Magic swords, homing missiles, full-on energy beams—Elden Ring sorcerers have their pick of some very cool options for nuking the game's toughest bosses from afar. Time to slam points into intelligence and collect those glintstone spells. With more magical spell variety than any previous Souls game, the Lands Between is a wizarding world ripe for the taking.
If you start Elden Ring with one of the magic classes, you'll already have an adequate staff to get you going. Unlike most RPGs, the weapons you start Elden Ring with can carry you all the way to the end. But they're not the best weapons in the game.
Once you're a few hours into Elden Ring, the best way to boost your damage is finding a better staff (and then upgrading it as much as you can). It'll make a bigger impact than leveling up. So why settle for decent when you can find the best staff, fit for a sorcerer supreme?
"Best" in this case encompasses a few options, depending on how far you are into Elden Ring and what kind of magic you plan to use. Elden Ring has around 70 sorcery spells, split between offensive attacks, assist spells, and defensive buffs. Different staves specialize in different styles of magic, so each staff below is the best Elden Ring staff for a different playstyle. Here's where, when, and how to get 'em.
For more suggestions on how to equip your sorcerer, check out our Elden Ring builds guide.
Best early game Elden Ring staff
The best early game Elden Ring staff: Meteorite Staff
Requirements: 16 strength💪, 18 intelligence🧠
Passive bonus: Boosts gravity sorceries
Location: Street of Sages Ruin, Caelid
If you start as a sorcerer class like the Astrologer or Prisoner, you can do just fine with your starter staff. It'll offer modest intelligence scaling at first, but upgrading it a single time with smithing stones will bump you from C to B scaling, giving your spells a bit more damage. At +8 the Astrologer's staff hits A scaling, and at +9 the Prisoner's staff hits A scaling. But I recommend you can forget about scrounging for smithing stones and grab a better early game staff, the Meteorite staff, as long as you're brave enough to venture into Caelid to get it. This is easily the fastest and best way to give your early magic damage a huge lift.
The Meteorite Staff is a great early game staff because it starts with S intelligence scaling and requires only 18 int to wield. It's not upgradeable, which means its damage will fall off later in the game, but it's a blessing for the early game, giving you high damage output from the start and letting you save up all your smithing stones to upgrade later staves.
How to find the Meteorite Staff in Elden Ring
1. From Limgrave, venture east to explore the red, apocalyptic part of the Lands Between called Caelid. Most enemies here will be too strong to fight until much later in the game, so do your best to avoid them. Follow the road from Limgrave through Caelid, first picking up the Shack of the Rotting site of grace just south of the road, then continuing along it to find the Caelem Ruins site of grace, Smoldering Wall site of grace and eventually, in central Caelid, the Astray from Caelid Highway North site of grace.
2. From Astray from Caelid Highway north travel straight east and you'll shortly arrive at the swamp at the heart of Caelid. In the northwestern part of the swamp you'll find the Street of Sages ruins.
3. Look in the windows of the ruins until you spot a corpse hanging from one with an item on it. Grab the item to obtain the Meteorite Staff.
Best all-around Elden Ring staff
The best all-around Elden Ring staff: Carian Regal Scepter
Requirements: 8 strength💪, 10 dexterity🏃♂️, 60 intelligence🧠
Passive bonus: Boosts full moon sorceries
Location: Obtained from the Remembrance of the Full Moon Queen
If you want to be the best sorcerer you can be, you're going to need to dump a ton of levels into intelligence: 60, specifically, to use this staff. The Carian Regal Scepter is a reward for defeating Rennala, one of Elden Ring's five major bosses. It can be upgraded to +10 with Somber Smithing Stones, and once you get your hands on it you'll want to upgrade it to at least +5 to increase its intelligence scaling to S tier.
This royal scepter offers a passive damage boost to full moon sorceries, but there are only a couple of these in the game, so you likely aren't wielding it for that bonus. You're using it for the excellent damage scaling on intelligence without the tradeoffs of some other staves. If you want to go full nuclear, there's one more choice below.
