Verdant Sword

Verdant Sword
Trade values
Item class	Light Blades
Buy value	18,000
Sell value	13,500
Statistics boosts
Attack Boost	165
First unleash effect
Effect name	Gale Force
Extra damage	x1.3
Second unleash effect
Effect name	Vorpal Slash
Extra damage	16
Side effect	Hits every adjacent foe
Third unleash effect
Effect name	Mad Zephyr
Extra damage	40
Side effect	May inflict double the amount of damage
Fourth unleash effect
Effect name	Emerald Blitz
Extra damage	x2
Side effect	May seal the foe's psynergy

A Verdant Sword is a Light Blade-class weapon Artifact available in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. It is one of the items randomly created by bringing Quality Zol to Obaba in Champa, and resembles a kind of short sword with its blade split in two light-green twin-blades.

Basic Description

Verdant Swords increase the wielder's attack by 165 points. Once acquired, Verdant Swords can be sold 13500 coins, and can be bought for 18000 coins. This Light Blade is a pure Jupiter element based weapon, meaning standard attacks with the sword are based on the wielder's Jupiter element power, and the resulting damage depends on the enemies' resistance to this element. The Verdant Sword can be equipped by Matthew, Tyrell, Karis, Amiti, Eoleo, and Himi.

The Verdant Sword has four potential unleashes, all Jupiter-based: Gale Force, Vorpal Slash, Mad Zephyr, and Emerald Blitz. Coincidentally, Vorpal Slash and Mad Zephyr are also the signature unleashes for the two best known Jupiter-based pure-element weapons from the first two games: the Elven Rapier and the Sylph Rapier. Gale Force resembles a vertical slash accompanied by wind gusts and multiplies damage by 1.3. The Vorpal Slash attack causes a green-colored flash of energy to carve horizontally across the screen adding 16 points to the total damage as well as hitting 3 targets at once. Mad Zephyr which shoots beams of concentrated wind energy at its target; it adds 40 points of damage to the total and has a chance to inflict double the damage. In the case the damage doubles, the beams increase in number and hit frequency. The final Unleash, Emerald Blitz, causes the blade to extend to a huge laser saber and the target gets slashed several times with a chance to seal the target's Psynergy; the resulting damage from the Unleash is always multiplied by 2.

Analysis

The Verdant Sword's status as a Jupiter-based pure-element weapon makes it a good choice for Karis, who naturally has high Jupiter Power. While weaker than the Tisiphone Edge, as far as attack increases go, the Verdant Sword is arguably the more practical weapon for much of the game. In Dark Dawn, the Tisiphone Edge can only be acquired as a rare drop from Great Dragons in Crossbone Isle, a bonus dungeon that can only be entered once the final boss is defeated. On the other hand, the Verdant Sword can potentially be available as soon as the ship is acquired, with multiple copies being easily available.

In comparison to the Tisiphone Edge's first three unleashes, the Verdant Sword's first two Unleashes are weaker overall. While the Tisiphone Edge's Light Surge gives a consistent 51 extra damage points, Mad Zephyr adds 40 damage points with a chance at doubling the damage. Emerald Blitz has a guaranteed x2 damage multiplier. In comparison, the Tisiphone Edge's Vengeance adds 71 damage normally, but only has a chance to double or triple the damage. Given that Unleashes are now chosen at random, there is a higher chance to get Emerald Blitz's damage multiplier than Vengeance's, though Vengeance will give out higher damage when it activates.

One note in favor of the Verdant Sword is that the Chaos Chimera, Ancient Devil, and Dullahan all possess weaknesses towards Jupiter attacks. This means that any Adept using the Verdant Sword is guaranteed to exploit this weakness regardless of the Unleash chosen, since all potential damage is Jupiter-based.

Overall, the Verdant Sword will be a solid choice for whatever Adept chooses the wield it.