Sap

Sap (カルク Calc) is a Venus Djinni found throughout the Golden Sun series.

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

In Dark Dawn, Sap appears as one of the "extra Djinn" in the Djinn Guide because of its temporary appearance in the earliest stage of the game.

Basic description
When Set, Sap increases its Adept's base HP by 10, base Attack by 3, and base Luck by 1.

When Sap is unleashed in battle, the user deals a Venus-based attack equal in power to the user's normal physical attack with an additional 50 damage points added to the result. Then the user's HP will be restored by an amount equal to 50% of the damage dealt to the target. If the target dies, the user's HP is restored by half of the target's health before the attack.

In Golden Sun and The Lost Age, Sap's unleash animation visually resembles the user performing a fairly typical strong Venus attack, and then an array of glowing yellow energy orbs are siphoned out of the target and into the user. In Dark Dawn, the initial physical attack resembles the visual of Flint, where the 3D model of Sap hovers behind the user and, when the user strikes the target, their weapon and the area of ground underneath and behind the target glows yellow. Then, an array of light blue energy orbs shoot out from the target and briskly enter into the user as the user retreats.

Damage calculation
Elemental physical attacks such as Sap 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

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


 * ''final damage = (base damage + 50) * (1 + (Attacker's Venus Power - Target's Venus Resistance) / 400)

To word this in prose, Sap takes the base damage of the user's normal physical attack, adds 50 to it, and then this result is modified by how much higher or lower the user's Venus Power is than the target's Venus Resistance. The difference between the user's Venus Power and the target's Venus 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 Sap's damage is multiplied by.

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


 * damage = ((Attack - Defense) / 2 + 50) * (1 + (Power - Resistance) / 400)
 * damage = ((100 - 20) / 2 + 50) * (1 + (120 - 70) / 400)
 * damage = ( / 2 + 50) * (1 + / 400
 * damage = ( + 50) * (1 + )
 * damage = *
 * damage = 101

Therefore, if Sap were to be unleashed under these circumstances it would deal 101 points of damage.

Locations
Golden Sun: Sap is present in the town of Vault, but the requirement to attain it is quite involved and easy to unknowingly make mistakes about. First, in the town area, climb and make your way all the way to the wooden watch tower at the north end of the town, and interact with the dangling bell next to the NPC; a hollow ringing noise will prompt Sap to hop out of its hiding place in the nearby tree to an elevated area next to a cave exit. Then, go to the cemetery where the dog is, cast Reveal, climb down the revealed ladder, and complete the Vault Cave optional dungeon. At the end of the dungeon, you will exit out into the open out of said cave exit, and Sap will be sitting nearby in the spot you hounded it to, ready to be collected. In other words, Sap is the "end reward" of the Vault Cave dungeon, but only if you remember to place it as the dungeon's end reward first.

Golden Sun: The Lost Age: Players can transfer data from Golden Sun to The Lost Age, but even if they don't, Sap 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: Sap is one of the six Djinn that Isaac and Garet loan Matthew and Karis while in Tanglewood, meaning that the player may use it while exploring Tanglewood, the Abandoned Mine beyond that, and the Tangle Bloom boss fight at the end. After this, Sap and the other Djinn are permanently returned to Isaac and Garet for the rest of the game.

Analysis
General: Sap is a pretty good offense to take because it adds a somewhat significant 50 bonus damage to the attack of any Adept that uses it, and can also heal the user for half the amount of total damage dealt. This added damage bonus is more significant the earlier in the game it is used, and can be relied on as a good set damage boost for an Adept that does not do much damage with their normal physical attacks. However, a warrior Adept with a naturally high attack rating would prefer an effect that has a damage multiplier.

By game
Golden Sun: Since Flint from the beginning of Golden Sun is the one attack Venus Djinni an Adept would need for the sake of dealing optimized damage, Sap and its added damage would then only be used for the sake of its potential additional self-healing effect. It can be situationally useful for cases where your Adept would be helped out by a chance to be healed somewhat, but it is not a staple. The Venus Djinni Bane, for comparison's sake, has a little more added damage and the chance to inflict the extremely useful Venom condition.

Golden Sun: The Lost Age: When Isaac's party joins Felix's party along with their returning Djinn, Sap's ability makes it a variation on Steel, a Venus Djinni acquired relatively early in the game in the Gabomba Statue, at a point where the party in that game is at around the same level as when the first game's party can be when they first acquire Sap. Steel, in comparison to the Flint-like Echo, is less used even when it is first acquired because of the same relationship between them as between Sap and Flint above, and at the endgame their shared effect is unspectacular compared to certain other attack Djinn such as Geode. However, Steel may overpower Sap in the endgame because of its damage multiplier (their damage will become equal when the user's normal physical attack reaches 166 damage).

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: In the short period of time Sap is available to Matthew and Karis in Tanglewood and the Abandoned Mine at the beginning of the game, Sap's damage bonus is greatly powerful, dealing around 80 damage when Matthew would be doing a "strong" 30 damage with each of his physical attacks otherwise. Sap scores a one-hit KO on any enemy and makes the Tangle Bloom encounter at the end go by much faster, but unfortunately it is taken away from your possession immediately after this. Steel is gotten relatively early in this game, and another Venus Djinni, Furrow, is identical to Sap in battle function, but that is gotten much later in the game in the Morgal region.

Name Origin
Sap is a liquid substance, usually sticky, that is found in many trees. Take note that not all liquids within trees are considered sap. "Sap" is also a verb, meaning "to drain." Calc is a geological term referring to things of lime or calcium.