Excalibur

An Excalibur (エクスカリバー, Ekusukaribā^?) is an Artifact Long Sword-class weapon available in Golden Sun: The Lost Age and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. It is forged from an Orihalcon, and it has one of the highest base attack ratings of any weapon in the series and one of the most potentially powerful Unleashes as well.

In Golden Sun: The Lost Age

Excalibur (TLA)
Visual effect of Legend
In-Game Description
"Long Sword: Unleashes Legend" (TLA)
Trade Info
Weapon class	Long Sword
Buy value	29200
Sell value	21900
Artifact?	Yes
Statistic Boosts
Attack Boost	180
Unleash effect
Effect name	Legend
Extra damage	73
Side effect	May triple the damage dealt
Acquisition
• Forged from Orihalcon (TLA)

In The Lost Age, an Excalibur is one of several pieces of endgame-suitable equipment that can be randomly created when an Orihalcon is left at the Blacksmith in Yallam (and you will be forced to buy it for 29,200 coins before you can have him craft a different item). It is crafted with an extremely rare probability of 5%, whereas the other weapons the Orihalcon can create, the Stellar Axe and the Nebula Wand, can be crafted with probabilities of 10% and 15%, respectively. The remaining 70% is assigned to four defensive items: the Big Bang Gloves, the Cosmos Shield, the Xylion Armor, and the Millenium Helm.

The Orihalcon is one of the rarest materials in the game, but using the password system lets you get both an early unit and a potentially infinite supply later on. If the Golden Sun clear data file used for the password is one where the Toadonpa boss was defeated in Lunpa Fortress, then shortly after the Reunion at Contigo, the newly expanded party will be presented a bonus Orihalcon at Atteka Inlet before setting off on their newly winged ship. This technically means that an Excalibur can be acquired even before playing through Magma Rock. Otherwise, the first Orihalcon that will be available to any type of game file can be found in the earlier, lower reaches of Mars Lighthouse, the final mandatory dungeon in the story.

Once the Teleport Psynergy is acquired in Mars Lighthouse, the optional Yampi Desert Cave can be entered and explored, wherein the game's only other unmissable Orihalcon is contained in a chest. However, the extra-hard bonus dungeon, Anemos Inner Sanctum, functions as the game's primary source of Orihalcons; in addition to one being found in a chest late in the dungeon, the randomly-appearing Sky Dragon monsters drop it at a rare 1/128 chance (which increases to 1/32 whenever one is slain by using an attack-based Jupiter Djinni). Accessing this dungeon requires collecting all 72 possible Djinn, which requires a password.

The Excalibur's base 180 Attack rating is only surpassed by the 200-Attack Sol Blade found in Mars Lighthouse and the 210-Attack Darksword rarely forged from a Dark Matter. Its standout feature is its Unleash effect, Legend (セレスレジェンド, Seresu rejendo^?, lit. Ceres' Legend), which deals the equivalent of a standard attack aligned with Jupiter and adding 73 bonus damage. The Unleash carries a 60% chance to triple the resulting damage, which is reflected in its battle animation: A glowing purple symbol forms above the battlefield angled downward at the enemy party, and either one or three glowing sword images shoot downward and crash into the target depending on whether the attack multiplier is applied.

The Excalibur is largely seen as the second-best weapon for a warrior-style Adept to be equipped with by the end of the game because of both its similar base Attack stat and potential to triple the resulting damage. The Sol Blade's Megiddo Unleash always triples its damage, but it does not add flat damage for that multiplying effect to work off of. In contrast, the Legend Unleash adds 73 flat damage before determining whether the final result should be tripled in value, which results in the Excalibur dealing even higher damage than Megiddo on occasion. Legend only misses out on being regarded as the best Unleash in the game because of the inherent 40% probability that it will only carry out as an attack with over 70 flat damage applied to it.

Equipping gear that increases Unleash rates can only go so far to increase the probability of the three-strike version because the single-strike version will maintain its relative chance to be picked instead. There are just enough infinite sources of gear that adds to the proc rate of a weapon's Unleash that any warrior-style Adept can add +59% probability to the base 35% Unleash rate of almost every weapon they can wield: Mythril Helm (+12%), Mythril Clothes (+15%), Riot Gloves (+20%), and Hyper Boots (+12%). (The Aegis Shield can be used as a substitute that is good for a 10% increase in cases where you haven't collected Riot Gloves, and the Warrior's Helm can be used for its own 10% increase if you don't yet have a Mythril Helm.)

