Blood Magic in Valheim: Three Staves That Cost You Health
Blood Magic charges you health as well as Eitr — and the Trollstav takes 60% of it in a single cast. That is the part the name promises and nothing in the interface explains. It is also less punishing than it sounds, because the cost is a percentage of your current health rather than your maximum, which means you can never kill yourself casting. Here are all three staves, what they summon, and how the skill changes them.
On sourcing. Iron Gate do not publish system documentation. The figures below come from the community wikis and can change with any patch.
Blood Magic Costs Health
| Staff | Eitr | Health |
|---|---|---|
| Staff of Protection | 60 | 40% of current |
| Dead Raiser | 100 | 40% of current |
| Trollstav | 120 | 60% of current |
Read "current" carefully — it is the whole safety mechanism. Casting at full health costs a lot in absolute terms; casting at 20% health costs 40% of that 20%. The cost shrinks as you get hurt, and it can never reach zero, so the staff cannot finish you off.
The practical consequence is counter-intuitive: Blood Magic is cheapest when you are in trouble. A Staff of Protection cast at low health costs very little and gives you the same shield — which is exactly when you want it.
Compare the Eitr costs to the elemental staves. The most expensive elemental cast is the Staff of the Wild at 55. Every Blood Magic staff costs more than that, and the Trollstav at 120 is more than double — before the health cost is applied at all.
All three are governed by the Blood Magic skill, which is a separate track from Elemental Magic. Spreading your casting across both halves the progression rate on each — worth knowing before you buy into two schools.
Staff of Protection
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Eitr cost | 60, falling to 40 at Blood Magic 100 |
| Absorbs at level 0 | 200 damage |
| Absorbs at level 100 | 700 damage |
| Scaling | +5 absorbed per skill level |
| Duration | 60 seconds, up to 240 with upgrades |
| Materials | Yggdrasil Wood ×20, Blood Clot ×4, Refined Eitr ×16 |
| Station | Galdr Table level 1 |
This is the staff with the steepest skill payoff in the game. Going from 200 to 700 absorbed damage is a three and a half times improvement, and it comes purely from levelling — no upgrade materials involved.
Put that against what the game throws at you. A Charred Warrior hits for 150 – 160, and a Morgen for 160 Blunt every four seconds. A level-0 shield absorbs a single hit; a level-100 shield absorbs four.
And it stacks with the four-minute duration. At full upgrades a 700-damage shield lasting 240 seconds is a different proposition from a 200-damage one lasting 60 — this is a staff that becomes genuinely strong rather than incrementally better.
Unlike the other two, it summons nothing. It is purely defensive, which makes it the Blood Magic staff a non-mage might still carry.
Dead Raiser
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Eitr cost | up to 100 — reduced by a third at Blood Magic 100 |
| Summons | Skeletons (tamed variant), 400 HP each |
| How many | 1 – 4, set by the staff's quality level |
| Summon damage | +2% per Blood Magic level, to +200% (×3) at 100 |
| Duration | permanent until killed or replaced |
| Materials | Bone Fragments ×10, Refined Eitr ×16, Skeleton Trophy ×4 |
Two numbers make this staff work: the summons are permanent, and their damage triples.
Permanence is unusual. Most summons in games run on a timer; these stay until something kills them or you cast again, which turns the 100 Eitr and 40% health into a one-time investment rather than a recurring tax. Cast before a dungeon, not during one.
The damage scaling is the other half. At Blood Magic 0 your skeletons are a distraction; at 100 they hit three times as hard — and note that summon health does not scale, only damage. They will always be 400 HP, so they die at the same rate no matter your skill.
The summon count comes from the staff's quality, not your skill — so upgrading the weapon is what takes you from one skeleton to four.
It needs 4 Skeleton Trophies to craft. Another entry on the growing list of reasons not to feed trophies to the Obliterator for one coal each.
Trollstav
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Eitr cost | 120 — the highest of any staff |
| Health cost | 60% of current |
| Summons | a 2,000 HP Troll, maximum 2 |
| On cast | also deals 300 Fire + 50 Pure damage |
| Materials | Charred Bone ×15, Troll Trophy ×1, Flametal ×3, Bloodstone ×1 |
| Station | Galdr Table level 2 |
A 2,000 HP summon is enormous. For scale, a Charred Warrior has 600 and The Elder has 2,500. Two summoned trolls is roughly a boss's worth of health fighting on your side.
The on-cast damage is easy to miss and worth planning around. Summoning deals 300 Fire and 50 Pure in the area — so the Trollstav is an opening move that damages what is in front of you and leaves two trolls behind.
But read the warning. A summoned Troll attacks everything in the area except other summoned Trolls — which includes, in practice, things you did not intend it to hit. This is not a pet that follows commands.
And upgrades do not raise the summon limit. Two is two at every quality level, unlike the Dead Raiser where quality is exactly what raises the count.
At 120 Eitr plus 60% of your health, this is the single most expensive action available to a caster — which is why it belongs at the start of a fight, cast at low health where the percentage is cheap.
How to Play Blood Magic
- Cast when hurt, not when healthy. The health cost is a percentage of current health.
- Level Blood Magic for the Staff of Protection — 200 to 700 absorbed is the steepest payoff in the game.
- Upgrade the Dead Raiser for more skeletons; level the skill for their damage.
- Treat Dead Raiser summons as permanent — cast before the dungeon, not inside it.
- Open with the Trollstav for its 300 Fire + 50 Pure, then let the trolls work.
- Do not split across both magic schools unless you intend to level two skills.
Practical tips
- Health cost is a percentage of current health, so casting can never kill you.
- Blood Magic is cheapest when you are hurt — the opposite of most resources.
- Staff of Protection: 200 → 700 absorbed across the skill, at +5 per level.
- Dead Raiser summons are permanent and their damage triples at level 100; their 400 HP never changes.
- Trollstav summons a 2,000 HP troll and deals 300 Fire + 50 Pure on cast.
- Every Blood Magic staff costs more Eitr than any elemental one.
Running your own Valheim server
Blood Magic is late-game gear — Refined Eitr, a Galdr Table, Skeleton and Troll trophies and Flametal. A gamever Valheim server keeps that workshop and its Eitr refineries running for up to 10 players, so the materials one person hauls out of the Mistlands become staves for whoever is online. One-click backups protect a build that spans three biomes, and automatic updates keep client and server aligned.
Conclusion
Valheim's three Blood Magic staves are the only weapons in the game that cost health as well as Eitr — 40% of current health for the Staff of Protection (60 Eitr) and the Dead Raiser (100), and 60% for the Trollstav (120). Because the cost scales off current rather than maximum health, casting can never kill you, and it becomes cheaper the more hurt you are. The Staff of Protection has the steepest skill payoff in the game, absorbing 200 damage at level 0 and 700 at level 100 for 60 seconds, or up to 240 with upgrades. The Dead Raiser summons 1 – 4 permanent 400 HP skeletons whose damage triples at maximum skill, with the count set by the staff's quality. And the Trollstav is the most expensive single action available to any caster — 120 Eitr plus 60% of your health — for a 2,000 HP troll and 300 Fire + 50 Pure on the cast itself.
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