Fire Brand

A Fire Brand is a Long Sword-class weapon Artifact available in Golden Sun: The Lost Age and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. The sword is a Mars-based pure-element weapon; its physical attack is itself an attack whose resulting damage is either increased or decreased based on how the user's Mars power compares to the target's Mars resistance.

Basic Description by Game
The Fire Brand increases the wielder's base Attack rating by 176 points. It can be sold for 17550 coins and subsequently rebought for 23400 coins.

In The Lost Age, only one is found in a treasure chest deep in Treasure Isle, as a reward for solving a Lift-based puzzle that has two possible solutions (with the other solution being able to progress into the next room). It can be equipped by Felix, Piers, Isaac, and Garet. Its Unleash effect is Purgatory, with the standard base activation rate of 35%, which is a physical attack with an additional 67 points of damage added, and then the resulting damage is either increased or decreased based on how the user's Mars power measures against the target's Mars resistance. In addition, the effect may inflict the Sleep status condition on the target. Purgatory is a spectacular visual effect resembling the user summoning a huge interwoven column of fire bursting from the ground beneath the target. The fire column then expands to cover most of the screen before contracting to the point of vanishing, leaving the enemy burnt.

In Dark Dawn, multiple copies of the Fire Brand can be acquired as a rare drop item from Pyrodras in Burning Island Cave. The Fire Brand can be equipped by Matthew and Tyrell. In Dark Dawn, the Fire Brand gains two new Unleashes: Power Charge and Fearless Attack. Under normal circumstances, these Unleashes would be non-elemental Unleashes. However, the Fire Brand's status as a pure-element weapon causes these Unleashes to become Mars-based, and thus they compare the attacker's Mars Power to the target's Mars Resistance when calculating damage. Power Charge multiplies damage by 1.4 and may ignore 50% of the target's defense. Fearless Attack multiplies damage by 1.7; Purgatory remains the signature unleash (although it is no longer unique to Fire Brands) and retains its characteristics from The Lost Age.

In The Lost Age
The Fire Brand is technically one of the game's best weapons, perhaps just above a Levatine in quality, and the two are the strongest Mars-based weapons. In general they have the same levels of power and usefulness in battle, and are differentiated by the fact a Levatine is a "normal" weapon artifact with a normal physical attack and that the Levatine's Unleash effect will always score enhanced bonus damage because the effect ignores half the target's defense rating. The Fire Brand, on the other hand, is a pure-element weapon whose Unleash may put the target to Sleep, so if you have both weapons deciding between one over the other is a matter of personal taste. However, they are not the actual best weapons because weapons of other elements such as the Tisiphone Edge, Excalibur, and Masamune can outright multiply the damage they inflict with their Unleashes, so while the Levatine and Fire Brand are solid for a Mars Adept warrior like Garet to wield, it might be better for him to use one of the above three weapons for potentially much stronger damage.

In Dark Dawn
The Fire Brand's usefulness drops significantly in Dark Dawn. It is now outclassed, in terms of Unleashes, by the Levatine, which is considered the second-best Long Sword behind the Sol Blade. Since only Matthew and Tyrell can equip Long Swords, the Fire Brand will most likely serve as a placeholder for either of these two weapons. Also worth considering is that the Fire Brand is now a rare drop. Since Dark Dawn has no known RNG methods, obtaining a Fire Brand is now a matter of chance.

Should the player decide to use the Fire Brand, its Mars-based properties make it a powerful weapon in the hands of Tyrell. The Fire Brand's secondary Unleashes are essentially Mars-based physical elemental attacks and come with fairly solid damage multipliers. Thus, Tyrell could do a great deal of damage with them without needing a change in class. The Fire Brand can be useful in the battle against the Star Magician, since the player is guaranteed to exploit the Star Magician's Mars weakness. In other battles, the average nature of the Fire Brand's Unleashes can cause problems.

Thus the player would want to consider the Levatine, which has stronger Unleashes or the Dark Sword, which has a higher attack boost, as Tyrell's main weapon.

Cultural References
The word "purgatory" was derived from the Latin word "purgere" which means "to clean." In Roman Catholicism, it is the process of purification in which the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for heaven.