Staff of the Guilty | Elden Ring Wiki

Does this drop from the one thorn sorcerer that drops the Briars of Sin spell in Liurnia of the Lakes? The page says that it drops from sorcerers that have burning staves and not just smoking ones, and that one sorcerer does have a burning staff, but it's kind of a unique enemy and it's not listed as one that can drop the staff.

Submit

Should scale with int/arc instead.

Submit

Needs a buff badly

Submit

A faith build with at least 10 int does consistent damage with every elemental type because of this staff

Submit

The sorcery scaling of this staff is way too low, especially compared to all the other staves, it needs to be buffed to be viable. At 80 faith you should have something like 355 instead of 305.

Submit

Sad little tree branch, you could've been a whole oak, but two of the four aberrant sorceries are exclusively for the mobs maybe in dlc.

Submit

Slap spinning weapon on this for bleed build up. Hear me out boys, new challenge run...

Submit

I got 2 of it at Guardian's Garrison yesterday. Without farming, just killing all enemies. So I guess that's a good spot to get it.

Submit

You use this to min-max for briar spells, I use it to cast carian slicer on my faith build. We are not the same.

Submit

This staff is underrated. I use this staff with my faith-based Bubble Build since it scales better with high faith. The Great Oracular Bubble sorcery is infinitely better than the bubble that comes out of the Envoy's Greathorn, but I don't want to invest in intelligence/arcane just to cast that one spell and it be powerful enough to be viable. If you have high faith, and as long as you have at least 25 INT and 18 ARC, this staff paired with the Great Oracular Bubble spell is much more effective than the Greathorn's weapon art since it uses my faith to boost the sorcery damage instead of intelligence.

Submit

You can get this to drop early from the same Thorn Sorcerer you got the sorcery, Briars of Sin, from in Liurnia of the Lakes. Took me around two dozen tries at 148 discovery.

Submit

Honestly one of the downsides of this is that the two thorn sorceries are just kind of... terrible. You can get similar status effects on spells that are much less unwieldy and more reliable and more versatile if you're going for any sort of int/fth hybrid build between swarm of flies, cold sorceries, and the various dragon breaths.

Submit

Lot of comments indicating that this staff is useless, but that's really not entirely true. If you're primarily a faith caster, only splashing enough INT to gain access to some utility cast sorceries, this ends up being a decent choice for those. (Glintstone Arc, Scholar's Armament/Shield, etc.)

Obviously, for more developed hybrid casters you're likely to gain more benefit from Prince of Death or Gelmir, but at 50 Fth no other staff will scale as nicely until you hit 26 INt (at which point Gelmir takes lead) - and at 60 faith, no other staff scales as well until you hit 33 INT, at which point Prince of Death takes lead.

Submit

Sorcery scaling with faith, the staff support sorcery scaling with Arc. Wtf is this

Submit

They should just remove Albinauric staff and let this one do what it does as well as boost thorn sorc. Too much redundant crap in this game that is useless.

Submit

So the Scholars Weapon spell says it only buffs with the int section of sorcery scaling. So what happens if you use this to cast it?

Submit

Does this staff stack with itself?

Submit

In my opinion this staff should have given a boost to the bleed build up of thorn spells in addition to its current damage bonus

Submit

The Thorn Sorceror who drops Briars of Sin near the Church of Vows can drop it, too.

Submit

Alright... I'ma blow your minds with two facts:
1- the Staff is made from the same stuff that killed the giants that died before the Shattering, which you can see right before the arena of the Fire Giant. I personally believe these to be a form of Death affliction like the ones spewed from the Basilisks.
2- there is a creature killed for the red glintstone. It appears to be a small rodent. Kinda like the jumping squirrels hopping around in the game.

Submit

Fextra could really use some better curation on their pages with descriptions like this:

"Using this staff as a Arc/Str build, 50/36 allows to use the Marais Executioner's Sword and Mohgwyn's Sacred Spear with good damage, and at 24 Faith you have access to the blood incantations, eksykes decay and the thorn spells, lot of options, though this staff (and the thorn spells) should scale with arc as well"

Like first off, that build makes zero sense and doesn't have any real synergy, also maybe don't tell Fromsoft how to design this staff when an ARC scaling staff already exists (the Albinauric Staff).

Submit

It greatly annoys me this staff does not have the special attack the briars use with it as a unique Ash of War

Submit

Does this drop from thorn Sorcerers near the church of vows?

