Staff of Fire


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The Staff of Fire is one of four buildable Elemental Staffs in the Apocalypse DLC map Origins.

The Staff of Fire shoots three balls of molten rock, horizontally, when fired, which will cause zombies near the impact zone to burn, stunning them in pain before either burning up or recovering depending on how close they were to the blast radius; in that case the zombie will definitely die if shot again.

Once upgraded to the Kagutsuchi's Blood, it functions the same as its previous version, except with a bigger blast radius and any zombies hit point blank range will be vaporized. The player can also hold down the firing button in order to charge it up, at the cost of more ammo per charged shot. When charged and released, it fires three fireballs, horizontally like the previous version. However, any zombie nearby will be incinerated and it will last on the floor/wall for a few seconds, before it explodes in a bigger fireball.

Furthermore, the Kagutsuchi's Blood has a melee attack that involves swiping with the spikes on the head of the staff. This attack is a one hit kill until round 16. If Thunderfist is equipped, the Thunderfists melee attack overrides the staff melee attack. If a player has PhD Flopper and dives to prone with the fire staff equipped, the zombies will die by the explosion, but the flop will also create a fire effect that will do extra damage to zombies and leave them burned as well.

After upgrading, it gains a secondary "attachment" called Sekhmet's Vigor which when activated by pressing left on the D-Pad, will cause the player to flip the staff and use the bottom end. This can be used to revive a downed player by "shooting" them directly. The "vigor" is a slow-moving ball, which will travel in a straight line. It is recommended to make your shots count, because it is very easy to miss with this weapon.

How to Obtain
There are three parts of the staff that the player must get, along with an elemental gem needed in order to craft the staff. The player must complete a series of steps receive the parts. In order to receive one part, the player must kill a Panzer Soldat, which will drop a staff part the first time it is killed. Another part is obtained by shooting down a glowing yellow plane from the air; doing so will cause a staff part to drop down. The third staff part is obtained after powering Generator 6, appearing as a reward from the Rituals of the Ancients box nearby.

In order to reach the elemental gem in The Crazy Place, one must first find the red record and the Gramophone. The red record can be found in three places, either on the burning seats in the church, near Generator 6, or on stacked boxes wedged between the Mark IV Tank and the stairs. The Gramophone is always located inside the Excavation Zone, on the floor. Once both are obtained, the player must go into the Fire tunnel, located just to the right of the door to the first (spawn) room when going there from the path from Generator 3, and hold the action button on the table at the end of the tunnel to open the gateway to The Crazy Place. Once there, the player must go to the Fire pedestal and hold the action button to receive the fire elemental gem.

Once all the items are gathered, the player must go down the ramp into the excavation zone and place the gramophone on the table when having the black record, which can be found around the outside of the excavation zone, with one location being right next to the excavation zone sign. After a few seconds, the floor around the center pillar will collapse into a staircase, which will lead you to the bottom. At the very bottom, the player must go to the statue that corresponds with the element and craft the staff there, after which any player can pick up the staff via the action button.

Upgrading the Staff  ;]
Once the player has picked up the Staff of Fire, they must return to The Crazy Place, and solve the riddle located on the Fire part of the map, where the gateway back is located. The player simply has to use the staff to kill zombies while they are on the metal grates in order to light up the nearby cauldrons. One will know it is working when zombies explode into a cloud of smoke on death, and the cauldrons with the symbols will all be lit and once all four are done, an audio cue by Samantha will signify that the riddle has been solved.

Once the riddle in The Crazy Place has been completed, the player must return to the original realm and solve the riddle there. On the basement floor of the church, there are several unlit torches with several numbers on them, along with an unlit torch with a bloodstain below it (which represents the number 4). Using patterns found on the main church floor walls, the player must convert those patterns using the ternary numeral system into numbers. Using the symbols that are lit up and having converted them, the player must now use the Staff of Fire to light up the corresponding torches in the basement. The symbols (from left to right) are: 11, 5, 9, 7, 6, 3, and 4.

The player now has to return to the bottom of the Excavation Zone, where there is now a fire orb. Now in the lower section of the Excavation Zone align the rings above the fire orb via the four switches scattered around in this same area so that all the gems are red. The player with the Staff of Fire must shoot the fire orb, which will cause the orb to fly into the air and return to The Crazy Place. Once done, the player must now go back to The Crazy Place, where the staff can be placed onto the Fire pedestal. The player must kill zombies in The Crazy Place, so that the zombie "souls" get attracted to the staff and power it up. After killing a fair amount of zombies, an audio cue by Samantha will indicate to the player that the staff is powered up and upgraded to Kagutsuchi's Blood. The staff can now be picked up by any player.

Trivia

 * The Staff of Fire is held by Takeo Masaki in the Origins poster.
 * The Staff of Fire is Takeo's favorite staff, as stated through a few of his quotes. This is most likely because fire is a large part of Japanese culture.
 * Interestingly while Dempsey, Nikolai, and Richtofen's countries all developed a wonder weapon similar to a staff, there has never been a Japanese Wonder Weapon seen in any game. However the plans for the Ray Gun were stolen by Group 935 from the Rising Sun Facility, leading to the theory that a prototype version or the discovery of 115's abilities in weaponry originated in Japan.
 * Unlike most other staffs, this one has no counterpart from the other maps. As the closest one would be Hell's Retriever, which was a tactical weapon. However, when upgraded into the Kagutsuchi's Blood, it performs similarly to the Sliquifier.
 * The upgraded Staff of Fire is named after the Japanese God of Fire, Kagutsuchi.
 * When upgrading the Staff of Fire, and performing the crazy challenge, the challenge is the zombie bodies being absorbed and not the souls. For example, when one staff's challenges are completed and the said staff is within the crazy pedestal, the souls are absorbed and the bodies are consumed by the pots.
 * Also, if a zombies body has been correctly absorbed by the pots, it will explode in a puff of smoke.
 * Like all the elemental staffs, the Staff of Fire, when upgraded to Kagutsuchi's Blood, gets a powerful melee attack which is a one-hit kill to round 16.
 * With that, two blades once concealed within the staff will now extend out, altering its appearance, and allowing you to perform the melee attack.
 * A Max Ammo Power-Up will refill the clip of the staff.
 * If a player has PhD Flopper, and the fire staff equiped, if they dive to prone, the explosion will also deal fire damage and leave the zombies who were in the blast burned.
 * The Sekhmet's Vigor is also very powerful against zombies including the Panzer Soldat and can kill in one shot over round 35. Although it will only kill one zombie per shot.
 * Double Tap Root Beer appears to work with Sekhmet's Vigor.