Wrath

Wrath (ラース Lars) is a Mars Djinni found in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.

Wrath is the ninth Mars Djinni in Dark Dawn.

Basic description
When Set, Wrath increases its Adept's base HP by 11 and base Attack by 3.

When Wrath is unleashed in battle, the user deals a Mars-based attack equal in power to the user's normal physical attack, and the result is multiplied by 1.4. This happens if the target does not get affected by Wrath's side effect of instant death.

In Dark Dawn, Wrath's unleash animation visually resembles the user summoning the 3D model of Wrath above himself, and the background dims. Wrath then makes long and quick zig zags across the area of the battle before the enemy before colliding into the enemy's head, where it instantly disappears. Then a brief circular light flash appears in front of the enemy, and then a red, explosive burst detonates at the enemy's position.

Damage calculation
Elemental physical attacks such as Wrath 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

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


 * ''final damage = (base damage * 1.4) * (1 + (Attacker's Mars Power - Target's Mars Resistance) / 400)

To word this in prose, Wrath takes the base damage of the user's normal physical attack, multiplies it by 1.4, 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 Wrath's damage is multiplied by.

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


 * damage = ((Attack - Defense) / 2 * 1.4) * (1 + (Power - Resistance) / 400)
 * damage = ((250 - 90) / 2 * 1.4) * (1 + (140 - 90) / 400)
 * damage = ( / 2 * 1.4) * (1 + / 400
 * damage = ( * 1.4) * (1 + )
 * damage = *
 * damage = 126

Therefore, if Wrath were to be unleashed under these circumstances and its instant-kill effect is not activated, it would deal 126 points of damage.

Location
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Wrath is automatically acquired in a cutscene later in the game, once the Grave Eclipse begins at Belinsk. When the game directs you to Belinsk's pier, follow along and board the sailing ship, and win the battle against three Gloom Skorpnas. In the story-relevant cutscenes that transpire after this, Eoleo permanently joins your party. He brings with him this Djinni along with four other Mars Djinn - Reflux, Chili, Glow, and Stoke.

Analysis
General: Of the few attacking Djinn in the Golden Sun series that has the side effect of potentially causing instant death to the enemy, Wrath is the only one whose damage bonus is a multiplier instead of a set damage bonus. When it comes to the hit the Djinni deals when it fails to instantly kill, the multiplier of 1.4 is not so hot for the most part - there would be many cases where unleashing a Djinni with a solid set damage bonus will cause more damage to be added to the attack than increasing the damage of the base physical attack by 40%. Wrath would have to be on an Adept with a very high attack rating at the end of the game for the 40% boost to surpass the set damage bonuses of other Djinn. Nonetheless, that it even has an instant death chance - easily viewed as the most desirable side effect of any attack in any game - makes Wrath considerable.

By game
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: When Wrath is automatically acquired alongside several other Mars Djinn when the new party member Eoleo joins, one of those Djinn is Chili, one of the best attacking Mars Djinn in the game because it has an enormous 80 set damage bonus and a good status condition of its own in Stun. For pretty much the rest of the game, Wrath and its 40% damage bonus won't be comparing with that damage output. Wrath is still a useful attacking Djinni because it offers a chance to instantly fell the target when it hits - in Golden Sun games, status conditions are intended to make the enemy easier to be destroyed, so a side effect that works on the same chances but instantly destroys the enemy should always be thought of as the best possible side effect of an attack. It can therefore be unleashed in most random battles in hopes that an enemy will be destroyed right away and make the battle go by faster, while the more heavy-hitting Djinn like Chili are saved for boss encounters.