Speed Punch

Speed Punch being cast in Dark Dawn

Speed Punch (マッハパンチ, Mach Punch) is a stand-alone Jupiter-based offensive Psynergy introduced in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.

Basic Description

Speed Punch is an offensive, single-target 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.

Speed Punch

Jupiter

6 PP

"Delivers a punch at the speed of sound." (DD-present)

Attack a single enemy using a base damage of a normal physical attack plus an additional 33 points.

Visually, Speed Punch shows the caster rushing towards the enemy to throw a physical punch at high speed. Purple lines stream from the caster's fist, to indicate speed.

Damage calculation example

Elemental physical attacks such as Speed Punch 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 Speed Punch's attack takes this base damage value and uses it in the following equation: final damage = (base damage + bonus damage) * (1 + (User's Jupiter Power - Enemy's Jupiter Resistance) / 400) To word this in prose, Speed Punch 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 300 and a Jupiter Power of 150 casts Speed Punch on a monster with a defense of 100 and a Jupiter Resistance of 50: damage = ((Attack - Defense) / 2 + bonus damage) * (1 + (Power - Resistance) / 400) damage = ((300 - 100) / 2 + 33) * (1 + (150 - 50) / 400) damage = (200 / 2 + 33) * (1 + 100 / 400) damage = (100 + 33) * (1 + 0.25) damage = 133 * 1.25 damage = 166 Therefore, a Speed Punch cast under these circumstances would deal approximately 166 points of damage.

Availability

Speed Punch is available to the Scrapper class series and the Wild Animal class series. Thus, it is exclusive the the Jupiter Adept Sveta. The Scrapper class series is accessed when Sveta has been given Venus Djinn. The Wild Animal Class is accessed whenever Sveta uses the Beastform Psynergy. In both classes, Speed Punch is learned at Level 1.

Analysis

General: Speed Punch is relatively equal in power to the Ragnarok, Heat Wave, and Diamond Dust Psynergies. Out of the group, it is the earliest learned, being the first Psynergy available to both the Wild Animal and Scrapper classes. It is also the only physical elemental attack learned by the Wild Animal and Scrapper classes to be Jupiter-influenced. As the player progresses, Speed Punch becomes outclassed by Psynergy Slam and Psynergy Surge in terms of raw power. However, Speed Punch is much cheaper in terms of PP usage. which is useful when considering the lower PP multipliers of the two classes.

Vs. Djinn: Many, though not all, offensive Djinn use a damage multiplier instead of a fixed damage increase, in addition to the Power - Resistance multiplier. As a result, these Djinn have the potential to be much stronger than Speed Punch, especially in the later stages of a game when the Adept in question has a higher Attack rating. However, unleashing Djinn in battle places them in Standby, resulting in several two disadvantages. First, Djinn must be Set to affect a character's class; unleashing a Djinni may result in lower stats across the board, including Attack and Power, reducing the damage dealt by subsequent attacks. Second, a Djinni's effect cannot be used again until that Djinni is re-Set, which means either wasting a turn manually Setting the Djinni or using it to perform a Summon, after which the Djinn used must spend several turns Recovering before they automatically Set themselves.

Either way, offensive Djinn cannot be repeatedly used as easily as Psynergy, making Speed Punch more feasible for long-term combat for the Scrapper class. It should be noted when Sveta is in the Wild Animal class, Djinn cannot be accessed in any form. Thus, Speed Punch is automatically the offense of choice, both during the effects of Beastform and after exiting the form, should Sveta still have enough Venus Djinn Set to be in the Scrapper class.

By Game

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Speed Punch is not likely to see a great deal of use, as Sveta will already know the stronger Psynergy Slam by the time she permanently joins the party. However, many of the monsters in the Belinsk Ruins, as well as the final boss are weak against Jupiter, and thus Speed Punch can still prove useful. Given the high Attack multipliers of the Wild Animal class, Speed Punch will still do a decent amount of damage, while conserving more of the class's small PP pool. Generally, Speed Punch would be used over Psynergy Surge and Psynergy Slam in situations where the player desires a Jupiter-based Attack, or wants to conserve PP.