The Academy Glintstone Staff is easily one of the best staffs you can find in Elden Ring. It is in the possession of a sorcerer named Thops who is rather easy to find. However, getting the staff from him is anything but.
Thops will want you to get the Academy Glintstone Key in exchange for the Academy Glintstone Staff in Elden Ring. That key, though, is pretty difficult to acquire.
Academy Glintstone Staff location in Elden Ring
The Academy Glintstone Staff location in Elden Ring is in the Church of Irith where you first meet Thops in the Liurnia of the Lakes. His location is marked as a yellow circle.
When you speak with Thops and give him 10 Runes, he will open up as a Sorcery vendor.
When you ask about the Academy Glintstone Key, he will tell you that he intends to use the key to go back to sorcery school to learn more about sorcery. He doesn’t share the location of the Academy Glintstone Key which means you’ll have to find it yourself.
To acquire the key you will have to fast travel to the Debate Parlor site of Grace in the Academy of Raya Lucaria, marked as the red circle. Here move north until you are out of the academy.
When out, turn left and move up the ruins and then up the stairs which are facing north. On the stairs, there will be a lot of Glintstone Sorcerers who will attack you.
Turn left and you will see a railing in front of you. Climb down and then continue up the stairs again. Here you will encounter another Glintstone Sorcerer attacking you. Turn left again when you have climbed the stairs, and you will find a corpse on the railing. Jump down from that railing onto a rooftop.
Move along the length of the rooftop until you find two Marionette Soldiers. Next to them, there will be a ladder. The soldiers have bows and arrows and will attack you if you climb the stairs, so kill them before continuing onwards.
On the roof of the building, move on forward along the bridge (facing west). On it, you will find the three Avionette soldiers and one Glintstone sorcerer which will attack you. On the end of the bridge, go to the back of the building using the ledge and jump down onto another rooftop.
After jumping onto the rooftop, turn right and jump down until you cannot move in that direction. After that turn left (facing west) and jump down two rooftops until you reach a ledge.
Move along the ledge until you are facing north and jump to another building with a soldier on it. this is the Church of Cuckoo. When at the Church look for a broken window and jump inside.
When inside the roof of the building, move about using the planks and very carefully descend the planks to the chandelier with a glowing object on it. The object is the Academy Glintstone Key. Go down and collect it. the whole journey is mapped out as follows.
Go back to Thops and give him the Academy Glintstone Key. He will reward you with the Erudition Gesture and nothing else for now.
Now to get the Academy Glintstone Staff from him, you will have to travel to the Schoolhouse Classroom Site of Grace, marked as the red circle in the picture above. Get out of the room through the arch to the west and then turn around to find Thops lying dead in a chair. Loot his corpse and you will find the Thops Bell Bearing, Thops’ Barrier, and the Academy Glintstone Staff.
Alternatively, you can get the Academy Glintstone Staff by killing Thops when you meet him in the Church. After you have killed him there, you will get only the Academy Glintstone Staff and Thops’ Bell Bearing.
Academy Glintstone Staff upgrades and stats
The Academy Glintstone Staff is an upgradeable staff but the requirements to wield this staff tell us that it is primarily made for sorcerers. To wield it, the player needs an intelligence of 28 and a strength of 6. Other than that, this is a powerful staff without an FP cost downside.
The Academy Glintstone Staff requires regular reinforcements with the Smithing Stones and the Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone. The stats of the Academy Glintstone Staff are as follows.
Attack Power
Physical attack: 25
Scales up to a maximum of 43
Sorcerer Scaling: 130 – 181
Increases up to 190 – 345
Critical: 100
Guarding power
Physical Defense: 25
Magic Defense: 15
Fire defense: 15
Lightening defense: 15
Holy defense: 15
Boost: 15
Is Academy Glintstone Staff better than Meterorite staff?
The Academy Glintstone staff is much superior to the Meteorite Staff because of several reasons.
The Academy Glintstone Staff is a mid-game staff and it has better-attacking power and uses less FP than the Meteorite Staff. The Meteorite staff is an early-game staff with a better physical attack.
The Academy staff is upgradeable while the Meteorite staff is not. The Academy Staff can be infused with Asher of War while the Meteorite staff cannot.
The Meteorite Staff has better Sorcery Scaling than the Academy Glintstone Staff but it cannot be buffed using magic or consumables, like that of the Academy Glintstone Staff.
The Meterorite Staff gets outperformed in the late game by the one which can be upgraded and buffed i.e the Academy Glintstone Staff.
