Star Magician

Star Magician and a series of his personal minions called the Ball monster line are an optional boss encounter located and fought at the end of the optional dungeon Treasure Isle in Golden Sun: The Lost Age, and at the end of the Ghost Ship optional dungeon in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. Star Magician awaits players willing to attempt an extreme battling challenge and guards the summon tablet containing the Azul summon sequence.

Background and story
Star Magician, resembling a humanlike entity in a navy-blue robe and a shadowy face obscured by a pointed hood, does not have any bearing on the game's actual story, nor is any background information provided. It is a powerful being standing guard within the deepest depths of Treasure Isle, the secret cavernous area within the island in the northeastern region of Weyard's Great Eastern Sea, and possesses mastery and control over his personal magic-imbued spherical minions.

In the event any group of intrepid and capable Adepts enters the cave-like dungeon and has the Psynergy powers necessary to bypass the obstacles that would otherwise prevent outsiders from descending into the cave's deepest depths, Star Magician and the summon tablet await in an unlit, cavernous chamber at the end. Star Magician will speak to his challengers via telepathy to introduce himself before attacking and employing his minions to overpower the opposition:


 * "I am the guardian of water. If you would claim my power, you must prove your worth."

In The Lost Age, as Isaac and Felix's combined party of powerful and capable Adepts nears the end of its quest, they will have amassed the Psynergy necessary to explore and loot Treasure Isle beyond what Briggs' pirates and even Felix's original party could reach. It will be one of the fiercest and most tactics-demanding battles they will ever wage, but if they are triumphant over the sorcerer, they will gain the ability to summon the most fearsome embodiment of the power of watery might, the serpentine leviathan Azul, in future battles.

As a boss in The Lost Age
The boss encounter with Star Magician and his summonable "Ball" minions is one of the most challenging, thought-provoking, and tricky encounters in the entire Golden Sun series. Star Magician is one of four "superbosses" located throughout Weyard in The Lost Age, the others being Valukar, Sentinel, and Dullahan, and while all of these bosses fight using unique battling setups and are very tough, Star Magician is easily much more dangerous than Valukar and Sentinel and is only surpassed by Dullahan as the game's hardest battle. Star Magician is encountered at the end of the optional Treasure Isle dungeon, in a deeper area that requires the Grind Psynergy from Lemuria and then the Lift Psynergy that comes with Isaac's party to reach and explore. Specifically, the battle will automatically begin as soon as you visibly approach Star Magician and he steps towards you to attack.

Star Magician has the lowest HP rating among the four superbosses, at 7486, but he is very tough to take out nonetheless because of the abilities of both himself and the minions he summons. He has 560 PP, 460 Attack, 139 Defense, 268 Agility, and 52 Luck. Star Magician also acts two times each turn. In terms of resistance, the Star Magician has a Mercury resistance rating of 180, a Jupiter resistance rating of 150, a Venus resistance rating of 130, and a Mars resistance rating of 72, and in regards to its abilities it uses its available Mercury-based attacks with a Mercury power rating of 105 and its available Jupiter-based attacks with a Jupiter power rating of 95. If Star Magician is defeated in battle, you are awarded 7866 EXP and 5566 coins along with the EXP and coins his "Ball" minions yield whenever they are destroyed (and Star Magician starts the battle out with four Ball minions, one of each of the four varieties he can summon), and you can gain the summon tablet Star Magician was guarding, the Azul summon.