How to find the Carian Regal Scepter in Elden Ring
1. Defeat Rennala, the Full Moon Queen at the Academy of Raya Lucaria. Beating this boss will give you the Remembrance of the Full Moon Queen item.
2. Trade in the Remembrance at the Roundtable Hold to obtain the Carian Regal Scepter.
Best Elden Ring staff for max damage
The best Elden Ring staff for max damage: Lusat's Glintstone Staff
Elden Ring guide: Conquer the Lands Between
Elden Ring map fragments: Reveal the world
Elden Ring weapons: Arm yourself
Elden Ring armor: The best sets
Elden Ring Smithing Stone: Upgrade your gear
Elden Ring Ashes of War: Where to find them
Elden Ring classes: Which to choose
Requirements: 10 strength💪, 52 intelligence🧠
Passive bonus: N/A
Location: Sellia, Town of Sorcery in Caelid
Despite the slightly lower intelligence requirement than the Carian Regal Scepter, don't let this staff fool you: it's a late-game weapon. Lusat's Glintstone Staff seems to offer higher damage scaling than any other staff in the game, and hits S tier scaling on intelligence at just +3. Upgrade it to +10 with Somber Smithing Stones to really pump out the damage. But there's a catch: Lusat's Glintstone Staff also makes spells consume more FP to balance out its higher damage output.
That's why this is a weapon you likely won't want to use early in the game: you're going to need to pump points into your Mind stat to upgrade your FP pool, in addition to hitting that 52 intelligence requirement. Of course, you could also go light on healing flasks and go heavy on Flasks of Cerulean Tears to keep your FP supply topped up, so long as you don't get hit.
The item description on Lusat's Glintstone Staff is confusing and makes it sound like the staff should offer some sort of passive damage boost to spells, but it really just offers higher damage scaling than any other staff when fully maxed out at +10. Again, the trade-off is spells costing significantly more FP. It's best used to deal burst damage to bosses, especially combined with a special item like a Cerulean Hidden Crystal Tear in your Flask of Wondrous Physic, which lets you cast spells for 10 seconds without consuming any FP. With enough int, sometimes 10 seconds is all you need.
How to find Lusat's Glinstone Staff in Elden Ring
1. Journey to Selia, Town of Sorcery in eastern Caelid. This area is tied into Millicent's quest in Elden Ring, which you can start by talking to the NPC at Gowry's Shack just south of the town.
2. You'll learn from Gowry that you need to light the fires at the top of the towers in Selia to open its magically sealed doors.
3. Once done, you can fight the area boss, the Nox Priest and Nox Swordstress duo.
4. Defeat them and open the chest in the small room at the rear of the boss chamber to find Lusat's Glintstone Staff in a chest.
Best Elden Ring staff for Arcane magic
The best Elden Ring staff for Arcane magic: Albinauric Staff
Requirements: 6 strength💪, 10 intelligence🧠, 12 arcane 🔮
Passive bonus: N/A
Location: Volcano Manor
There's one simple reason to use the Albinauric Staff: You've decided to spec into Arcane, rather than Intelligence. If you really dig Elden Ring's arcane incantations or are running a bleed build and want to cast a bit of magic on the side, you can use this staff, which scales primarily on arcane instead of intelligence. At a full +25 upgrade it'll still hit B tier intelligence scalilng, but it's S-tier on arcane scaling from +19.
How to find the Albinauric Staff in Elden Ring
1. From the Guest Hall site of grace in Volcano manor, take a left out of the door and then the first left down a narrow hallway. Climb up the stairs and exit the room onto a balcony.
2. Jump up onto the roof to your left and then onto the ledge in front of you.
3. Make your way around the corner where you'll see a ladder leading up onto the roof above. Walk straight ahead across the rooftop until you can look down to your right and see a narrow ledge beneath you.
4. Drop down onto the ledge and enter the dark room. You'll see the Albinauric Staff on a body nearby.
