Gaia's Axe

Gaia's Axe
Visual effect of Mother Earth
Trade values
Item class	Axe
Buy value	16400
Sell value	12300
Statistics boosts
Attack Boost	163
Unleash effect
Effect name	Mother Earth
Unleash rate	35%
Extra damage	59
Side effect	May put the target to Sleep

Gaia's Axe is an Axe-class weapon found in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. It is acquired by bringing a Golem Core item to Sunshine the blacksmith in Yallam so that he may randomly forge it into this or several other items that you then may buy.

Basic Description

Being an axe, it can be equipped by Isaac, Felix, Garet, and Piers. Its Buy value (and thus its price for forging) is 16,400 while its sell value is 12,300.

The Gaia's Axe increases the wielder's base Attack rating by 163, and this weapon is especially notable for being one where standard attacks are based on the Venus element (the damage done is affected by how the wielder's Venus power compares to the target's Venus resistance). Its Unleash effect is Mother Earth, unleashing at the standard rate of 35% of the time, which adds 59 points of damage before modifying damage based on the Venus element, and then has a chance to inflict Sleep on the opponent. The Unleash visually resembles the Adept attacking the target and a brown rocky boulder appears from off-screen from the upper-right to smash into the target and shatter.

Analysis

It should be noted that the Gaia's Axe is one of three possible weapons that can be forged from a Golem Core, all of them having a Venus-based Unleash effect, with the other two being the Huge Sword and the Tungsten Mace. It is worth comparing the three: The Gaia's Axe is generally marginally more damaging than the other two, and its effect may put the target to Sleep, which is useful. The Huge Sword is another pure-element weapon artifact of the Venus element, and its Unleash can lower the target's Defense by 25%. The Tungsten Mace is a weapon artifact that can be equipped by more Adepts (Sheba and Mia in addition to the four warrior-style Adepts), and while having the same power levels as the Huge Sword its Unleash sometimes ignores half the target's Defense rating to increase damage somewhat substantially. All three of these weapons are solid and viable for use by the two Venus Adept warriors prior to the best weapons available in the endgame, especially if Isaac does not join up with the Gaia Blade in his possession, so deciding between the three weapons is mostly a matter of taste.