Arsenal
Star Magician's collection of abilities, which he can use two of per turn, allows him to hold his own with powerful long-range group assaults, but what makes him especially difficult is his ability to infinitely summon a variety of personal minions that each count as an opponent to consider:
 * Mystic Call: Used 141 out of 256 times, this unique monster skill is the trademark of Star Magician that makes him particularly infamous as a boss: If he has less then four "Ball" minions by his side, he will be able to use this, and a new Ball minion will join the battle and fill up a missing space in his side's ranks. The variety of Ball minion he summons is randomly determined. (Note that the battle starts out with each of the four varieties by his sides.)
 * Mine Ball: Used 64 out of 256 times, this is a monster skill where Star Magician charges up a ball of energy in his hands and lobs it at the party, where it explodes into a large blue explosion of energy, dealing a Mercury-based attack equal to his normal physical attack multiplied by 1.5 and has a range of 5. This is his "main" offense he uses as himself when not summoning ball minions.
 * Spark Plasma: Used 23 out of 256 times, this is a Psynergy spell that strikes the party repeatedly with a barrage of purplish-white lightning bolts, dealing a Jupiter-based attack with a power rating of 180 and a range of 7. It consumes 37 of the user’s PP.
 * Megacool: Used 17 out of 256 times, this is a Psynergy spell that summons large rows of ice spiking out from the ground at the opposition, dealing a Mercury-based attack with a power rating of 180 and a range of 7. This ability consumes 33 of its user's PP.
 * Attack: Used 11 out of 256 times, this is this boss' standard physical attack. Star Magician's physical attack is visually different from every other monster in that he does not leap forward to collide with the target Adept: He stays stationary as he lobs a small red ball of energy at his target. Star Magician rarely uses this command, though, and each of his other commands are much more dangerous to the party as a whole.

Ball monster line
The Ball monster line is a group of monsters found in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. These monsters, resembling orbs with lines criss-crossing their bodies, are palette swaps of each other. They only appear during the battle with Star Magician deep within Treasure Isle. The battle begins with the Star Magician surrounded by four of his Ball minions, one of each variety. Should one be destroyed, Star Magician can summon another to take its place using its monster skill Mystic Call. The Ball monster summoned is determined at random, and no more than four Ball monsters can appear at any given time. Each member is aligned with a different element, which is represented by their color.

Thunder Ball
A purple variant with 280 HP, 43 PP which regenerate 10 PP per turn, 329 Attack, 123 Defense, 219 Agility, and 30 Luck. In terms of resistance, it has a Jupiter resistance rating of 152, a Mercury and Mars resistance rating of 100 each, and a Venus resistance rating of 48, and in regards to its abilities it uses its available Jupiter-based attacks with a Jupiter power rating of 110.

The Thunder Ball uses these battle commands:


 * Attack: Used 2 out of 8 times, this is this monster's standard physical attack.


 * Flash Bolt: Used 2 out of 8 times, this is a Psynergy spell where two purple lightning bolts strike the party, dealing a Jupiter-based attack with a power rating of 40 and a range of 3. It consumes 7 of the user’s PP.


 * Storm Ray: Used 2 out of 8 times, this is a Psynergy spell that strikes the party with purple lightning, dealing a Jupiter-based attack with a power rating of 65 and a range of 3. It consumes 10 of the user’s PP.


 * Shine Plasma: Used 2 out of 8 times, this is a Psynergy spell that strikes the party with three purplish-white lightning bolts, dealing a Jupiter-based attack with a power rating of 100 and a range of 5. It consumes 18 of the user’s PP.

Each Thunder Ball defeated adds 296 EXP and 243 coins to the total EXP and coin reward after the battle.

Refresh Ball
A blue variant with 360 HP, 43 PP which regenerate 10 PP per turn, 317 Attack, 124 Defense, 136 Agility, and 36 Luck. In terms of resistance, it has a Mercury resistance rating of 175, a Venus and Jupiter resistance rating of 100 each, and a Mars resistance rating of 25.

The Refresh Ball uses these battle commands:


 * Earnest Ply: Used 5 out of 8 times, unique Psynergy spell exclusive to Refresh Ball that restores 1000 HP to the Star Magician. It is both visually and functionally identical to Pure Ply, even consuming 12 of the user’s PP.


 * Attack: Used 1 out of 8 times, this is this monster's standard physical attack.


 * Cure Poison: Used 1 out of 8 times, this is a Psynergy spell that removes the Poison or Venom condition from Star Magician. It consumes 2 of the user’s PP.


 * Restore: Used 1 out of 8 times, this is a Psynergy spell that removes the Sleep, Stun, Delusion, and Death Curse from the Star Magician. This consumes 3 of its user's PP.

Each Refresh Ball defeated adds 448 EXP and 278 coins to the total EXP and coin reward after the battle.