The one-of-a-kind Valkyrie Mail found in Mars Lighthouse is an improved version of the Mythril Clothes that adds +20% probability, amounting to filling in 5% of the missing 6% probability to Unleash with a given attack. Generally, you should reserve this mail for your Sol Blade-wielding Venus Adept so that he can Unleash Megiddo with 99% probability, but any of your other three warriors can Unleash with whatever weapon they have equipped with 94% probability. While this setup is still excellent to use with an Excalibur, be aware that a little less than half of your procced Unleashes will produce the single-strike form of Legend.

Another minor issue is that Legend's alignment with Jupiter makes it difficult to optimize its damage using the equipped Adept's natural Jupiter Power rating. The four Adepts capable of wielding Excalibur are the game's four "warrior-style" Adepts: the Venus Adepts Isaac and Felix, the Mars Adept Garet, and the Mercury Adept Piers. You would have to go out of your way to give the Venus and Mars Adepts Jupiter Djinn to make them War Adepts, which feature attack modifiers matching the "high" modifier of the mono-elemental Slayer class (which would make for a decided improvement for an Excalibur-wielding Garet).

Since the main appeal of Legend is that it triples its resulting damage more often than not, pursuing the highest Attack ratings makes the most sense, which makes reaching the end of the Brute class series a very solid option by itself. Easily the most powerful way for an equipped Adept to optimize Legend, however, is by reaching the tri-elemental Ronin or Master classes, which both sport excellent Attack modifiers and respectively make use of 4 or 5 Set Jupiter Djinn.

Even without the above-mentioned attack optimization measures, any occurrence of the three-strike version of Legend is virtually guaranteed to take off a significant chunk of a boss' health and make the battle end a lot more quickly. This is especially true with the drawn-out final boss battle at Mars Lighthouse, which is most susceptible to Jupiter-aligned attacks (and very resistant to Venus-aligned attacks like the Sol Blade's Megiddo).

One last weapon worth comparing Excalibur to is the Tisiphone Edge, a randomly dropped Light Blade that has practically the same Attack boost (178) and flat damage added (71) whenever it unleashes. This Venus-aligned Unleash, Vengeance, also potentially multiplies its own damage, but it uses a different model: It has a 50% chance to triple its damage, and 20% of the remaining 50% probability will "merely" double its damage, meaning its chance to only hit for normal damage is 30% – which is better than the Excalibur's own 40% chance to "whiff" with its damage-tripling effect.

In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn

Excalibur (DD)
The DS model of the Excalibur
In-Game Description
"Weapon: Long Sword" (DD)
Trade Info
Weapon class	Long Sword
Buy value	29200
Sell value	21900
Artifact?	Yes
Statistic Boosts
Attack Boost	180
First Unleash effect
Effect name	Critical Move
Extra damage	x1.4
Side effect	May reduce target's HP to 1
Second Unleash effect
Effect name	Rolling Attack
Extra damage	x1.1
Side effect	Hits each adjacent foe
Third Unleash effect
Effect name	Sky Diver
Extra damage	65
Side effect	May inflict Stun
Fourth Unleash effect
Effect name	Legend
Extra damage	73
Side effect	May triple the damage dealt
Acquisition
• Forged from Orihalcon (DD)

In Dark Dawn, Excaliburs are obtained under similar circumstances as in The Lost Age. Because Champa can be visited as soon as the Eastern Sea is reached, the game's free Blacksmith service can be unlocked just in time to play through the entirety of the last third of the game's campaign with. The only Orihalcon that can be gotten before the postgame is available in Champa and can be gotten at the same time. If you pick up the Cave-Door Key in the upper interior floors of Champa's cliff complex and use it to open the cave vault underneath the diagonal bridge at Champa's southwest entrance, you can use Eoleo's innately known Thermal energy to ride the torch's flame up to a room with the Orihalcon's chest.

As a result, it becomes possible to have that Orihalcon forged into an Excalibur even before playing through Warrior's Hill, which is portrayed as the "starting dungeon" of the Eastern Sea. By definition, that applies to any of the other pieces of equipment it can be randomly converted into instead: the Big Bang Gloves, Xylion Armor, and Cosmos Shield like before, and also the all-new Herculean Axe.

Unfortunately, whichever item you get will be the only one of this set you will be able to use for virtually the entire rest of the game; the next source of Orihalcons is a random drop from the Nightmares in the secret dungeon of Otka Island, which can only be unlocked using the Sol Blade from Apollo Sanctum. (The Nightmare drops it at an extremely rare 1/256 base rate, which only improves to 1/64 when it is slain using the attack effect of an offensive Venus Djinni.) It is technically possible to backtrack all the way from Apollo Sanctum and explore Otka Island before returning to the final boss, but otherwise, Otka Island is practically as much a "postgame-exclusive dungeon" as the Dark Dawn incarnation of Crossbone Isle. Two more loose Orihalcons can be found in chests in the lower floors of Crossbone Isle.

