Excalibur

From Golden Sun Universe

Excalibur
Visual effect of Legend
Trade values
Item class	Long Sword
Buy value	29200
Sell value	21900
Statistics boosts
Attack Boost	180
Unleash effect
Effect name	Legend
Unleash rate	35%
Extra damage	73
Side effect	May triple the damage dealt

An Excalibur is a Long Sword-class weapon Artifact available in Golden Sun: The Lost Age, and one of the best weapons in the series. It is only bought randomly by bringing an Orihalcon forgeable material to the blacksmith in Yallam so that he may create one of several possible, randomly determined items from it, including this one which is forged with only a 5% probability. Being Long Sword-class weapons, Excaliburs can be equipped on warrior-style Adepts, namely Felix, Piers, Isaac, and Garet. Its buy value is 29200 coins and its sell value is 21900.

An Excalibur increases the wielder's base Attack rating by 180 points, making it the weapon with the third highest attack point increase in the game. Its Unleash effect is Legend, with the standard base activation rate of 35%, which is a physical attack with an additional 73 points of damage added, and then the resulting damage is either increased or decreased based on how the user's Jupiter power measures against the target's Jupiter resistance. There is a chance the Unleash's side effect may kick in after the attack's final damage is calculated; that damage is multiplied by three, making the Unleash potentially the most heavily damaging effect against single targets in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Legend visually resembles a three-dimensional hologram of a symbol form above the enemy party, and the symbol generates either one holographic sword that drives itself into the target or three holographic swords that drive themselves into the target in succession.

The Excalibur is one of the game's best weapons, competing with the Sol Blade for the sheer power of their unleashes. The one Sol Blade you collect is technically the best weapon of all because it has 200 base attack points and its Unleash "Megiddo", after calculating damage and modifying it based on the combatants' Venus power and resistances, automatically triples the damage. An Excalibur, on the other hand, has 180 attack and its Unleash effect adds 73 damage points and applies the combatants' Jupiter power and resistance levels before deciding to triple the damage, but there is only a 50-50 chance that Legend will triple the damage. Whenever Legend does triple the damage, the damage surpasses even the Sol Blade's Megiddo (even though there are no Jupiter Adepts that can equip an Excalibur and therefore increase the power of the Legend Unleash, whereas the Venus-based Sol Blade can only be equipped on Venus Adepts), but the fact it will only occur for the player half the time on average means that the average damage you can inflict with an Excalibur is ultimately lower than what the Sol Blade consistently yields (the average multiplier is 2, compared to 3). Nonetheless, being in many ways the second-best weapon in the game which you can get multiple copies of means that an absolutely ideal team in terms of sheer power will probably have one Venus Adept with the Sol Blade and the other three longsword-users equipped with Excaliburs, which is a testament to the weapon's practicality. Like the Sol Blade, Excalibur is also one of the best offensive measures to use against the Doom Dragon final boss.

The Excalibur and the Sol Blade are the two strongest of what players identify as several "ultimate weapons" in The Lost Age, with the others being Tisiphone Edge and Masamune. These other two weapons also have Unleashes that multiply their damage ratings. The Tisiphone Edge is a light blade with a Venus-based Unleash that adds 71 damage points and then may either multiply the damage by 1, multiply it by 2, or multiply it by 3—in the long term, the effective multiplier is 2, the same as Excalibur. This wild potential for power may make it better for your Venus Adept not equipped with the Sol Blade to equip this than with an Excalibur, but since it is a light blade, both Jenna and Ivan can wield it as well, so two copies should go onto them first before considering a third for the non-Sol Blade Venus Adept, especially if they have Venus levels. The Masamune is Mercury Based and generally does less damage than the other ultimate weapons because it multiplies its damage only by either 1 or 2, but if there is no Excalibur for Piers to wield then this weapon would work great for him at any rate.

There has been a rumor that it is possible to forge an Excalibur from an Orihalcon easily by manipulating the Random Number Generator in relation to when and how you present an Orihalcon to the blacksmith in Yallam. This has yet to be validated, however.

[edit] Cultural References

Excalibur (a Latin phrase meaning "cutting steel") is the sword of the mythical King Arthur. Due to its fame, it appears in several other games.

Long Swords in Golden Sun
Long Sword • Broad Sword • Arctic Blade • Claymore • Great Sword • Shamshir • Silver Blade • Muramasa • Gaia Blade
Long Swords in Golden Sun: The Lost Age
Storm Brand • Robber's Blade • Lightning Sword • Soul Brand • Cloud Brand • Hestia Blade • Huge Sword • Mythril Blade • Rune Blade • Levatine • Fire Brand • Darksword • Excalibur • Sol Blade