Submit

Hmm. You know, I overlooked this thing. Much like how Int can use Frenzied Flame Seal to cast the rare useful int-incantations like Law of Regression, so too can faith cast sorceries with this. The catch is that sorceries just don't have a lot of low-level spells worth casting, and it would defeat the purpose of a faith-scaling staff to use non-scaling sorceries like Frozen Weapon or Terra Magica (for those Glintstone breath buffs, lol). But spellcasting bleed options are usually limited to Flies, so this does open up some options if Bloodboon and Bloodflame Talons aren't cutting it.

Submit

hehehe it looks like it has a marshmallow on it

Submit

From soft really missed the mark with intellect/faith hybrid builds. They really should do some adjustments when DLC drops. The set up is there, they just dropped the ball on scaling and damage for death and blood sorcery. Magma sorcery is decent, but the gelmir staff is garbage. Prince of death staff needs better scaling without investing 80/80 into intellect/faith. Death sorceries need to be expanded upon. The rancor spells are great because you can charge them and they have great tracking, but their damage makes a hybrid build completely inferior in comparison to a pure sorcerer. Pure intellect has a plethora of choices in staves and sorceries. Multiple choices in boss shredding spells. Comet Azur and Meteor can absolutely destroy the elden beast even. Why isn’t there a death or magma sorcery that can do similar? Sword of night and flame is such a cool weapon and can do extreme damage, but trying to match the build with sorcery just makes it feel completely inferior. How can ancient death rancor and rykards rancor compete with comet, comet azur, night comet or, Loretta’s mastery? the list goes on… hope they fix it.

Submit

Of course the staff that boosts thorn sorceries is the ugly one.

Submit

Does this drop from the blood flame guys in liurnia?

Submit

This should scale int too idk why they made a staff thats only good for 2 spells makes no sense

Submit

I really wish the one staff in the game that scaled solely with faith had a more holy look to it. This is ironically one of the most evil looking staves.

Submit

There's a lot of wrong/confusing info on this page, after testing this staff at +24 with multiple respecs I can say the following:

Both the physical attack and sorcery scaling are increased by Faith stat.
It has no scaling on any other stat, despite the fact it shows Strength scaling it actually has none at all, there is no difference in physical damage or sorcery scaling between 10 Strength and 80 Strength (most likely a bug).
Bleed buildup on this staff only applies to the physical attack, sorcery will not proc bleed when cast with this, and bleed buildup does not increase with Arcane.
The 20% boost to Thorn Sorceries provides less benefit to high Arcane players than casting those sorceries with Albinauric Staff, since the Arcane scaling on that staff increases the bleed buildup of those sorceries while this staff does not.

TLDR : This staff is a niche weapon for high Faith players to access sorceries with low INT requirements, or as an offhand weapon when casting Thorn Sorceries

Submit

Is the carian slicer gonna proc bled as well casting with this staff?

Submit

The thing at the end of the staff is a small sacrificed animal but I can’t help but see it as a roasted marshmallow from the inventory icon

Submit

Questions:

Why can't this also cast Incantations? Given the enemies its from use both Blood Thorn Sorceries as well as Fire Giant Incantations.

Why doesn't this have a WA that's the flaming bloodthorn whip attack that the enemies that drop this use?

Submit

As I can't see it listed anywhere here... It boosts Thorn Sorceries by 20%.

Meanwhile, what's with the recent comments about this scaling with Arc (As well as notes and tips including a comment about using this in a Str/Arc build) when it scales with Fth not Arc?

Submit

I wish theyd modify this staff to also buff Blood Incantations since all 2 Thorn Sorceries have Faith requirements on them and this weapon scales on Arcane and the Blood Incants require Arcane to cast. This would increase your array of available spells and incants to use if you were to run a Blood Mage sort of build that heavily relies on casting spells and incants.

Submit

Using this staff as a Arc/Str build, 50/36 allows to use the Marais Executioner sword and Mohg's Spear with good damage, and at 24 faith you have access to the blood incantations, eksykes decay and the thorn spells, lot of options, though this staff (and the thorn spells) should scale with arc as well

Submit

I'm having an absolute blast with Thorn Sorceries, I hope they add more in DLC, perhaps "Briars of Incineration", a melee spell sort of like the fiery one Thorn Sorcerers use, or "Ensnaring Briars" which can be placed down like a trap that does high poise damage to whoever steps on it. Probably wishful thinking but only 2 spells is a little low, hopefully they flesh them out a bit, and give us more Alberich lore, his design is so cool.

