Angelic Ankh

An Angelic Ankh is a Staff-class weapon found throughout the Golden Sun series. It is sold as an Artifact in the weapon vendor at Tolbi in the first game and at Apojii Islands in the second. Being a staff, it can be equipped by Ivan, Mia, Jenna, and Sheba. In Dark Dawn, it is considered to be an Ankh-type staff in that only Rief and Himi can wield it and its weapon experience is separate for other staffs. Its buy value is 6400 coins and its sell value is 4800.

The Angelic Ankh increases the wielder's attack by 83. Its Unleash effect is Life Leech, which is effectively a standard physical attack that adds 29 damage points and then modifies the resulting damage based on the user's Mercury power and the target's Mercury resistance. It may also restore the user's HP meter by the amount of damage inflicted. Life Leech visually resembles the user attacking the target and a flurry of light blue orbs being siphoned from the target to the user.

In Golden Sun, this might not actually be all that impressive an upgrade to your party due to how you could possibly have equipped the Mystery Blade from Crossbone Isle, while the previous staff, the Frost Wand, is only slightly weaker than this. And this is not considering what you can get from the Lucky Medal mini-game in Tolbi, including an Assassin Blade that can be equipped on Ivan instead and a Grievous Mace that can be equipped on Mia instead. However, the native Mercury damage and healing side effect may make it ideal for Mia (as opposed to the Earth-aligned Grievous Mace) up until Lalivero, when stronger Mercury element weapons are acquired.

In The Lost Age, it has a similar issue in its lack of sharp power improvement for a purchasable Artifact that becomes available once the Great Eastern Sea becomes available. It becomes all the more undesirable as a purchase because of other weapon artifacts available for purchase that are stronger than it, which themselves are ignored because of much better weapon artifacts that can be forged from both raw material and rusty items, as well as weapons found in dungeon chests.

Trivia

 * The Angelic Ankh is one of two staffs in Golden Sun and three in The Lost Age to receive a unique battle sprite unlike the normal one for staffs. The others are the Blessed Ankh and Clotho's Distaff. In Dark Dawn, this is taken one step further by making the three staffs a separate weapon type altogether, although they are still referred to as staffs.