The most powerful thief's dagger.
Description
The Orichalcon is Zidane's ultimate dagger-type weapon in Final Fantasy IX, and a substantial jump in power over the second-best Zorlin Shape. However, it falls behind Zidane's best thief swords. Orichalcon teaches him the Detect skill, though Zidane likely has already mastered it by the time Orichalcon becomes available. It bestows a permanent stat boost to Speed whenever Zidane levels up with it equipped, making Orichalcon a great level grinding weapon.
The mechanical knife Zidane uses in his left hand whenever he dual-wields daggers also occasionally goes by the name "Orichalcum" outside of Final Fantasy IX.
Obtain[]
The player can steal the Orichalcon from the Taharka, the boss of Ipsen's Castle. It can soon after this be bought from Bran Bal's Mogshop, and afterward, also from Daguerreo, for 17,000 gil.
Mechanics[]
The base damage dealt with normal attack is determined as follows everywhere but within Ipsen's Castle:
- Base = 71 - Enemy's Defense
- Bonus = Strength + Rnd MOD ([(Level + Strength) / 8] + 1)
- Damage = Base * Bonus
Where Rnd means a random number, while MOD means modulus operation. "Rnd MOD x" can be read as a random number between 0 and x-1.
The damage is then modified by variables like Zidane's equipped killer abilities or MP Attack, his row position, and the enemy's Protect. If Zidane is under Mini, his Bonus will be 1.
When in Ipsen's Castle, the stronger weapons do less damage than weaker weapons, and the Base part of the damage formula with the Orichalcon is altered to the minimum possible value.
Use[]
Orichalcon is Zidane's ultimate dagger. Though it loses out to his thief swords in attack power, it permanently raises his Speed stat by one whenever he levels up with it equipped. His Thievery calculates damage by the number of successful steals and Zidane's Speed stat, and thus having better Speed stat on him helps. For stat maxing purposes, the player would need to keep Zidane on level 1 until they get the best stat-boosting gear, but this is unnecessary for a casual playthrough; any stat boosts from Orihalcon are a nice bonus, but not crucial as Speed barely has an effect on ATB fill rate.
Orihalcon is needed to synthesize the Masamune, one of Zidane's good thief swords, and another stat-boosting weapon.
Even though Zidane's battle model wields two weapons when he is equipped with an Orichalcon, this is merely cosmetic and the player can only equip him with one weapon. The mechanical knife Zidane uses in his left hand whenever he dual-wields daggers also occasionally goes by the name "Orichalcum" outside of Final Fantasy IX where it is not named in-game, but it is an entirely different weapon.
Gallery[]
Etymology and origin[]
The word "orichalcum" is derived from the Greek word oreichalkos, meaning "mountain copper" or "mountain metal", and is mentioned in several ancient writings, most notably associated with Atlantis. Orichalcum was said to be second in value only to gold, and was the source of Atlantis' wealth and power. The exact type of metal that Orichalcum was is unknown, but it is commonly thought to be some form of alloy of bronze and/or copper, and other metals.
Zidane's Orichalcon is based on the knife weapons from Final Fantasy II and especially Final Fantasy III where it was used by thieves and ninjas.