Submit

"causes slight blood loss buildup" at 45 vs. Bloodstained Dagger's "causes blood loss buildup" at 38
Yes, both are lower than the blood affinity's boost or Reduvia's innate blood loss thing, but that's just funny.

Submit

I made a pure faith sorcerer build that uses this. Really confuses people when i combo glintblade phalanx into prelate’s charge. Niche usage but it fits that niche well.

Submit

Does the buff work in the off hand?

Submit

Confirmed this can be dropped by the lone slug fire sorcerer in Liurnia of the Lakes, north of artist shack.

Submit

Gonna use and upgrade this on my Pure faith build just to weird people out by casting glintstone pebble after throwing out a bunch of incantations.

Submit

I am entirely fine with the fact that it can't cast both. I just want there to be a hotbar so I don't have to cycle through all of my spells as I wield a seal and this thing.

Submit

To those who haven't figured it out. Only the mobs with that have the staff on fire can actually drop the staff.
This means you can farm the one that drops the thorn sorcery in Liurna, north of the Artist's Shack grace.

Submit

Will scholars armament scale with faith if you use this staff or is it just intelligence only no matter what?

Submit

Why would you ever use this over the Gelmir or Prince of Deaths? Perhaps if you were just doing pure faith and wanted to use the Briars of Sin and Punishment, but I feel like they missed an opportunity with this staff. The blood sorcerers who utilize this have much more thorn sorceries then what is offered in this game. They could have added the Fire/Thorn Slash that the sorcerers use as innate weapon art for this staff as well, similar to how the preachers right arm in DS3 had an innate special sorcery weapon art.

Submit

Looks like a twig someone's using to roast smores

Submit

2% base drop is so much better than locking it behind an early late game boss. Welcome back, Golden Ritual Spear.

Submit

Does this staff make sorceries scale with faith even in off hand?

Submit

Kinda wish we had more than two thorn sorceries.

Submit

Just wanted to farm smoldering butterflies from these ladies and I kept getting this silly looking staff that I don't want.

Submit

You can put Spinning Weapon on this staff and I’m fairly certain it would activate blood loss

Submit

Stuff with no int?

Submit

It would be cool as hell for this to turn glintstone sorcery red because it’s turning blood into glintstone

Submit

I received both the Staff of the Guilty and the Briars of Sin in the same drop so I thought they were both a guaranteed drop, but on a second attempt I only got the Sorcery. I've been trying to farm the staff for hours off the same enemy. T_T

Submit

does the thorn sorceries damage buff stack if you hold 2 of these?

Submit

I see a lot of potential in this item, it may not have the same incredible potential that the Tin Darkmoon Catalyst did in DS1, then again only requiring 16 Intelligence for the most broken spell in the game (Dark Bead) tends to do that. But there are a good number of spells that are pretty low in the Intelligence requirement.

Spells available with 16 Intelligence:
1. Glintstone Pebble
2. Glintstone Stars
3. Carian Slicer
4. Night Maiden's Mist (worth mentioning even if it doesn't do damage in a traditional sense)
5. Magic Glintblade
6. Scholar's Shield
7. Magic Downpour
8. Glintstone Icecrag/Great Glintstone Shard
9. Unseen Form (great utility)

18 Intelligence:
1. Night Shard
2. Rock Sling
3. Lucidity (great utility)
4. Gravity Well

22 Intelligence:
1. Rock Blaster (got buffed apparently)
2. Glintblade Phalanx
3. Freezing Mist

At this point it's IMO best to not level Intelligence further, however with the Stargazer's Herloom can get you up to 27 Intelligence from here which gets you:
1. Cannon of Haima
2. Gavel of Haima
3. Loretta's Greatbow
4. Carian Greatsword
5. Ambush Shard
6. Star Shower
7. Shard Spiral

In total at 22 Intelligence you get 31 additional sorceries that you can use with this on top of the two that this synergizes with. You also get Order's Blade and Immutable Shield with this as well. Hopefully this gets formatted correctly and not turns into one giant wall of text.

Submit

From a mainly PVP perspective: I don't think this staff is good per se, but I do think it's usable and definitely misunderstood. Don't make a blood mage build, you get 2 okay spells that don't even do that much damage. This staff is for people who already have a faith build and want to dip their toe into sorcery.

