Furrow

Furrow is a Venus Djinni found in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.

Furrow is the eighth Venus Djinni in Dark Dawn.

Basic description
When Set, Furrow increases its Adept's base HP by 9, base Attack by 5, base Defense by 2, and base Luck by 1.

When Furrow is unleashed in battle, the user deals a Venus-based attack equal in power to the user's normal physical attack with an additional 50 damage points added to the result. Then the user's HP will be restored by an amount equal to 50% of the damage dealt to the target. If the target dies, the user's HP is restored by half of the target's health before the attack.

In Dark Dawn, Furrow's unleash animation visually resembles the user summoning the 3D model of Furrow above the target. Then, as the user leaps toward the target to attack in slow motion, several large, layered yellow rings appear around the target, and energy gathers into the user's weapon. The rings disappear into the target and Furrow disappears in an orange flash as the user brings their weapon down with some orange effects. Then, an array of light blue energy orbs shoot out from the target and briskly enter into the user as the user retreats.

Damage calculation
Elemental physical attacks such as Furrow use the damage dealt by the attacker's standard physical attack as the base damage to be later modified. The total amount of damage dealt by a normal physical attack is half the difference between the attacker's Attack statistic and the target's Defense statistic, as this equation shows:


 * ''base damage = (Attacker's Attack - Target's Defense) / 2

Furrow's attack then takes this base damage value and uses it in the following equation:


 * ''final damage = (base damage + 50) * (1 + (Attacker's Venus Power - Target's Venus Resistance) / 400)

To word this in prose, Furrow takes the base damage of the user's normal physical attack, adds 50 to it, and then this result is modified by how much higher or lower the user's Venus Power is than the target's Venus Resistance. The difference between the user's Venus Power and the target's Venus Resistance is divided by 400, then 1 is added to this, resulting in what can be called the "elemental damage multiplier". This number is what Furrow's damage is multiplied by.

For example, if an Adept with an Attack rating of 300 and a Venus Power of 150 unleashes Furrow on a monster with a defense of 120 and a Venus Resistance of 100:


 * damage = ((Attack - Defense) / 2 + 50) * (1 + (Power - Resistance) / 400)
 * damage = ((300 - 120) / 2 + 50) * (1 + (150 - 100) / 400)
 * damage = ( / 2 + 50) * (1 + / 400
 * damage = ( + 50) * (1 + )
 * damage = *
 * damage = 157

Therefore, if Furrow were to be unleashed under these circumstances it would deal 157 points of damage.

Location
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Furrow is one of the Djinn that is only found by being randomly encountered in a specific area of the overworld map that otherwise appears to be featureless scenery. It is at the tiny island immediately to the east of the exit you take out of Teppe Ruins to step into the Morgal region. This is southwest of Saha Town and west of Port Rago. Furrow then must be battled and defeated to be acquired. (This is contrary to Furrow's Djinn Guide entry, which claims it is met "in Belinsk"; Belinsk is the city to the northwest of the island Furrow is found on.)

Because this Djinni is located in the Morgal region which no longer becomes accessible at a later point in the game, Furrow can be permanently missed if one enters the final gate in the Belinsk Ruins dungeon. (Late in the game, it is possible to return to Morgal through the Endless Wall glitch. However, this runs the risk of getting trapped in Morgal with no way of returning other than to reset.)

Analysis
General: Furrow is a pretty good offense to take because it adds a somewhat significant 50 bonus damage to the attack of any Adept that uses it, and can also heal the user for half the amount of total damage dealt. While not as high as other attacking Djinn and their set damage bonus ratings, like the Venus Djinni Gears, this can function as a good set damage boost for an Adept that does not do much damage with their normal physical attacks and could use some of their HP to be restored. However, a warrior Adept with a naturally high attack rating would prefer an effect that has a damage multiplier. Furrow is identical to the Venus Djinni Sap.

By game
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Furrow can be found on the overworld map at the same time that the Venus Djinni Gears can be fought way to the northwest of Belinsk. Gears, while not being accurately targetable when three or more enemies on the screen are present, has a usefully high set damage bonus of 80. Furrow deals 30 less bonus damage, but it is still a solid attacking Djinni at this midpoint in the game because the okay damage is accompanied by a chance to heal the user as well. Furrow is, of course, compared to the Venus Djinni Steel found earlier, which has the same healing side-effect. Steel's damage bonus comes in the form of a x1.3 damage multiplier, which admittedly does not surpass the straight set bonus damage of 50 that Furrow offers for essentially the whole game - the attacking Adept must have an especially high Attack rating to do more damage with Steel than Furrow. Being an attacking Djinni with 50 bonus damage and a chance to heal the user can give Furrow a niche as a battling option even once the extremely powerful Venus Djinni Chain is found late in the game.