Gust

Gust (ゲイル Gale) is a Jupiter Djinni found throughout the Golden Sun series.

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

Basic description
When Set, Gust increases its Adept's base HP by 9, base Attack by 2, and base Agility by 2.

When Gust is unleashed in battle, the user attacks a target with a Jupiter-based attack equal in power to the user's normal physical attack with an additional 10 damage points added to the result. There's a chance that all of the resultant damage will double.

In Golden Sun and The Lost Age, Gust's unleash animation visually resembles the user bolting forward at lightning speed to deal a fairy typical strong Jupiter attack, and on the chance that this is the double-damage form, the attack will consist of two hits in rapid succession. In Dark Dawn, the user runs forward while the 3D model of gust above a circular, purple effect follows behind their back, and the target deals a physical attack with their weapon - either once or twice depending on whether the attack is doubled or not - and a light-blue pair of circles arranged as a sphere briefly spins at the moment of impact.

Damage calculation
Elemental physical attacks such as Gust 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

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


 * ''final damage = (base damage + 10) * (1 + (Attacker's Jupiter Power - Target's Jupiter Resistance) / 400)

To word this in prose, Gust takes the base damage of the user's normal physical attack, adds 10 to it, and then this result is modified by how much higher or lower the user's Jupiter Power is than the target's Jupiter Resistance. The difference between the user's Jupiter Power and the target's Jupiter 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 Gust's damage is multiplied by. After all of this is performed, then the chance to double the damage is carried out, which is why it is not displayed in these calculations.

For example, if an Adept with an Attack rating of 100 and a Jupiter Power of 120 unleashes Gust on a monster with a defense of 20 and a Jupiter Resistance of 70:


 * damage = ((Attack - Defense) / 2 + 10) * (1 + (Power - Resistance) / 400)
 * damage = ((100 - 20) / 2 + 10) * (1 + (120 - 70) / 400)
 * damage = ( / 2 + 10) * (1 + / 400
 * damage = ( + 10) * (1 + )
 * damage = *
 * damage = 56

Therefore, if Gust were to be unleashed under these circumstances it would deal 56 or 112 points of damage.

Locations
Golden Sun: Gust is found in a cavern beneath the town of Bilibin. The gold statue of Lady McCoy in the center of town conceals an entrance into the cave, and you can shove it aside to reveal the ladder right under it. But on going into the cave, players will realize that though they can see Gust off to the right, another gold statue bars the way. The actual method of reaching Gust is to go up the stairs to the right of the statue outside, and walk south until you're walking clockwise on top of the wooden battlement. A cave entrance on the west side of town leads to the same underground cave, but to the left of the gold statue. Move the statue one space south, and hop right to where Gust awaits.

Golden Sun: The Lost Age: Players can transfer data from Golden Sun to The Lost Age, but even if they don't, Gust will be among the Djinn Isaac's party has with them when they join forces with Felix's party late in the game.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: The first time the player goes through Goma Highlands Road early in the game, Gust and the party will spot each other and it will run away. It will situate itself in the top screen of the area, in a spot that cannot be reached from the ground level. It can only be reached by exiting west out of the nearby Carver's Camp a special way; in town, go counterclockwise around the northwest house until you are to the upper right of an earth pillar on a path that suggests it can be moved right two tiles. Your remote Move Psynergy can be used to move this earth pillar right two spaces, dropping it down. Now you can hop onto it and exit off the left side of the screen on the elevated green route. Now on an elevated portion of the last screen of Goma Highlands Road, go to the lower left to the tip by the gondola station, face left toward a gondola, and cast Fireball to propel it to the station. Hop onto its seat and cast Fireball again to transport yourself to the elevated lower left corner of the screen. Follow the linear path along the elevated perimeter clockwise to where Gust is waiting, and fight it to obtain it. A nearby cliff slide will let you return to Carver's Camp quickly.

As Goma Highlands Road is one of the locations within the first region of the game, which gets locked off the moment you enter the Ei-Jei region, Gust can be permanently missed if not collected before then.

Analysis
General: While apparently intended as the "basic" offensive Jupiter Djinni, Gust is one-of-a-kind, having a chance to double the total damage of what would otherwise be a very weakly enhanced attack. In general, this has some appeal as a chance-based form of offense in which it can be either be very powerful or just another physical attack. Many other attacking Jupiter Djinn might be preferred because they are far more straightforward attacking effects like attacking Djinn of other elements, having stronger base damage bonuses and other status effects.

By game
Golden Sun: Gust is the one Djinni that deals an attack that may be enhanced by a damage multiplier after it receives a small, flat addition to its initial resultant damage. The multiplier itself - a straight 100% power increase - is the highest multiplier associated with any Djinni in either game, and on good days this makes it the strongest of all attack Djinn. But whenever the second strike does not kick in, Gust is merely a physical strike with a very minute power increase - the weakest attack Djinni in that case. Since it seems to strike once or twice with 50-50 probability, it could be said to have a damage multiplier of x1.5 on average. Gust is perhaps best on a warrior Adept in a class that is based on set Jupiter Djinn, though, because Ivan, often used for his mono-elemental Wind Seer class series, is generally meant more for utility such as Psynergy spells. Also, as an Adept with lower attack power, Ivan would be better benefited by a Djinni with a set damage bonus, like Smog.

Golden Sun: The Lost Age: When Isaac's party joins Felix's party along with their returning Djinn, Gust remains a Djinni that makes for an interestingly powerful, albeit chance-based, offensive option. The Venus Djinni Geode, however, deals an attack with a 90% power increase consistently, practically as strong as whenever Gust is able to do double damage, so players don't often need to bother with Gust when options like Geode and the Sol Blade are available.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Gust remains one-of-a-kind among offensive Djinni, being basically a 50% chance to deal double the damage of a normal attack or a 50% chance to deal a normal attack. When it strikes twice, it has the highest multiplier of any of the Djinn, but since half the time it does not double the damage, it could be said to have a damage multiplier of x1.5 on average. If a Djinni with an actual damage multiplier of x1.5 is what you desire, however, you would want to go with the Jupiter Djinni Vortex, which also has a bonus Delusion chance.

Name Origin
A gust is a sudden blast of air, and a gale a very strong wind.

Trivia

 * Prior to Dark Dawn, all Djinn of the same element shared the same design. Djinn were later given individualized appearances, but Gust retains the original Jupiter Djinni design as its own appearance.