Hail


 * This Djinni appears as an enemy that can be battled.

Hail (スウィズ Swizz) is a Mercury Djinni found in and.

Hail is the fifth Mercury Djinni in the original, and can also be acquired in. Although it is not the party's fifth Mercury Djinni in The Lost Age, Hail is still ordered as the fifth Mercury Djinni when equipped to characters. Because it is not available until after most other Mercury Djinn can be found, however, the separate Djinn list viewable with the Select button from the status screen lists Hail and all other Mercury Djinn from Golden Sun after all of the Djinn introduced in The Lost Age. According to this order, Hail is the sixteenth Mercury Djinni in The Lost Age rather than the fifth, but this order has no influence elsewhere in the game.

Basic description

 * "Freeze a foe to drop its defense."

When Set, Hail increases its Adept's base HP by 9, base Attack by 4, and base Luck by 1.

When Hail is unleashed in battle, the user deals a Mercury-based attack equal in power to the user's normal physical attack with an additional 40 damage points added to the result. Then, there is a chance that the target will have its Defense rating lowered by 25% temporarily.

In and, Hail's unleash animation visually resembles a glowing white image of a Mercury Djinni that floats above the party while the lower half of the screen quickly gets overtaken by a frozen "ocean" that rises from the ground in the instant, and the target is the only combatant on the field that gets knocked into the air by it.

Locations
Thus, it is very often missed by players playing the game the first time without any outside information. The battle with Hail may ensue in place of a random battle in the stretch of land to the southwest of Altmiller Cave, possibly as soon as the player crosses the bridge. See here for enemy statistics.



Analysis
General: Hail as an attacking Djinni has a satisfactory 40 damage bonus and chance to lower the enemy's Defense, which itself is good for making all subsequent physical hits on the enemy do more damage, sharply more depending on how much Defense the enemy has to begin with. But since it is gotten somewhat late in both of the games it appears in, it is not especially powerful for when it is usable in. Its identical counterpart Chill, which is introduced in The Lost Age, also features in, unlike Hail itself.

By game
It can perhaps be argued that lowering the enemy's defense is better than lowering the enemy's attack, which would make Hail better than Sleet in both damage and effect terms. Whether it is the most damaging Mercury attack Djinni in this game depends on the Adept using it - any Adept with a modest attack rating will be better benefited by Hail's straight 40 damage, but if the Adept has a very high attack rating, the relatively modest x1.3 damage multiplier of Mist may end up dealing more damage.

In this case, Chill has the advantage because it is found much earlier in the game, so its 40 damage boost is more significant for a while. By the time Hail can be acquired, both it and Chill are not as preferable as the Mercury Djinn with the 1.5x damage multipliers, Sour and Gel.

Name Origin
Hail is large ice chunks that fall from the sky.

Swizz is short for a swizzle, a type of alcoholic drink, usually frothy and made from rum or gin and bitters. It may also refer to a technique in figure skating.