Torch

Torch is a Mars Djinni found throughout the Golden Sun series.

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

Basic description
When Set, Torch increases its Adept's base HP by 9, base Attack by 3, and base Luck by 1.

When Torch is unleashed in battle, the user deals a Mars-based attack equal in power to the user's normal physical attack with an additional 30 damage points added to the result. There is a chance that when the attack hits, only 50% of the target's current Defense rating is applied, which would sharply increase Torch's damage.

In Golden Sun and The Lost Age, Torch's unleash animation visually resembles the user entering a casting pose while a wavy, oscillating heat effect slides across the scene, then after the moment the user physically strikes the target. In Dark Dawn, the user summons the 3D model of Torch immediately above them through a small fiery effect, and Torch quickly disappears in a similar effect. Then, a similar, brighter version of the oscillating effect transpires while the target is engulfed in a small, fiery effect itself that includes a faint red beam going up through its position.

Damage calculation
Elemental physical attacks such as Torch 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 ordinarily 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

In Torch's case, though, even before this there is a chance that the target's Defense rating will be halved for the damage calculations. Torch's attack then takes this base damage value and uses it in the following equation:


 * ''final damage = (base damage + 30) * (1 + (Attacker's Mars Power - Target's Mars Resistance) / 400)

To word this in prose, Torch takes the base damage of the user's normal physical attack, adds 30 to it, and then this result is modified by how much higher or lower the user's Mars Power is than the target's Mars Resistance. The difference between the user's Mars Power and the target's Mars 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 Torch's damage is multiplied by.

For example, if an Adept with an Attack rating of 300 and a Mars Power of 150 unleashes Torch on a monster with a defense of 120 and a Mars Resistance of 100:


 * damage = ((Attack - Defense) / 2 + 30) * (1 + (Power - Resistance) / 400)
 * damage = ((300 - 120 OR 60) / 2 + 30) * (1 + (150 - 100) / 400)
 * damage = ( / 2 + 30) * (1 + / 400
 * damage = ( + 30) * (1 + )
 * damage = *
 * damage = 135 OR 168

Therefore, if Torch were to be unleashed under these circumstances it would deal 135 or 168 points of damage depending on whether the enemy's Defense is halved or not.

Locations
Golden Sun: Torch is located on a rooftop of Lalivero that is somewhat tricky to reach. You would have to enter the Weapon and Armor shop to the lower right of the town, climb up the ladder to the roof, hop right onto the wall that surrounds the town's upper perimeter, walk the wall counterclockwise until you're on a rooftop on the upper left of town that has one lone pot on it, hop right to the building to the right of that, and climb up the green vine to collect Torch.

Golden Sun: The Lost Age: Players must transfer data from Golden Sun to The Lost Age in order for Torch to be acquired at all, because if they don't, Torch will not be among the Djinn Isaac's party has with them when they join forces with Felix's party late in the game, and the "make-up" Mars Djinni early in the interior of Magma Rock will be the other missing Mars Djinni from the first game, Flash.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Torch 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, Torch and the other Djinn are permanently returned to Isaac and Garet for the rest of the game.

Analysis
General: In "main gameplay", which only occurs in the GBA games, Torch is not as good as one might expect for a Djinni that is only found close to the end of each game it appears in. Its set damage bonus is the same as that of the earliest attacking Mars Djinni, Fever; when compared to that Djinni, the only real difference is that while Fever has a chance to inflict Delusion, Torch has a chance to ignore half the enemy's defense and therefore increase the damage it deals. Granted, Torch has the better secondary effect in this comparison, and this defense-piercing effect does sharply increase damage on endgame enemies that have high defense ratings to work with, but Torch can't be relied on to achieve this extra boost when it is used. Therefore, other attacking Mars Djinn are overall better to use.

By game
Golden Sun: Torch is generally not as good a Mars attack Djinni as Scorch, which has a 50 set damage bonus and a chance to inflict Stun, because it deals an attack oftentimes not as strong than Scorch but sometimes stronger, but without any other secondary effect. It could only be more valuable than Scorch against an enemy with very high Defense, such as Ice Gargoyles, but even that is a subjective matter.

Golden Sun: The Lost Age: When Isaac's party joins Felix's party along with their returning Djinn, Torch is an identical but weaker version to another Mars Djinni that the party may have found and earned beforehand, Core, which adds 40 bonus damage instead of 30. If a Djinni that sometimes ignores half of the target's Defense is valuable in any situation, Core essentially makes Torch obsolete.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: In the short period of time Torch is available to Matthew and Karis in Tanglewood and the Abandoned Mine at the beginning of the game, Torch's damage bonus technically is highly powerful and useful, dealing around 60 damage when Matthew would be doing a "strong" 30 damage with each of his physical attacks otherwise. Torch scores a one-hit KO on any enemy and makes the Tangle Bloom encounter at the end go by faster. However, Torch only seems less desirable because one of the other Djinn temporarily loaned to you at this point is the Venus Djinni Sap, which has an astonishing 50 set damage bonus at this point in the game. Of course, both of these Djinn are valuable to use to make battles go by quicker, but unfortunately they are taken away from your possession immediately after the Tangle Bloom boss encounter. In the main game, the only attack Djinni that has a chance to ignore half the target's Defense is the Venus Djinni Pewter, and its damage bonus is a x1.5 multiplier.

Name Origin
A torch is a stick with a flame on the end. They were originally used to find one's way at night or in dark places, but with the invention of lightbulbs (most notably flashlights) torches are now rarely used for their original purpose.