The reason it doesn't do much damage even though it has a higher attack: It has an accuracy of 10, while the sword you were probably using before it (the Mithril Sword) has an accuracy of 50. This means fewer of your hits actually land. Let's assume you have a sword skill of 5, this means you will actually ATTEMPT 5 hits on the enemy. Whether or not a hit lands is dependant on accuracy, so you may not actually land all 5 hits.
"But DJZen! The attack is higher! Surely that must translate to more damage!"
Not always. Think of it like this. Let's say each hit has the potential to do 80 damage with the Mithril Sword, and 95 damage with the Acient Sword (not taking the additional effect of Curse into consideration). If you use the Mithril Sword, you're more likely to land all 5 hits, which would be 80x5, which comes out to 400. Let's say that because of the Ancient Sword's lower accuracy, you only miss two hits. Not so bad, right? This means your damage would come out to be 95x3, which is 285.
Final Fantasy II is kinda funny like that. Weapons and armor tend to have effects that they never ever let you know about. However, the Ancient Sword DOES have the ability to Curse enemies, so it's not a bad thing to have if you're going up against anything that's not resistant to Mind element. |