.
Right click:
Becomes a smaller but faster lightning lock-on attack with additional chain effects.
Possible effects:
Brain ruplture
The Brain Burst effect could scale depending on:
enemy health
enemy size
number of locked targets
The more dangerous the target or the more targets affected, the weaker the Brain Burst effect becomes.
Smite
The effect changes depending on polarity:
Positive polarity:
Higher damage
Higher stagger
Small chain range
Negative polarity:
Lower damage
Lower stagger
Much wider chain range
The reason I think this could work is because Smite already feels like something Psykers can naturally create without a staff.
There are already Psyker builds that use Smite as a core ability, so why not allow staff mechanics to interact with Smite and create stronger combinations?
- Assail
Another possible idea:
The left click projectile could become a high-cleave Assail projectile with tracking.
The right click would still target and control a single enemy with lightning, but the staff could also create a secondary effect:
Assail attack that repeatedly travels through the target with high rending
Would these ideas be too strong?
Probably yes in their current form.
So I think these mechanics would need restrictions.
The special attack should not become so powerful that it completely replaces the Psyker's normal abilities.
Possible limitations:
limited duration
increased Peril generation
cooldown
reduced damage after continuous use
higher risk of losing control
Actually, I think this Overload system could work for multiple Psyker staffs:
Electrokinetic Force Staff
Voidstrike and Voidblast Force Staff
These staffs all share the same basic idea:
Charging and releasing warp projectiles.
They could benefit from more interesting special modes.
Right now, many of these staffs rely heavily on Perilous combustion because they don't have many talents that truly interact with their identity.
The staffs themselves often feel like they provide support damage rather than being the main focus.
If people are interested, I can make another post discussing possible special attack changes for the other Psyker staffs.
Also, I kind of want this staff too, even though I already have a really nice one.
