Star Magician

Star Magician and a series of his personal minions called the Ball enemy 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 Lost 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 either game's actual story, nor is any background information provided. It is a powerful being that possesses mastery and control over his personal magic-imbued spherical minions.

In The Lost Age, the Star Magician stands guard in the deepest part of Treasure Isle. 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.

Thirty years later, the Star Magician, for unknown reasons, has moved and now resides within the Lost Ship, a wrecked, haunted vessel that is obscured in a cloud of purple mist in the northern portion of the Eastern Sea. The way to the ghostly ship is detailed in a small map known as the Treasure Note. In Dark Dawn, Matthew's group of Adepts come across the ship while exploring the Eastern Sea in search of a way to end the Grave Eclipse that is currently affecting much of Weyard. After reaching the stern of the ship, the Star Magician will announce his appearance before attacking with his minions. Like the Warriors of Vale's battle against the sorcerer, Matthew's party's battle is a fierce one, but if successful, they will gain the ability to summon Azul in future battles.

Ball enemy line
Main article: Ball enemy line

The Ball enemy line is a group of monsters found in Golden Sun: The Lost Age and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. 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 and the Lost Ship. The Ball monsters serve as minions to the Star Magician, with up to four balls able to accompany the Star Magician at any one time. Despite the four Ball limit, the Star Magician has a seemingly endless supply of them, and is able to summon more Balls to replace those that are felled. The specific variety of Ball summoned is chosen at random. The wide variety of Balls give the Star Magician a wide range of potential abilities and benefits.

In The Lost Age, there is one ball to represent each of the four elements, represented by the color of the Ball: Thunder Balls, Anger Balls, Refresh Balls, and Guardian Balls. The Star Magician will start out with one of each variety. In Dark Dawn, the Star Magician is now accompanied by Ghoul Balls and Death Balls, in addition to the four other varieties; the battle will start with a Ghoul Ball, a Refresh Ball, a Death Ball, and a Guardian Ball.

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.

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:

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 summon-rushing 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 summon-rushing 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 summon-rushing 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 second 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 afterwards.

Regardless of what attack strategy you use, it's extremely beneficial to have +80 resistance on all adepts, and wear as much Jupiter and Mercury resistance gear 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
As in The Lost Age, the Star Magician is one of four "superbosses" that the player may choose to fight, the others being the Ancient Devil, the Ogre Titans, and Dullahan. The Star Magician is the only one of the quartet that can be fought prior to gaining the Sol Blade, requiring only the Search Psynergy to explore the ship. The battle still remains one of the tougher ones, partly due to its early accessibility, and partly due to its somewhat enhanced battle strategy.

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.

Strategies
As in The Lost Age, the Star Magician is a thought-provoking battle. While the Star Magician's personal arsenal in nearly similar between games, the Ball monsters that accompany it have been revamped and expanded. The Refresh Balls and Guardian Balls are arguably less annoying due to a revamp of their abilities: both now have the additional option of a standard physical attack, while the Refresh Ball can now heal any of its party members, instead of just the Star Magician. It should be noted that the Star Magician can potentially be fought as soon as Himi joins the party. For an easier battle, the player should take the time to collect the remaining Djinn and obtain powerful weaponry like the Sol Blade. However, should the player wish to challenge themselves or want to obtain a great deal of experience quickly, an earlier battle can be won.

The battle's main difficulties come in dealing with the newly introduced Ghoul Balls and Death Balls. Death Balls will attempt to down unlucky Adepts, while Ghoul Balls have the unique ability to "consume" Djinn, forcing them into a long-term Recovery state, effectively removing them from the battle until the Ghoul Ball is destroyed. This ability means that Adepts can be significantly weakened over the course of a few turns, especially if the player uses Djinn to optimize class setups. 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.

When fighting the Star Magician, it should be noted that the battle will end as soon as the Star Magician itself is felled. Thus, focusing damage on the Star Magician is imperative to ending the battle quickly. When felling balls, Guardian Balls and Ghoul Balls should be targeted first, followed by Refresh Balls, due to their more annoying abilities. If the player has the patience, they can attempt to gain a lineup of Anger/Thunder Balls which will allow the players to focus on the Star Magician. If the player's party has sufficient Luck, Death Balls can be added to the lineup to shorten the amount of time.

Mars-based offenses such as the Meteor summon or the Liquefier Psynergy are an excellent offensive option due to the Star Magician's weakness against this element. Alternatively, the player can take advantage of Sveta's Beastform and Matthew's Sol Blade. When their attack stats are raised via Impact or Djinn, they can combine to do nearly 2000 damage total per turn, drastically shortening the battle. As with other options, Ghoul and Guardian Balls need to be taken out as they appear.

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.
 * The Star Magician is one of only two bosses in the entire series that can be officially fought in multiple games. The other such boss is Dullahan.
 * Star Magician is the only "superboss" in Dark Dawn whose weakness is the opposite element of the summon it guards: It guards a Mercury summon, but is weak against Mars. This is not true in The Lost Age, as Valukar and Sentinel have similar properties.