Poison Staff

One fang always goes exactly where you point and the rest fan out around it. Up close that means nearly the whole burst lands on one target. At range the cone widens enough that most of it sails past. Treat it like a shotgun and close the distance.

Each fang can punch through a couple of bodies before it dies, but every enemy it passes takes a bite out of the damage it is carrying, and that penalty compounds rather than being subtracted once. The fangs also run on a timer, so past a certain distance they simply stop existing instead of slowly falling short.

Worms are the reason to keep it around. A long segmented enemy stacks targets on top of each other, so the piercing gets used properly instead of being wasted on empty air and the whole burst lands on one creature. Against a single compact enemy in an open room it is far less impressive than the spread makes it look.