Shuriken

Shuriken is a stand-alone Psynergy aligned with the Jupiter element. It is one of two stand-alone abilities available to the Ninja class series, the other being Annihilation.

Basic Characteristics
Shuriken is an offensive, ranged Psynergy that is Attack-dependent, meaning that characters with higher Attack will deal more damage with this Psynergy. In addition, the caster's Jupiter Power and the target's Defense and Jupiter Resistance will all factor into the damage dealt.

Visually, Shuriken features a group of large throwing stars appearing and flying from the user towards the targets.

Damage Calculation
Elemental physical attacks such as Shuriken 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 = (User's Attack - Enemy's Defense) / 2

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


 * final damage = ((base damage) * (1 + (User's Jupiter Power - Enemy's Jupiter Resistance) / 400)) * 0.8

To word this in prose, Shuriken takes the base damage of the user's normal physical attack, adds a set amount of bonus damage to that, 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 the Psynergies' damage is multiplied by.

For example, if an Adept with an Attack rating of 600 and a Jupiter Power of 150 casts Shuriken on a monster with a defense of 200 and a Jupiter Resistance of 50:
 * damage = ((Attack- Defense) / 2) * (1 + (Power - Resistance) / 400) * 0.8
 * damage = ((600 - 200) / 2) * (1 + (150 - 50) / 400) * 0.8
 * damage = ( / 2) * (1 +  / 400) * 0.8
 * damage =  * (1 + ) * 0.8
 * damage = *  * 0.8
 * damage = 200

Therefore, a Shuriken cast under these circumstances would deal 200 points of damage. In the GBA games, unlike most ranged Psynergies, Shuriken does not decrease in power as the distance from the targeted enemy increases. Instead, all targeted enemies are dealt the same damage, barring differences in elemental resistance between enemies. As of Dark Dawn, though, damage diminishes at the standard rate.

Availability
Shuriken is unique to the Ninja class series. Thus, only Mercury Adepts are unable to access the series. Venus Adepts require Mars Djinn and Jupiter Djinn to access the series, while Mars Adepts require Venus Djinn and Jupiter Djinn. Meanwhile, Jupiter Adepts require large numbers of Venus and Mars Djinn to access the series. Shuriken is learned at Level 21.

Analysis
General: Shuriken is an unusual Psynergy. It is one of the few Attack-based Psynergies to have a damage multiplier that is less than 1. Because of the low damage multiplier, it is usually passed over in favor of Death Leap and Annihilation for single targets. However, it does have a few advantages in ranged combat. In the GBA games, Shuriken targets all enemies for equal damage, whereas other ranged offenses have a diminishing ratio for targets farther away from the center of damage. In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, however, damage diminishes the same as with any other attack.

By Game
Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age: Shuriken is one of the only physical elemental attacks that affects multiple targets. This makes it ideal for battles against multiple opponents, where it can soften up opponents before dealing a final blow, particularly in the endgame, where physical attacks begin to outpower Power-based Psynergies.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: The addition of ranged weapon Unleashes takes away one of Shuriken's main advantages, as the majority of these Unleashes outpower Shuriken's low damage multiplier. As a Psynergy, Shuriken can be used on demand, whereas unleashes are unreliable due to the overhaul of the Unleash system. In most cases, however, an Unleash or another physical elemental attack would be preferred over Shuriken, due to the large increase in power as well as the loss of Shuriken's ability to hit all targets for equal damage.