Staff of the Guilty | Elden Ring Wiki

You can spend 2 hours trying to farm for this in Liurna or just wait till you get to Mountain Top of the Giants like me and get it back-to-back without even trying to get it. The game knows when you are looking for items....IT KNOWS!!!!

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At 80 Faith, the Staff of Loss has 305 Sorcery Scaling.

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As a joke I put spinning weapon on this. During the fight with the mimic they showed me something funny. Endure, 2 hand the staff, then spinning weapon.

Is this useful at all? No, not really. But I'm still going to try this during invasions anyway

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I can confirm it still drops in Liurna from the one monk guy who also drops the briars of sin incantation. It can take a while to farm though since the droprate is very low. The first time I farmed it it took me like two hours, yesterday when I farmed it for the second time I was insanely lucky and got it after 5 minutes.

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Faith gets way to much in this game. Why is there no seal that only scales on intelligence. This is unfair :(

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Fun staff- with 18 Int and 80 Faith you get a good mix of spells for your first playthrough. Like to run staff in the main hand and seal on the off-hand.

From Sorceries you'd get solid spells like the 2 thorn sorceries, Rancor Call, Carian slicer, Gravity Well, and Stone Toss

From Incantations you'd get access to the now great Discus of Light, and a great mix of whatever else you want to throw in (Pest Threads, Black Fireball, Pillars of Flame for me).

You'll be a master of damage types for your first playthrough.

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I have tried plenty of mage builds, probably more than anyone, and let me tell you; faith sorceries actually ramp up higher burst DPS than any other builds. Yes, even you, night comet.

You see, what people forget is that faith grants you buffs int builds just don't have access to like howl of shabriri and golden vow which both grant 30% +15% for a total of 49ish% damage and you still get access to magic circle because you will eventually move on to the prince of death staff and you only require 16 for glintstone shard and 20 for terra magicka, which shard only does 25% less damage than comet for a much lower fp cost, meaning you'll be doing about the same damage with buffs and shard than you would with a standard comet build (without the hat) or you could get 24 int for star shower.. at 60 faith with +25 guilty, you get around 260ish scaling vs academy staff's 290ish which is just around a 10% penalty. If you get glintstone stars with 24 int, you'll sacrifice 14 more points assuming you don't lose talismans for a loss of about 40 more scaling adding up to a 22%ish penalty for using a faith staff that is easily remedied by only using golden vow or shabriri howl to blast through what an int build can do . You get access to all elements, all buffs and you can upgrade for gelmir staff if you want to keep int and faith more equal and gain access to those spells as well or go the prince staff route by investing heavily into faith first. This is by far, FAR my favorite mage build, thanks to this staff making it possible rather early game if you rush the thorned cultists for their staff. Oh and .

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The Forbidden Marshmallow on a Stick

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"At 80 Faith, the Staff of Loss has 305 Sorcery Scaling."

Interesting information.

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Is that a finger on the top of the staff

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Wait, wait, the description mention hexes... they made a callback to a previous game?

Elden Ring is in the Souls series confirmed?

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Everyone talking about the lack of arcane scaling, mf this thing is BUGGED! It gets NO BENEFIT from strength at ALL!!!!

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This thing feels like From forgot about it in the alpha stage.

20% bonus on exactly two sorceries. Boosts the only Sorceries in the game that inflict Bleed, but doesn't scale with Arcane, the stat associated with Bleed. Doesn't boost the only sorceries that actually have an Arcane requirement. The failure of this staff and it associated sorceries are the reason Intelligence + Arcane builds barely exist.

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I never noticed that the branches are impaling a little hamster on the end...

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Does dual wielding two of these further increase the thorn sorcery buff? With that plus Alberichs hat, should provide a good buff assuming it’s valid.

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Because comments from May were questioning it: this does in fact still drop in liurna from the specific flame staffed Thorn Sorcerer that drops Briars of Sin, who does respawn.

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I wish this had arc scaling on it. Not a lot, but enough that the thorn spells could benefit from extra bleed.

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Sadly a very poor choice for Scholar's Armament, as even having 0 int scaling won't shift the scaling stat of the buff over.
80 fth on a +9 SotG gives only 75 magic damage.

Goodbye, my silly every-element buffed weapon build, seems I have to pick between solely magic damage or everything but.

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BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD STAR
SKULLS FOR THE SKULL UNIVERSE

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This staff is the complete opposite of Velka's talisman from Dark Souls 1.

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Just realized that the "marshmallow" looking thing pierced through the staff is actually a small sacrificed animal with crystallized glintstone blood spewing from it's belly. Pretty brutal.

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I can confirm that this staff drops from the thorn sorcerer that drops the Briars of Sin spell in Liurnia of the Lakes.

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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.

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Should scale with int/arc instead.

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Needs a buff badly

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

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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?

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Does this staff stack with itself?

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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

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

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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.

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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).

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

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

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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.

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hehehe it looks like it has a marshmallow on it

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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.

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

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Does this drop from the blood flame guys in liurnia?

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

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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.

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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

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

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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

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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?

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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?

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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.

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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

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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.

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"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.

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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.

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Does the buff work in the off hand?

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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Looks like a twig someone's using to roast smores

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

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

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Kinda wish we had more than two thorn sorceries.

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

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

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Stuff with no int?

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

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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

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

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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.

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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.

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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).

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

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

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

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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.

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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.

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Confirmed being dropped by enemies near Whiteridge Road

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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