Drop a few points into int or even just equip the Starscourge Heirloom and you hit reqs for a couple really solid spells like swift shard, magic glintblade, carian slicer, arc, and of course pebble. Between the two aberrant spells, briars of sin is probably better because it combos out of shard/pebble/glintblade to reduce the casting time and snag people who charge in when they see you casting.

I love using this thing, what I think people are missing is the weird unique cross-synergy between certain sorceries/incantations/faith WAs that you'd never be able to do otherwise. Glintblade spam into gold breaker / takers flames / establish order for example, or bestial sling into carian slicer if youve got quick fingers. I sorta wish int builds had a kind-of-meh int-scaling-only sacred seal so that they could experience something similar.

Submit

10 arcane and no item discovery boost:

~280k runes = ~740 kills (377 runes per kill - Fort Laiedd) = 2 staff of the guilty

0,27% drop rate...

And 170 smoldering butterfly. (~23% drop rate).

Submit

Confirming the fact that staff drops from a staff monk whi drops briars of sin spell near Eastern Tableland.

Submit

So these sorceries are purely for faith builds without investing in intelligence?

Submit

I tested it for me it gave 20 % bonus on thorn magic in offhand and main hand the albinauric staff

Submit

If you want to use Thorn Sorceries, use the Albinauric Staff. The arcane scaling on the Albinauric staff will increase bleed, and at 45 Int and 45 Arcane the Sorcery scaling is dramatically better than Staff of the Guilty even at high faith. Even with points spent in Faith to meet requirements, the Albinauric staff is usually more efficient than other hybrid glintstone staves as well as benefitting more from Marika's Soreseal, Silver Tear Mask Godrick's Rune etc. Staff of the Guilty can still boost the damage of Thorn Sorceries just by having it equipped, so keep it on your offhand and cast with the Albinauric staff instead.

This staff is still decent as it allows Faith builds to cast low Int sorceries with Faith scaling, which can be situationally helpful.

At 80 faith, Staff of the Guilty is better for sorceries at 22 int and below, otherwise Prince of Death is better.

At 60 faith, Staff of the Guilty is better for sorceries at 32 int and below, otherwise Prince of Death is better.

Submit

Surprisingly good for lvl 60-80 PvP. 14 INT is enough to get you access to some of the best PVP sorceries in the game to supplement Thorn spells. At 14 INT, you have Carian Slicer, Swift Glintstone Shard, Magic Glintblade, and other, more niche spells. Briars of Punishment makes a good substitute for your typical hard-hitting ranged attack, with great range, solid damage, being harder to see, and surprisingly, it crosses gaps invisibly and can surprise people on the other side. Briars of Sin is PHENOMENAL at close range to wipe the floor with overly aggressive players, and you can chain Briars of Punishment, Swift Glintstone Shard, and most usefully, Carian Slicer into Briars of Sin to surprise people with big damage out of nowhere. None of these spells use much FP at all so you can literally use like 15 mind on this build. Don't listen to people who sell this thing short, yes it's suboptimal at higher levels, maybe needs a buff, but it has its place right now where it performs very respectably.

Submit

Confirmed being dropped by enemies near Whiteridge Road

Submit

If you are a pure faith build running 80 faith, this staff isn't absolutely a terrible idea. You get access to buffed thorn spells, as well as being able to cast some of the low level sorceries at decent levels of damage.

Submit

Why does a staff exist for the sole purpose of boosting 2 sorceries? Unless they plan on adding more thorn magic I just don't see why you'd use this.

Submit

At 60 faith, this gets S scaling at +25 for sorc scaling of 271. Don't know how that compares to other staves but the Erdtree Seal is 273 incant scaling with the same character stats.

Submit

Don't waste your time in Liurna. Farm this outside Fort Laiedd.

Submit

This staff could be so fun if you didn't have to jump through so many hoops just to have it perform below average. I really hope From Soft reworks Guilty to have some ARC scaling so that FAITH/ARC builds can make use of it as a mirror to the dragon communion seal, without needing to invest in another staff just for the bleed to proc and extra INT to reach decent scaling. Or just make it a hybrid weapon so Guilty can at least cast incantations as is..

So many stats and tools just to make it and the thorn spells compete, and THEN they're expensive to cast as well. Sucks cause the Alberich's drip goes hard and the faith-based sorceries are a fun concept and they actually look cool. RIP Blasphemous Bloodmage

Submit

it doesn't scale with arcane at all? :( why

Submit

This really should just have the same scaling as the Dragon Communion Seal; can't take advantage of the bleed component of thorn sorceries without Arcane scaling.