Guardian Ball
A green-yellow variant with 520 HP, 43 PP, 317 Attack, 127 Defense, 292 Agility, and 33 Luck. In terms of resistance, it has a Venus resistance rating of 152, a Mercury and Mars resistance rating of 100 each, and a Jupiter resistance rating of 48.

The Guardian Ball uses these battle commands:


 * Guard Aura: Used 5 out of 8 times, this is a Monster Skill that covers the Star Magician in a protective aura that lowers all damage done to it to practically nothing for that turn (5% of what it would be otherwise) - and on any turn Guard Aura is used it will always be the first command executed that turn. An extremely effective defense for the Star Magician that is part of what makes the battle so tricky.


 * Defend: Used 3 out of 8 times, this monster has the ability to use the Defend command, which causes all damage incurred to either its HP or PP meters to be reduced down to 50% for the turn, and this effect is active before any other action in the turn takes place.

Each Guardian Ball defeated adds 439 EXP and 289 coins to the total EXP and coin reward after the battle. If you're using summons at the start of the battle, Guardian Ball may use Guard Aura on Star Magician, preventing you from any dealing major damage.

Anger Ball
A red variant with 460 HP, 43 PP, 357 Attack, 125 Defense, 173 Agility, and 27 Luck. In terms of resistance, it has a Mars resistance rating of 175, a Venus and Jupiter resistance rating of 100 each, and a Mercury resistance rating of 25, and in regards to its abilities it uses its available Venus-based attacks with a Venus power rating of 95.

The Anger Ball uses these battle commands:


 * Attack: Used 5 out of 8 times, this is this monster's standard physical attack.


 * Angry Mine: Used 3 out of 8 times, this is a Monster Skill where the monster leaps forward into the party and disappears in a massive explosion, dealing a Venus-based attack with a power rating of 300 and a range of 3. This attack removes the user from the battle in a way that it is not counted as "felled" (you don't get its EXP and coins).

Each Anger Ball you actually defeat through battle (an Anger Ball destroying itself with Angry Mine does not count) adds 387 EXP and 30 coins to the total EXP and coin reward after the battle.

Strategies
Star Magician and the Ball monster line make for one of the game's hardest battles, because there would almost always be multiple opponents each contributing something substantial to the battle either against you or in support of the Star Magician. The main reason behind its trickiness is that there is a likelihood that a rush-summoning strategy where you try to overpower and annihilate the opponent with multiple high-level summons will be effectively nullified by the Guard Aura a Guardian Ball may start off each turn with; using your summons on a turn where Guard Aura protects the Star Magician will pretty much count as wasted summons that will only end up felling the Ball minions in his vicinity. One might assume then that winning the battle is a question of first destroying the Guardian Ball and then unleashing all the summons the next turn; what makes this approach hard to pull off is the fact that if your Adepts have many of their Djinn on Standby, their classes will be lower and they will be far weaker both in Defense/HP and Attack/Agility, meaning some or all of the Adepts will be defeated by the constant powerful attacks of the Star Magician and his minions before they can summon.

Leveling up your party beyond 40 should be considered a requisite to the battle because success in the battle depends on how well all of the statistics of all of the Adepts are developed: Especially if you're going to try to win the battle with summons, you will need the Attack and Agility to effectively take care of the Ball minions when you're not summoning and you will need the resiliency to weather the constant group-based attacks to your party. What will also be an absolutely immense help to you is a Venus Adept equipped with the Sol Blade and enough defensive items that increase the Unleash rate of the Sol Blade's Megiddo attack that you can reliably Unleash Megiddo every time that Adept attacks. Try to get and equip all of these on your Sol Blade-wielding Adept before the battle: the Valkyrie Mail, Riot Gloves, Mythril Helm, and Hyper Boots. If you don't have Riot Gloves or Mythril Helms, you can use the somewhat less effective Aegis Shield and Warrior's Helm items in their place. An Adept equipped with the Sol Blade and all these items will be able to instantly KO a Ball minion of your choice each turn, and do respectable damage to Star Magician himself once there aren't any Guardian Balls or Refresh Balls around. It will be even more helpful if you can get your hands on Excaliburs and Tisiphone Edges for your other battling Adepts to use.

