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Is there any reason to take this ability? Tervigon can only use 1 psychic ability a turn, and since onslaught it a psychic shooting attack, it cant target an enemy unit with another shooting weapon, or assault that turn. Plus that gives up catalyst (FNP) on a friendly unit as well.

I feel that Catalyst is superior to giving a unit the ability to shoot up to 6in more, plus it opens up a shooting attack from the tervi and potential an assault or what not.

is this the same feeling community wide, or am i looking at this wrong?

Side note, stinger salvo or cluster spines?

Pretty much everyone takes Catalyst - unless you're running the full 5 Tervi's, in which case you can afford to grab an Onslaught to get Zoans in range sooner.

I like cluster spines, but it seems a lot of people don't like the fact they can scatter back on your gants.

Never really use either TBH. Scatter issues when that close are a problem, so stinger salvo for me. Often I run in the shooting phase, especially if I have cast catalyst on genestealers and need to keep in range.

Note that if you did use onslaught you couldn't use either as onslaught is a psychic shooting attack made on a friendly unit.

Onslaught has its uses due primarily to the short ranged nature of Tyranid shooting. 18" range on zoanthropes warp lance got you down? That d6 helps. Hive Guard also benefits in some situations, dawn of war or against fast armies. Helps if you happen to run devgants.

It also helps you get the most out of Tyrannofexes and dakkafexes, getting all their shooting into play and letting them sit in front of your tervigons and not slow down the march toward center table (where most tyranid armies want to be).

It does indeed suffer from some drawbacks, mostly giving up catalyst (loss of shooting hurts, assault not as much frankly). I think it has its place in an army with atleast 3 tervigons and the other units mentioned above.

ive used it to first turn pummel a monolith with zoans, and to get multi-template MC's with thorax flamers into range

it isn't really useful though. catalyst is much better.