Psynergy Surge

Psynergy Surge (エナジードライバー, Energy Driver) is a Venus elemental physical Psynergy in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. It is visually and mechanically reminiscent to the Ninja class series' Death Leap, but lacks the Stun effect and is Venus Element instead of Jupiter.

Basic Description
Psynergy Surge is an offensive, single-target Psynergy that is Attack-dependent, meaning characters with higher Attack ratings will deal more damage with these attacks. In addition, the caster's Venus Power and the target's Defense and Venus Resistance all factor into the damage dealt.

Visually, Psynergy Surge shows the caster rushing forward and grasping the target. The caster then jumps up and throws the target at the ground with impressive force.

Damage Calculation
Elemental physical attacks such as Psynergy Surge 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

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


 * final damage = (base damage + bonus damage) * (1 + (User's Venus Power - Enemy's Venus Resistance) / 400)

To word this in prose, Psynergy Surge 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 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 the Psynergies' damage is multiplied by.

For example, if an Adept with an Attack rating of 300 and a Venus Power of 150 casts Psynergy Surge on a monster with a defense of 100 and a Venus Resistance of 50:
 * damage = ((Attack - Defense) / 2 + bonus damage) * (1 + (Power - Resistance) / 400)
 * damage = ((300 - 100) / 2 + 108) * (1 + (150 - 50) / 400)
 * damage = ( / 2 + 108) * (1 + / 400)
 * damage = ( + 108) * (1 + )
 * damage = *
 * damage = 312

Therefore, a Psynergy Surge cast under these circumstances would deal 312 points of damage.

Availability
Psynergy Surge is available to the Scrapper class series and the Wild Animal class series. These two classes are unique to the Jupiter Adept Sveta. The Scrapper class requires that Sveta have Venus Djinn set to her, while the Wild Animal class is a unique class that is accessed via the Beastform Psynergy. Both classes learn Psynergy Surge at Level 36.

Analysis
General: In some ways, Psynergy Surge can be considered the more powerful version of Odyssey, due to the high PP cost and the added damage. Psynergy Surge's high added damage means that it can outperform most unleashes when first learned. However, as Attack rises and the player gains access to damage-multiplying offenses, Psynergy Surge can become outclassed.

By Game
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: When Sveta is in the Scrapper class, Psynergy Surge can be her strongest offense when first learned. However, for the Wild Animal class, Psynergy Surge is often ignored in favor of Psynergy Slam, which has lower PP requirements alongside a good damage multiplier to take advantage of the Wild Animal's high Attack. However, during the later stages of the game, Psynergy Surge becomes outclassed even for the Scrapper.