Flare Psynergy series

Flare (フレア), Flare Wall (フレアウォル), and Flare Storm (フレアストーム) are a series of Mars attack Psynergy featured in all three games. They are among the earliest Psynergy spells the player encounters and masters.

Basic Description
Flare, Flare Wall, and Flare Storm are offensive, ranged Psynergies. The total amount of damage is determined by comparing the user's Mars Power to the target's Mars Resistance and using this value to modify the base power of the particular Psynergy.

Visually, each stage of the series resembles a patch of fire circling around the enemies. With each successive stage, the amount and size of the patches of fire increase.

Damage Calculation
Elemental Power attacks such as the Flare series use a set base power as the base damage to be modified. For example, the base power of Flare Storm is 80. Thus, an unmodified Flare Storm would do around 80 points of damage.

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


 * final damage = (base damage) * (1 + (User's Mars Power - Enemy's Mars Resistance) / 200)

To word this in prose, the Flare series takes the base damage of the particular attack, and then modifies this 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 then divided by 200, 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 a Mars Power of 150 casts Flare Storm on a monster with a Mars Resistance of 50:
 * damage = (base damage) * (1 + (Power - Resistance) / 200)
 * damage = (80) * (1 + (150 - 50) / 200)
 * damage = * (1 +  / 200)
 * damage = (80) * (1 + )
 * damage = 80 *
 * damage = 120

Therefore, a Flare Storm cast under these circumstances would deal 120 points of damage to the targeted enemy. Since Flare Storm is a ranged Psynergy, adjacent targets take a percentage of the total damage, with the percentage decreasing as distance from the main target increases.

Availability
The Flare series is available to the Guard class series, the Flame User class series, and the Pirate class series. All three classes are mono-elemental Mars-based classes that are the base classes of Garet and Tyrell, Jenna, and Eoleo, respectively. Thus, the series is only available to the playable Mars Adepts of any game. For all three classes, Flare is learned at level 1, Flare Wall at level 6, and Flare Storm at level 18.

Analysis
General:The Flare series holds a similar position for Mars Adepts as the Quake Psynergy series holds for Venus Adepts: that of an early-learned, yet comparatively powerful ranged Psynergy that is most useful during the early portions of the game. As the respective Mars Adept grows stronger and the game progresses, the Flare series will be left behind for more powerful Psynergies like the Beam Psynergy series and the Volcano Psynergy series.

By Game
Golden Sun: Flare is the the first Psynergy available to Garet, and will remain his main source of offensive, ranged Psynergy for quite some time. While Garet does learn more powerful series, his lower PP pool means that the cheap Flare Storm will still be useful as time passes.

Golden Sun: The Lost Age: Flare is available to the level 5 Jenna at the prologue of The Lost Age, and is useful in the battle against the three Ruffians. Jenna's decent PP pool plus the cheap cost of the series means that she can have a lot of endurance in the early battles. The Flare series will be outclassed by the Beam series later on; unlike Garet, Jenna's PP pool means she is not as limited in her use of these more powerful attacks.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Like Garet before him, Tyrell's main source of early, offensive Psynergy comes from the Flare series. However, the Flare series competes with the Starburst Psynergy series for early usage, as Starburst and Nova are comparable in power and cost to Flare Wall and Flare Storm. By the time Eoleo joins the party, the Flare series will be outclassed by the Beam series; however, Eoleo's low PP pool means that Flare Storm may still receive usage in certain, limited situations.

Related
Oil Drop: Emulates the Flare Storm Psynergy for Mars damage to multiple enemies, but does so with the assumption that the user has 100 Mars Elemental Power instead of their actual value.