Summoning would be a strong way to damage the Star Magician when there aren't any Guardian Balls around to protect him, but since the battle starts with a Guardian Ball around, there's a chance he will be shielded on the first turn and thus all your summons on the first turn will only achieve destroying the first four Balls. But that means there's also a chance the Guardian Ball will not use Guard Aura on the first turn, instead using Defend, and if a full-on rush-summoning session is used in such a lucky first turn the Star Magician should receive massive damage in addition to removing all of its Ball minions. That would be an immense help, and if your Adepts are properly leveled and outfitted as recommended above, you should be able to effectively take out each Ball he summons as you keep on inflicting damage. This is a general theme of the battle: remove all the Balls and keep the number of Balls Star Magician summons back at a minimum as you damage Star Magician. After all, Star Magician would theoretically be a straightforward opponent like Sentinel if the Ball minions are taken out of the equation of the battle. So, on your first try at the battle you might want to try the typical rush-summoning approach anyway just to see how well it turns out.

Mars summons would be the most effective to use against the Star Magician himself because of his Mercury affiliation, so a Meteor summon would always be great if it's used on a turn Star Magician is not shielded by a Guard Aura. If you have Daedalus because you defeated Valukar, an interesting alternative can be pursued because the Daedalus summon is two attacks spread out over two turns, with the second attack as strong as a Meteor summoning. On the first turn of the battle, you can summon Daedalus multiple times so that the first weaker portion of each Daedalus assault softens up the opposition, while you have your warrior-style Adepts make sure to defeat the Guardian Ball. It wouldn't matter so much if Guardian Ball does use Guard Aura the first turn because it not being around in the second turn will ensure that the second stronger portion of each Daedalus summoning will score strong blows against Star Magician and the rest of his Ball minions, which is the aim of using Daedalus like this in this battle.

Another useful strategy when fighting the Star Magician is to use the first turn to eliminate the Refresh and Guardian Balls, but leave the other two balls. Before the battle, make sure to prepare the 2nd team (the Adepts not battling) for a summon sweep by putting all their Djinn on Standby. You also want to make sure you have someone in both sides of the party that can cast a mass heal since the goal here is to get the Star Magician to summon only Thunder Balls and Anger Balls. Although they do a lot of damage, your team should be able to survive it and heal up the next turn. Once you've succeeded in getting the Star Magician down to just offensive balls, he will no longer be able to heal or shield himself, which means your non-healing team members can go all-offense on Star Magician. When using Psynergy, try to stick to only the Psynergy that will hit the Star Magician and not the balls, so you don't risk him summoning a Refresh or Guardian Ball. If all goes well, you can align your team with Felix, Jenna, Mia, and Isaac in the first group since all of them should be able to heal and attack fairly well in their default classes (Jenna and Mia both should be able cast mass heals to sustain the group), plus you can Revive with two characters if needed. Should the whole party be taken out, you will automatically switch to the second team, which is fully equipped for full power summons and assuming you've done a decent bit of damage already and there are no Refresh or Guardian Balls on the field, you should easily finish him off with your summons, especially with Garet's Meteor and if you have someone else use his remaining Mars Djinn for a second fire-based summon. Even if you don't you'll have wiped out all the balls and as long as you keep all the Refresh and Guardian Balls down, you can finish him off with a few more attacks. Assuming your team can take the hits, this may be the best way to take down the Star Magician since he will no longer be able to heal or protect himself.

A somewhat more generic but nonetheless valid strategy to utilize against Star Magician is to equip Mia with the Psychic Circlet, Iris Robe (or Mysterious Robe) and Clear Bracelet, allowing her to cast the Wish Psynergy series indefinitely. Along with her natural Mercury power and all Mercury Djinni, this will enable her to ideally restore close to 700HP per turn to every member of the party, effectively making them invulnerable. Then all that is left is to target all Guardian and Refresh balls, which will eventually only leave Thunder Balls (Anger Balls will self-destruct), which do so little damage relative to HP regeneration, that they can be effectively ignored. Then the player can focus on felling the Star Magician himself, mopping up the non-respawning Balls afterward.

