Lightning Sword

The Lightning Sword (ライトニングソード, Raitoningu sōdo^?) is a Long Sword-class Artifact weapon found in Golden Sun: The Lost Age.

In Golden Sun: The Lost Age

Lightning Sword
Visual effect of Flash Edge
In-Game Description
"Long Sword: Unleashes Flash Edge" (TLA)
Trade Info
Weapon class	Long Sword
Buy value	11400
Sell value	8550
Artifact?	Yes
Statistic Boosts
Attack Boost	134
Unleash effect
Effect name	Flash Edge
Extra damage	46
Side effect	May inflict the target with Delusion
Acquisition
• Chest in Tundaria Tower (TLA)

The Lightning Sword is found in a chest in Tundaria Tower, a dungeon that is played through at least midway through the Eastern Sea arc of the game because it can only be unlocked with the Parch Psynergy from Aqua Rock. Once you gain the Burst Psynergy atop the tower and use it to get the Center Prong, you can also use it to explore the tower's smaller "west wing," where you can find four chests that contain the Lightning Sword among other treasures.

The Lightning Sword, which can be equipped by the warrior-style Adepts Felix and Piers, can Unleash Flash Edge (フラッシュエッジ, Furasshu ejji^?), which adds 46 points of flat damage, aligns the damage to Jupiter, and causes a 65% base chance to inflict the Delusion status condition. (Delusion, lasting up to seven turns unless randomly shaken off early, causes standard physical attacks to be 60% likely to miss.) Flash Edge resembles a regular attack with some violet sparks emitted by the strike, and the entire screen is bathed in magenta light for an instant.

Both the weapon's base Attack and its added Unleash damage make it one of the strongest weapons either Felix or Piers could be wielding by the time the Eastern Sea arc of the game is finished and Poseidon is fought in front of Lemuria. The weapon is useful even though the Jupiter alignment of its Unleash will prevent the respective Venus and Mercury power ratings of Felix and Piers from appreciably increasing its damage output further.

If Tundaria Tower is completed before Gaia Rock, the Lightning Sword can capitalize on the Serpent boss' very low Jupiter resistance, especially if Felix is in the third Enchanter stage of his Apprentice class series (which involves Jupiter Djinn increasing his Jupiter power level and the class providing the same "high" Attack modifier as the third Gallant stage of his native Squire class series). However, the other two bosses in the Eastern Sea, the Avimander and Poseidon himself, have moderate resistances to Jupiter. Furthermore, if Felix is capable of holding six Djinn by the time Poseidon is reached, he will be better off in the fourth Lord stage of his Squire series because he will not yet be able to reach the fourth Conjurer stage of the Apprentice series.

The Lightning Sword is rather similar to another Long Sword Artifact, the Cloud Brand, which could have been gotten first if Gaia Rock was played through and the Serpent was already defeated prior to exploring Tundaria Tower. The Cloud Brand features a minuscule 4 less Attack and a somewhat more relevant 7 fewer added damage points for its own Jupiter-aligned Unleash, Raiden's Wrath, but said Unleash has the unique quality of proccing at a 40% base chance instead of the typical 35%. Raiden's Wrath also carries the unique quality of ignoring the entire Defense statistic of any "dragonlike" enemy it strikes, such as the Avimander, though there are hardly any other worthwhile dragonlike targets for that Unleash throughout the Eastern Sea. By the time the Western Sea is reached and dragonlike enemies such as Pteranodon, Turtle Dragon, and Hydra appear, both the Cloud Brand and the Lightning Sword will likely get replaced by stronger weapons quite quickly.

The Lightning Sword and Cloud Brand can be said to be roughly equal in performance, with the former being slightly more powerful when it Unleashes and the latter being slightly more likely to Unleash with a given normal attack. Both can be improved by equipping the Aerial Gloves for its 20 added Jupiter Power, though this would only apply to whichever of the two warrior Adepts is not equipped with the sole available War Gloves instead. Aerial Gloves can be randomly forged by the Blacksmith in Yallam out of a Sylph Feather, which incidentally is another one of the four treasures in the optional west wing of Tundaria Tower.