Submit

unique moment of this staff - with ash of war we get bloodlost for 2 or 3 activations.

Submit

Can confirm that the one just outside to the north of Fort Laid drops it as well. Next to the soldier battling the monk.

Submit

Isn't Guardian's Garrison a better farming place?

Submit

Can confirm you can get this from the guys near Seethewater Terminus. 23 arc plus silver foot got it fairly easily.

Submit

Need 99 arcan, silver scarab for found...i take 3 staff

Submit

Got this to drop fairly easily actually. Just kept attacking the fire witch outside of Fort Laiedd. I think I got it on maybe my 3rd round of killing them? Had the silver scarab equipped and only 16 arcane so? Idk that's RNG for you.

Submit

Got this to drop fairly easily actually. Just kept attacking the fire witch outside of Fort Laiedd. I think I got it on maybe my 3rd round of killing them? Had the silver scarab equipped and only 16 arcane so? Idk that's RNG for you.

Submit

So sad it scales on faith and is not usable on my pure int build... literally the best staff, both looking and the only one with bleed :C

Submit

I’m not entirely sure if I was just insanely lucky but from the seethwater Terminus site of grave I headed straight climbed up the rocks kept heading straight then when I hit the wooden fences I made a left (south) to see a few cultist fighting soldiers, killed them and one dropped it on my first try. No item discovery Equiptment was in use at all.

Submit

Can confirm this indeed drops from the same lady that gives you Briar Of Sin when you kill her in Liurnia, Eastern Tableland grace. Took me about 44 minutes, but that's RNG for you. Don't think the other witches around could drop it, her staff is uniquely different from the rest so I didn't bother farming them.

Submit

Confirmation: It drops in Liurna. BUT this is important: Only 1 of the firemonks actually drops it. All others DO not. The one that drops the sorcery also is able to drop the staff. She is standing next to 2 fireslugs. All others in this area DO NOT drop this staff. I've been farming hundreds for hours until I noticed that. Saving you the trouble hopefully. If you want to farm in Liurna, only kill the one next to the slugs.

Submit

it's the red withes at the fort i used a silver-pickled fowl foot and got it in 2 tries

Submit

Is this staff at 40/80 INT/Faith better for death/magma spells than PoD Staff at 60/60 or not?

Submit

What is a Red-Robed Cultist? do they mean the FIre Witches? i've been killing everything for 30 minutes around leidd and have not got a single drop

Submit

Anyone know, how much boost we get from this stuff?

Submit

Allows any sorcery to scale with faith stat; the issue is the required intelligence to cast most spells not meshing well with this staff.
Sorceries and Incantations scale with their staff and seals respectively, and simply have stat requirements to be used in the first place. If you ever wanted to be a "Holy Sorcerer" kind of archetype or "Bloodmage" this is the weapon for you.

Submit

This staff needs to be able to cast sorceries and incantations, or at least make bloodflame spells into sorceries. Idk what the devs were thinking to make 2 blood sorceries and 4 blood incantations. Just makes any type of bloodmage harder to pull off :(

Submit

You actually can apply "spinning weapon" ash of war to this staff

Submit

I'd be interested to see what's more effective with a 24 faith 45 arcane set up. This or albinauric. Probably the latter.

Submit

This gives Faith builds the option to use Glintstone Pebble with decence effectiveness. Just for that alone it's pretty neat.

Submit

If you have 60 INT and 60 FTH, is this the best staff for Sor Scaling?

Submit

Can confirm it drops from the fire witch who drops briars of sin in liurnia just between church of vows and artist shack graces. To the left where the fire witch will have 2 fire slugs. But she is the only one I've seen in the zone so far so might take a while to farm as it is most likely a rare drop.

Submit

For those that don’t fully understand this is for characters that are using incantations and have really high faith but have enough I intelligence to use some basic sorceries, this staff gets S in faith and C in strength so on a paladin build this thing ROCKS for some less intensive sorceries that only require a little sorcery

Submit

should have been a sacred seal that boosts blood incantations along with the thorn sorceries being blood incantations.

very strange that something like the cold sorceries have no catalyst but these super niche spells do? very confusing.

Submit

I can't see a good use for this staff. If you level faith enough to use this, incantations seem more worthwhile than two bleed spells that don't scale with arcane.

Submit

Can anyone confirm/deny if you can get the armor from the enemies this weapon drops from?

Submit

I want this staff for the sole reason that it looks vaguely like it's roasting a marshmallow over a campfire

Submit