Valukar

Valukar (バルログ Balrog in the Japanese version) is an optional boss monster located and fought at the end of the optional dungeon Yampi Desert Cave in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Valukar awaits players willing for a battling challenge and guards the summon tablet containing the Daedalus summon sequence.

Background and story
Valukar, resembling a hulking large, pink-skinned demon with blue horns and wings and wielding a gold mallet, does not have any bearing on the game's actual story, nor is any background information provided. It is a powerful creature standing guard within the deepest depths of the Yampi Desert Cave, the secret cave-dungeon complex within the Yampi Desert located near Alhafra. For an indeterminable amount of time the Valukar has stood watch over a summon tablet containing a powerful being of fire (the Daedalus summon sequence, in other words).

Should any group of intrepid and capable Adepts battle their way through the cave to reach Valukar's chamber, Valukar and the summon tablet await on an area of ground elevated above a cavernous chasm. Valukar will speak to his challengers to introduce himself before attacking and using his powers to beat up the opposition:


 * "I am the guardian of fire. If you want my power, prove yourself in my crucible of flame."

In The Lost Age, as Isaac and Felix's combined party of capable Adepts nears the end of its quest, they may decide to return to Yampi Desert and explore the desert cave as they have so many other dungeons if they have all the Psynergy powers necessary to do so. Their encounter with Valukar will be a fierce and spectacular battle, but if they defeat him, they will gain the ability to summon a gargantuan embodiment of military firepower, the animated missle-laden statue Daedalus, in future battles.

As a boss
Valukar is one of four "superbosses" located throughout Weyard in The Lost Age, the others being Sentinel, Star Magician, and Dullahan. All of these bosses fight using unique battling setups and are very tough, but Valukar can easily be viewed as the easiest of them to fight. Valukar is encountered at the end of the optional Yampi Desert Cave dungeon, which can only be entered and explored with the Teleport Psynergy found in Mars Lighthouse. Specifically, the battle will automatically begin as soon as you visibly approach Valukar and he steps towards you to attack.

Valukar, statistically, has the second highest average overall stat rating in the Golden Sun series, surpassed only by Dullahan. He has the second highest HP rating in the game at 12960 HP. He has 550 Attack, 175 Defense, 206 Agility, and 46 Luck. Valukar acts twice per turn as well. In terms of resistance, Valukar has a Mars resistance rating of 175, a Venus and Jupiter resistance rating of 100 each, and a Mercury resistance rating of 60. If Valukar is defeated in battle, you are awarded 8702 EXP, 4980 coins, and can gain the summon tablet Valukar was guarding, the Daedalus summon.

Arsenal
Valukar's collection of abilities is small compared to most other bosses:
 * Crucible: Used 3 out of 8 times, this unique monster skill is the main talent that makes Valukar a "special" boss as a whole. He makes use of your Djinn currently on standby on your current battling party of Adepts to perform Summon sequences from them against you, and your Djinn are put in recovery as though it was you who used them. The power of Crucible, of course, is dependent on how many and what kinds of Djinn you have On Standby, for he will always try to use the strongest available summons your Standby Djinn allow. While this might seem like an immensely powerful and crippling ability, summon spells deal the majority of their damage based on how high each target's maximum HP meter is, so all summons he would use against you deal far less damage than if you use the same summons against him and his 12960 HP meter.
 * Djinn Stun: Used 2 out of 8 times, this is a monster skill where Valukar magically relieves each Adept of a set of glowing rainbow-colored orbs of energy, putting one of each Adept's Set Djinn On Standby. In concept, this is supposed to make the Adepts weaker statistically, and is meant to work in conjunction with his Crucible ability (it is not uncommon for Valukar to use this as his first move in a given turn, and then use Crucible as his second move in that turn to generate a Summon sequence stronger than what he could have generated otherwise); however, since Valukar uses the moves in his command list at random and your party of Adepts will probably all be faster than him in terms of Agility, this move can easily be turned around on him, for the Adepts will have more On Standby Djinn to unload lots of summons with at a pretty constant rate throughout the battle.
 * Stun Jip: Used 2 out of 8 times, this is a monster skill where Valukar strikes with a powerful blow from his hammer that lets out a mass of energy on impact, dealing a Venus-based attack equal to his normal physical attack multiplied by 1.6. In addition, there is a chance the target will be Stunned. This is Valukar's "main" offense whenever he doesn't fiddle around with Djinn and summons, and it is quite strong against single targets and he uses it quite often.
 * Attack: Used 1 out of 8 times, this is this monster's standard physical attack, which is far weaker than his more-often-used Stun Jip skill.

Strategies
Valukar, though one of the four "superbosses" of The Lost Age, is considered fairly easy as an endgame boss and certainly the most manageable of the four. This is because Summon spells in Golden Sun games deal damage proportional to the size of each struck opponent's maximum HP meter, and because Valukar has the second highest HP rating in the games, summon spells of pretty much every level will always do massive damage on him. And because his Djinn Stun effectively puts your Djinn On Standby for summoning for you, Valukar is practically helping you make his HP meter dwindle quickly. You would basically try to summon whenever possible so that Valukar cannot use your summons against you, which shouldn't be hard if everyone has high agility ratings.

There are certain things to remember about this battle that will ensure you have a relatively easy time conducting it. First of all, summons using many Djinn such as Eclipse and Haures will be trouble if Valukar is allowed to use them against you, but summons using only a few Djinn will actually do seemingly low damage to each of your Adepts, and healing Psynergy like the Aura Psynergy series and Wish Psynergy series are extremely useful for the fight. These same low-level summons do very nice damage against Valukar when you use them (Zagan will do over 700 damage, for example), so always try to be using relatively low-level summons to combat Valukar rather than waiting to use high-level summons and risk Valukar using that against you.

Since Djinn Stun always puts one Set Djinni On Standby for each Adept alive in the current battling party, you can come up with a very safe battle if your party has one Venus Adept, two Mars Adepts, and one Jupiter Adept in the front row, with their Djinn arranged so they are all in their respective mono-elemental classes. That way, whenever Djinn Stun is used, the Djinn that are put on Standby will instantly allow for one Zagan summoning and one Megaera summoning. Both are quite good for you to use against Valukar and both are quite non-damaging for Valukar to use against you; you can go through the entire battle using only these two summons and four Adepts.

Whatever summon-based strategy you use for the battle, if you collected the regenerating summon Coatlicue, make sure never to let there be enough Jupiter and Mercury Djinn On Standby for Valukar to use Coatlicue on himself. Even if he is near the end of his HP meter, if he uses it his HP will be completely cured after a few turns, since Coatlicue causes its user to regenerate 60% of its maximum HP each turn for five turns.