Where the Excalibur falters in comparison to its past incarnation is in how severly the redesigned Unleash system undermines its consistency, especially among other weapons available throughout the Eastern Sea. It will now randomly choose between up to four Unleashes, which must be unlocked and added to its Unleash list by using the Excalibur in battle to increase its mastery rating. Its first Unleash, Critical Move (クリティカル, Critical^?), deals 40% increased damage and has a 35% base chance to lower the target's HP to 1 if it survives. Its second Unleash, Rolling Attack (ローリングアタック, Rolling Attack^?), deals a Jupiter-aligned attack that is only 10% stronger and can hit each adjacent foe for 80% of the overall force. Its third Unleash, Sky Diver (スカイダイバー, Skydiver^?), deals a Jupiter-aligned attack with 65 added damage and a 40% base chance to Stun the hit target. Its signature Legend unleash remains unaltered, and it will be chosen a little more often if the Adept's Mastery with the Excalibur is at the maximum ranking.

Sky Diver is a useful Unleash in its own right for occasionally shutting down the random monster it carries out against, but Critical Move and Rolling Attack are much weaker versions of "filler" Unleashes that occur on other weapons, namely Fearless Attack and Spiral Assault. Because Legend will only be procced a fraction of the time when Unleashing with Excalibur, getting an Excalibur to produce Legend's three-strike version is very low in comparison to The Lost Age. It will still deal incredible damage on those occasions, particularly against the final boss (which is least resistant to Jupiter), but repeatedly attacking in hopes that you will eventually get a three-strike Legend is a risky way to battle.

In another fairly severe issue, most of the game's Unleash-boosting gear are one-of-a-kind items, and you would want to have as many of them on Matthew as possible once he grabs the Sol Blade. These include the Warrior's Helm (10%) found in Teppe Ruins, Aegis Shield (10%) found in Warrior's Hill, Lord Sun's Ring (12%) found in Tonfon, the easily missed Ninja Sandals (15%) received from a sidequest spanning Tonfon and Kaocho, and the Valkyrie Mail (20%) in Apollo Ascent. All that would be left over for Tyrell, the only other Adept capable of wielding long swords, are Mythril Clothes (15%) forged from Mythril Silver.

Granted, up until you get to the Sol Blade, the Excalibur would be a fine weapon to have some of the above pieces of gear contribute to while questing throughout the Eastern Sea. However, the easy choice for the second-best weapon in the game for a warrior-style Adept to wield is a Levatine, which is capable of the incredible damage-multiplying Centurion Unleash effect at a comparatively high proc rate (thanks to the Levatine only having three Unleashes in total to pick between). Mythril Silvers capable of being converted into a Levatine are more readily available throughout the Eastern Sea, and so you should try to extract a Levatine from them even if you are lucky enough to land upon an Excalibur with the starting Orihalcon at Champa. Another weapon you might find outperforming the Excalibur due to its relative consistency is the Phaeton's Blade found in Snowdrift Shrine, simply because Centurion is the last of only three Unleashes on that weapon.

There is even a question whether Excalibur holds up to the Herculean Axe, the other weapon the starting Orihalcon can be converted into. Though the axe is aligned for the most part with Mars instead of Jupiter, it offers an even higher base Attack rate of 186, and its repertoire of Unleashes are more likely to meet a minimum standard of impact. Its starting Stone Justice Unleash, though a weak Venus-aligned attack, at least guarantees the target's Agility is halved; its Barrage Unleash can Stun (albeit with a lot less added damage than the Excalibur's Sky Diver); its Meltdown Unleash is an area attack that adds a lot more damage than Rolling Attack and can also reduce Defense; and its Olympus Rage Unleash will always deal double damage and even comes with its own chance to instantly fell the target instead. The Mars alignment of the latter three Unleashes makes the axe a good fit on either Tyrell or Eoleo, the latter of whom would consider it an easy choice as his best-in-slot weapon (since Eoleo cannot also wield long swords such as Levatine). This leads to the argument that crafting an Excalibur instead of a Herculean Axe with your starting Orihalcon is more of an opportunity cost than it is worth.

Gallery of Dark Dawn unleashes

• 

  Critical Move

• 

  Rolling Attack

• 

  Sky Diver

• 

  Legend

Cultural references

Excalibur is a legendary sword described repeatedly in Arthurian literature as the sword granting King Arthur his right of sovereignty over Great Britan. Different legends give different origins for the fabled sword, some portraying it as the iconic Sword in the Stone that only Arthur could pull out owing to his lineage, and others portraying it as a gift from the Lady of the Lake. Its sheer prominence in popular culture has led to countless fantasy works featuring a sword bearing its name as an especially powerful sword laced with magic.

The Japanese name of its Unleash, "Ceres' Legend," references Ceres, a Roman goddess of agriculture and motherhood.