Salamander Psynergy set

The Salamander Psynergy set is a set of Mars Psynergies featured in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. It is the one of the few upgrading series with more than two forms, possessing four total variations.

Basic Characteristics
Salamander, Cerberus, Chimera, and Macetail 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 features the user summoning a monster to breathe fire onto the targets. The specific monster varies with the technique, and matches up with the name of the Psynergy.

Damage Calculation
Elemental Power attacks such as Salamander, Cerberus, Chimera, and Macetail use a set base power as the base damage to be modified. For example, the base power of Macetail is 70. Thus, an unmodified Macetail would do around 70 points of damage.

Supernova'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, Salamander, Cerberus, Chimera, and Macetail take 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, 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 Macetail on a monster with a Mars Resistance of 50:
 * damage = (base damage) * (1 + (Power - Resistance) / 200)
 * damage = (70) * (1 + (150 - 50) / 200)
 * damage = * (1 +  / 200)
 * damage = (70) * (1 + )
 * damage = 70 *
 * damage = 105

Therefore, a Macetail cast under these circumstances would deal 105 points of damage to the targeted enemy. Since Macetail is a ranged Psynergy, adjacent targets take a percentage of the total damage, with the percentage decreasing as distance from the main target increases. Unlike other Psynergies, however, the damage done on secondary targets by stages of this series is much less than is typical.

Availability
The Salamander Psynergy set is unique to the Tamer class series. The Tamer class is a unique class than can be accessed by any Adept that can equip the Trainer's Whip. Currently, the Trainer's Whip is only found in The Lost Age, meaning that the series is limited to the eight Adepts that appear in that particular game. .

All stages of the set are learned at level 10. However, only Salamander is available at first: Many Psynergies are only available to the more advanced versions of a class, and Cerberus, Chimera, and Macetail are no exception. What separates this set from most Psynergies is that each Psynergy is replaced upon entering the correct class stage. Progressing through the Tamer class requires that the Adept equip Djinn of the three elements other than their native element. Cerberus is available to the Trainer, which requires 1 of each, while Chimera is available to the Beastkeeper stage, which needs 2 Djinn of each element. Macetail is available to the Beast Lord stage, which requires 3 Djinn of the necessary elements.

Analysis
General: The Salamander set is fairly weak. In basic function, it is somewhat similar to the Call Psynergy series, as both series of Psynergies call in enemies to do the fighting for the caster. Since all forms retain the same PP cost, however, each stage of the series becomes even more cost-effective. The Tamer class has low PP, making this a method of retaining PP. In later stages of the game, however, it is outclassed power-wise by the Wyvern Psynergy set, which is twice as powerful.