Glare

Glare is a Mars Djinni found in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.

Glare is the seventh Mars Djinni in Dark Dawn.

Basic description
When Set, Glare increases its Adept's base HP by 9, base Psynergy Points by 2, base Attack by 2, and base Agility by 2.

When Glare is unleashed in battle, the user deals a Mars-based attack equal in power to the user's normal physical attack with an additional 40 damage points added to the result. Then there is a chance the target will be afflicted with the Delusion status condition.

In Dark Dawn, Glare's unleash animation visually resembles the user summoning the 3D model of Glare at the enemy's face. The entire background and images of the combatants in the foreground then distort wildly while taking on a steamy white glow, and this lasts two full seconds.

Damage calculation
Elemental physical attacks such as Glare 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

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


 * ''final damage = (base damage + 40) * (1 + (Attacker's Mars Power - Target's Mars Resistance) / 400)

To word this in prose, Glare takes the base damage of the user's normal physical attack, adds 40 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 Glare's damage is multiplied by.

For example, if an Adept with an Attack rating of 250 and a Mars Power of 140 unleashes Glare on a monster with a defense of 90 and a Mars Resistance of 90:


 * damage = ((Attack - Defense) / 2 + 40) * (1 + (Power - Resistance) / 400)
 * damage = ((250 - 90) / 2 + 40) * (1 + (140 - 90) / 400)
 * damage = ( / 2 + 40) * (1 + / 400
 * damage = ( + 40) * (1 + )
 * damage = *
 * damage = 135

Therefore, if Glare were to be unleashed under these circumstances it would deal 135 points of damage.

Location
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Glare resides in the Phantasmal Bog dungeon that is entered and explored while in Kolima Village. In the relatively small 2F room that has the Djinni and several logs and water puddles, first cast the Cold Snap Psynergy on the lower puddle to turn it into an ice pillar, then roll the vertical log right so that it stops against the pillar. Then roll the horizontal log down, then cast Cold Snap on the puddle the log is now over to turn it into an ice pillar that the log is elevated by. Now you can easily climb up and walk right across the elevated log and hop right to where Glare is, and battle it and add it to your Djinn collection. This Djinni is permanently missable like all the rest of the Djinn in the Morgal region once the final gate inside Belinsk Ruins is passed through.

Analysis
General: Glare is a "low-tier" attacking Djinni that has both below-average 40 damage and a subpar side effect, a chance to inflict Delusion. The Delusion status condition is considered to be rarely helpful to have inflicted on enemies because Delusion's associated accuracy drop does not apply to anything that is not a normal physical attack. Psynergies and monster skills used by the enemy will be unaffected, and those tend to be stronger than normal physical attacks anyway.

By game
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Glare is unusually weaker than other attacking Mars Djinn that are acquired before it. The Mars Djinni Fury found earlier in Te Rya Village offers 70 set bonus damage, and the Mars Djinni Lava found earlier before that at Passaj Mountain Climb offers 60 set bonus damage and has a chance to lower the target's Defense statistic. In theory, you would have to miss both of these Djinn in order for Glare to not be considered obsoleted as an attacking option. Glare can only claim to be better than the first attacking Mars Djinni in the game, Fever - it is identical to Fever, save for being stronger by a meager 10 points. You would not want to use Glare when directly superior attacking Mars Djinn exist around that point in the game, and the next occasion where a Mars Djinni joins your party is when Eoleo joins and brings five Mars Djinn with him. Among them is Chili, which has literally twice as much of a set damage bonus as Glare and has a relevant side effect as well.