Fog

Fog is a Mercury Djinni found in Golden Sun: The Lost Age.

Fog is the first Mercury Djinni in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. The separate Djinn list viewable with the Select button from the status screen lists Fog and all other Mercury Djinn introduced in The Lost Age before the seven Mercury Djinn from the original Golden Sun, most likely because all the Djinn from the original game can be gotten all at once late in The Lost Age. However, the original Djinn are ordered before all of the Djinn introduced in The Lost Age in the Djinn inventory screen while they are allocated to characters. By this order, Fog is the eighth Mercury Djinni in the GBA series, rather than the first.

Basic description

 * "Blind an enemy with fog."

When Set, Fog increases its Adept's base HP by 9, base Defense by 2, base Agility by 2, and base Luck by 1.

When Fog is unleashed in battle, the user deals a Mercury-based attack equal in power to the user's normal physical attack with an additional 30 damage points added to the result. Then there is a chance the target will be afflicted with the Delusion status condition.

Visually, Fog's unleash animation resembles the user leaping forward to perform a normal physical strike, but before the impact the user briefly stops in the air while glowing blue energy orbs gather above the user and form a transparent blue image of a Mercury Djinni. The Mercury Djinni disappears into the user's strike at the target, and a vaporous white/blue cloud is emitted on impact.

Damage calculation
Elemental physical attacks such as Fog 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

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


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

To word this in prose, Fog 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 Mercury Power is than the target's Mercury Resistance. The difference between the user's Mercury Power and the target's Mercury 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 Fog's damage is multiplied by.

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


 * damage = ((Attack - Defense) / 2 + 30) * (1 + (Power - Resistance) / 400)
 * damage = ((100 - 20) / 2 + 30) * (1 + (120 - 70) / 400)
 * damage = ( / 2 + 30) * (1 + / 400
 * damage = ( + 30) * (1 + )
 * damage = *
 * damage = 78

Therefore, if Fog were to be unleashed under these circumstances it would deal 78 points of damage.

Location
Golden Sun: The Lost Age: Fog is found in the Kandorean Temple, on an alcove reachable by casting the Lash Psynergy on a coiled rope. Lash is the reward at the end of the dungeon, however, acquired in a cutscene with Master Poi after coming out of an exit from the cave area back into the temple area. You would have to reenter the exit you came out of and backtrack to the Djinni once you have Lash, but it is certainly closer to the dungeon's exit than the entrance. After climbing up to Fog, you must battle it in order to attain it.

As an opponent (The Lost Age)
Statistically, Fog has 165 HP, 14 PP, 32 Attack, 6 Defense, 22 Agility, and 6 Luck. Like all other Mercury Djinn that are fought, in terms of resistance, it has a Mercury Resistance rating of 193, Venus and Jupiter Resistance ratings of 100 each, and a Mars Resistance rating of 25, and in regards to its abilities it uses its available Mercury-based attacks with a Mercury power rating of 125.

Fog can use the following battle commands:
 * Frost: Used 129 out of 256 times, this is a Psynergy spell that drops shards of ice onto the party, dealing a Mercury-based attack with a power rating of 20 and a range of 3. This ability consumes 5 of its user's PP.
 * Douse: Used 76 out of 256 times, this is a Psynergy spell that causes a small array of watery spheres to drop onto the targeted Adepts, dealing a Mercury-based attack with a power rating of 25 and a range of 3. This ability consumes 5 of its user's PP.
 * Attack: Used 28 out of 256 times, this is this monster's standard physical attack, but for this monster it is counted as a Mercury-based attack rather than a non-elemental attack.
 * Flee: Used 23 out of 256 times, this enemy has the ability to attempt to Flee the battle, thereby ending the battle if successful without rewarding you with the associated EXP, Coins, and the Djinni itself.

When defeated, Fog yields 28 EXP and 85 Coins, and the Fog Djinni is added to your party's Djinn collection. If you happen to miss Fog and come back for it later with a Mars Djinni like Cannon in your inventory, felling it with Cannon causes its rewards to increase to 36 EXP and 110 Coins.

Fog is best dealt with with your three party members in their respective mono-elemental class series. Jenna casting Fume should deal 70 damage in one hit, and Sheba should cast Ray and Felix should unleash Echo and then summon Venus. A cave entrance/exit is visible nearby for in case Fog runs away during the battle and you need it to appear again in the same spot.

Analysis
General: Fog is a "basic" offensive Jupiter Djinni, for it has a modest set damage bonus. As a Djinni to use early in the game, its 30 set damage bonus is pretty useful for any Adept that Unleashes it, though the Delusion status condition that Fog may inflict on the enemy isn't overly substantial at whichever point in the game it happens. 30 extra damage becomes unimpressive as the game goes on, so this Djinni will fall out of favor.

By game
Golden Sun: The Lost Age: Fog is one of the first few Djinn found in the game, being the Mercury Djinni in Kandorean Temple that can be reached after the game's first boss fight against the Chestbeaters. Because the party is basically just starting out, the 30 damage bonus will be quite impressive and will potentially score one-hit KOs on early enemies. Chill is the first Mercury Djinni coming up that will obsolete Fog for certain, dealing more damage and having a better side effect. Until then, Fog is differently considerable because it is a Mercury Djinni that will be on a party with few Djinn and no Mercury Adept, so if you are playing with everyone in their mono-elemental class series you would probably end up keeping Fog On Standby so that it will not interfere with the Adepts' classes.

On the other hand, once you get the second Mercury Djinni Sour, you should consider having these two Djinn be set onto one of the three Adepts to put them in the second stage of what their Mercury-combining class series would be. Furthermore, you may have both of these Mercury Djinn On Standby once your party fights Briggs in Alhafra - even though your other Djinn will be contributing to your Adepts' classes, you are allowed a free Nereid summon, though you should be mindful of what Adepts these two Djinn are present on because when they automatically Set themselves back they will change the Adepts' classes, likely for the worse. Try to put both Mercury Djinn on one Adept in this case so that when both Djinn are Set it will put the Adept in an improved class.

Name Origin
Fog is thick water vapor that appears in the air. Fog typically obscures vision, which is why this Djinni can cause delusion.