Breath

Breath is a Jupiter Djinni found in Golden Sun: The Lost Age.

Breath is the first Jupiter Djinni in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. The separate Djinn list viewable with the Select button from the status screen lists Breath and all other Jupiter Djinn introduced in The Lost Age before the seven Jupiter 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, Breath is the eighth Jupiter Djinni in the GBA series, rather than the first.

Breath is the fourth Jupiter Djinni in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.

Basic description
When Set, Breath increases base HP by 9, base Defense by 3, and base Agility by 4.

When Breath is unleashed in battle, the user heals one of the currently active and battling party members by an amount equal to 40% of their maximum HP. This effect has the "strikes first" property, meaning it will be the first performed action in a given turn regardless of the agility rating of the user and any other combatant in battle.

In The Lost Age, Breath's unleash animation visually resembles the user summoning the purple transparent image of a Jupiter Djinni above the target, and the Djinni briefly hovers around as a small collection of purple glitter gathers into the target relatively quickly. In Dark Dawn, the 3D model of Breath appears in front of the user briefly, then after a moment a similar collection of purple glitter gathers into the targeted Adept at a somewhat more relaxed rate. The Adept is then surrounded by a pair of small, faint yellow rings.

Location
Golden Sun: The Lost Age: Breath is located in the Shrine of the Sea God, specifically the earlier portion explorable so long as you have the Lash Psynergy from Kandorean Temple. As soon as you use Lash on the coiled rope in the first room, a cutscene with the two young boys Riki and Tavi transpires in which they thank you and report that they were trying to catch the flying creature for themselves before the tidal wave struck. After they leave, you more or less chase Breath through some of the dungeon; one particularly important point to retain is that when you get to three stairwells in close proximity to each other, enter one of the two upper stairs and cross a bridge so that Breath is seen fleeing north from the floor below you, then return and take the lower stairs. You will then go up to where Breath is, but before attempting to catch it, press the lit-up torch against the empty section of wall, so that the Djinni will trap itself and you can battle it.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Breath is located at the exterior screen of Ayuthay, visible on a lilypad at the palace area. Once the water level has been lowered with the Arid Heat Psynergy and you enter into the lower level of the pond area south of the palace area, you would use Whirlwind on rafts to propel yourself to where you ultimately need to go, Barai Temple. Once you have performed all the steps needed to reach Barai Temple - by having a raft collide with the east wall of Barai Temple's structure so that you can hop down and left to its entrance - propel the raft north and east to reach the two entrances at the upper right corner of the area. Go through the entrance in the far corner, and propel the raft you find there left to reach and collect Breath on its lilypad. Afterward, leave the screen through the exit immediately south of Breath to easily get back to the raft you used, and propel it back west and down to get back to Barai Temple.

As an opponent (The Lost Age)
Statistically, Breath has 184 HP, 16 PP, 37 Attack, 8 Defense, 27 Agility, and 6 Luck. Like all other Jupiter Djinn that are fought, in terms of resistance, it has a Jupiter Resistance rating of 193, Mercury and Mars Resistance ratings of 100 each, and a Venus Resistance rating of 25, and in regards to its abilities it uses its available Jupiter-based attacks with a Jupiter power rating of 125.

Breath can use the following battle commands:
 * Bolt: Used 76 out of 256 times, this is a Psynergy spell that causes a purple lightning bolt to strike a single Adept, dealing a Jupiter-based attack with a power rating of 20. This ability consumes 4 of its user's PP.
 * Slash: Used 76 out of 256 times, this is a Psynergy spell that shoots out a purple air swath at a single Adept, dealing a Jupiter-based attack with a power rating of 25. This ability consumes 4 of its user's PP.
 * Whirlwind: Used 53 out of 256 times, this is a Psynergy spell that causes a large whirlwind laced with electric charges to spin through the enemy party, dealing a Jupiter-based attack with a power rating of 20 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 Jupiter-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, Breath yields 43 EXP and 89 Coins, and the Breath Djinni is added to your party's Djinn collection. If you fell it with an offensive Venus Djinni like Echo, its rewards increase to 55 EXP and 115 Coins.

Sheba probably won't damage Breath as much with Ray as Jenna using Fume and Felix unleashing Echo and then summoning Venus. The room Breath is eventually fought in will be the room it would reappear in if Breath flees during battle and the party is forced to enter and exit a doorway to reset the room.

Analysis
General: Breath is unique as the only priority heal in any of the games it appears in. However, the actual heal is quite low, at 40% of the target's maximum HP. While this means Breath heals more HP as the party gains levels - around 300 HP if the target has around 750 HP - at seemingly all points there are stronger healing alternatives in both items and Psynergy. That it can be relied on to heal a specific ally before anything else happens in the battle seems useful in concept, though it is not often that this actually comes into play, due to how high the party's agility ratings tend to be in comparison to the enemies and bosses - party members with stronger Psynergies can be expected to move before the enemy in many cases. Therefore, Breath should only be used for the additional purpose of setting up for a Jupiter Summon.

By game
Golden Sun: The Lost Age: Breath may find some use early on in the game because it is the first Jupiter Djinni, when party resources and healing measures are sparse. You might be encouraged to have Breath on an Adept with a lower Speed rating so that the priority effect will apply itself more relevantly, but that means not having it on Sheba; while usually she is the naturally fastest party member and the most likely to make Breath's priority irrelevant, Sheba is the sort of Adept used for support roles such as healing to begin with, so Breath has a place on her in that regard. Its reliable but small healing and the summoning it can allow can be particularly useful in the Briggs boss fight, when you only have three party members.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Breath continues to be not the most useful healing measure for most of the game because of how it ultimately heals only 40% of one target's HP. To put this in perspective, the "weaker" Djinn that restore HP to the party, like Flower, restore 30% of all four party members' maximum HP. Breath could be Set on an Adept other than Karis, because she has both the speed and the Fresh Breeze Psynergy series to basically obsolete Breath - most of the time she moves before any enemy anyway, and Fresh Breeze heals the entire party for perhaps the same amount as Breath heals a single Adept.

Name Origin
Breathing is the act of moving air through the lungs. Many species must breathe in order to live, explaining why the Djinni Breath restores HP. Also, normal breathing is a fairly unconscious and automatic action, which may be why Breath always takes its action at the beginning of the turn.