Regardless of what attack strategy you use, it's extremely beneficial to have +80 resist on all adepts, and wear as much as Jupiter and Mercury resistance gears as possible. The majority of attacks directed at the party are spell-based, so having high resistance help soften the blows quite a bit. Also, as the Star Magician does not have Break, he cannot negate boosts to resistance, so Psynergies like Ward are very useful.

As a boss in Dark Dawn
The version of Star Magician in Dark Dawn's Lost Ship fights very similarly to the Lost Age version. The main difference is that there are two more kinds of Balls that Mystic Call can bring up, apparently associated with the revealed fundamentals, light and darkness. Black Death Balls (darkness-connected) can cast Condemn. Much more irksome are the yellow Ghoul Balls (light-connected), which can "eat" one of your Djinn. Once eaten, a Djinni is essentially in constant Recovery, unavailable for summons and contributing no stats. The only way to get the Djinni back is to destroy the Ghoul Ball that ate it (or, of course, Star Magician, whose destruction destroys all of his Balls). Both these Balls are apparently earth-aligned, and vulnerable to Jupiter attacks. When the encounter starts, Star Magician is accompanied by one each of Refresh, Guardian, Death, and Ghoul Balls. Also in Dark Dawn, the Refresh Balls will cast Pure Ply on any enemy, as opposed to just the boss like they did in The Lost Age, making them not nearly as annoying.

The Coins and experience will depend on how many Balls have been destroyed. Because of this, it is possible to get massive quantities (well into the six digits of experience) of both if you constantly wipe out the Balls while only whittling down the Star Magician.

Strategies
In general, the same battle strategies used in The Lost Age's Star Magician can apply to Dark Dawn's Star Magician. However, there are a few differences that should be noted.

First, the newly introduced Ghoul Balls are nearly if not just as dangerous in the battle as the Refresh and Guardian Balls. Since the Ghoul Balls effectively remove Djinn from the battle, the party can be significantly weakened over the course of a few turns, particularly if the player uses Djinn to optimize class setups. Unlike Djinn Storm, or similar techniques, the Djinn do not even enter recovery until the Ghoul Ball is destroyed. Additionally, if Sveta's Djinn are removed from her while she is under the effects of Beastform, even if the Ghoul Ball is destroyed, the Djinn will not start its recovery until Sveta has exited Beastform. Since Sveta's time in Beastform is determined by the number of set Djinn, this can drastically shorten her time in the form. Thus, defeating any Ghoul Balls that appear should be one of the top priorities.

Taking advantage Sveta's Beastform, despite the class being mostly Venus and Jupiter based rather than Mars based, can be also a potent strategy. When her attack is maximized, Savage Fiend Sveta can do upwards of 1000 damage each turn due to the class's high attack, especially in comparison to the the Star Magician's defense. The player can have the other Adepts heal or target any Refresh/Guardian/Ghoul Balls that happen to appear, until the desired setup of Anger/Thunder Balls is accomplished.

Trivia

 * Unusually, data exists in the game code for what was apparently planned to be two palette-swapped versions of Star Magician. Neither of them are actually any visually different from the Star Magician, and their statistics and abilities have not been completed at all, leaving them with weak placeholder stats and skills. This is actually the same story with certain other unique bosses such as Sentinel and Valukar, but what makes Star Magician's case unique is that each of these copy enemies have their own names, registered as Dark Wizard and Evil Shaman.
 * Star Magician is notable among The Lost Age's optional bosses in that it can be battled as soon as Isaac's party joins your team. The Teleport Psynergy, found in Mars Lighthouse, is needed to reach the other three, and additional requirements on top of that to fight Dullahan.
 * Similarly, in Dark Dawn, the Star Magician can be battled as soon as Himi joins the party, whilst the Ancient Devil and Ogre Titan cannot be battled until the Sol Blade is acquired in the final dungeon. Likewise, Dullahan cannot be fought until the final boss is defeated at least once.