Spout

Spout (スコール Squall) is a Mercury Djinni found in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.

Spout is the eleventh Mercury Djinni in Dark Dawn.

Basic description
When set, Spout increases base HP by 10, base Attack by 4, and base Luck by 2.

When Spout is unleashed in battle, the user deals a Mercury-based attack equal in power to the user's normal physical attack with an additional 80 damage points added to the result. Then, there is a chance that each enemy (not just the target) will be afflicted with the Delusion status condition.

In Dark Dawn, Spout's unleash animation visually resembles the user summoning the 3D model of Spout above himself or herself. Then, the background and foreground are replaced with a black storm cloud as Spout disappears around the enemy, and the enemy is buffeted by a rainstorm of thick cyan lines.

Damage calculation
Elemental physical attacks such as Spout 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

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


 * final damage = (base damage + 80) * (1 + (Attacker's Mercury Power - Target's Mercury Resistance) / 400)

To word this in prose, Spout takes the base damage of the user's normal physical attack, adds 80 to it, and then this result is modified by how much higher or lower the user's Mercury Power is than the target's Mercury Resistance. The difference between the user's Mercury Power and the target's Mercury 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 Spout's damage is multiplied by.

For example, if an Adept with an Attack rating of 200 and a Mercury Power of 130 unleashes Spout on a monster with a defense of 80 and a Mercury Resistance of 70:


 * damage = ((Attack - Defense) / 2 + 80) * (1 + (Power - Resistance) / 400)
 * damage = ((200 - 80) / 2 + 80) * (1 + (130 - 70) / 400)
 * damage = ( / 2 + 80) * (1 + / 400)
 * damage = ( + 80) * (1 + )
 * damage = *
 * damage = 161

Therefore, if Spout were to be unleashed under these circumstances it would deal 161 points of damage.

Location
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Spout is located in the early part of Belinsk Ruins that may be explored the first time Belinsk itself is entered, long before when the actual exploration of Belinsk Ruins commences quite some time later in the game. In fact, it can be found before the Mercury Djinn Torrent and Coral despite its official number in the Djinn Guide being after these two. Any time you can explore the main town area of Belinsk freely, go to the Sanctum at the center-east area of town and go downstairs into the library. Note the three bookshelves that are immediately below and to the left of the cyan-colored stairwell you come down; use the Move Psynergy on the rightmost bookshelf and shift it one space right, then shift the center bookshelf right the same way. A black doorway behind this bookshelf linearly leads you to a very limited, explorable part of Belinsk Ruins where Spout is found without a fight. Unlike most Djinn in Morgal, Spout can be gotten even after completing Belinsk Ruins because the library can be accessed while you are going through Belinsk during the events of the Grave Eclipse. Spout can be permanently missed once you elect to fight the monsters on the ship at Belinsk's pier.

Analysis
General: Spout is an impressive attacking Djinni because it has a very strong set-damage-bonus attack that should be quite useful for any Adept unleashing it, despite its side effect being merely a chance to inflict Delusion on the enemy party. 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. However, Spout might perhaps have very minor utility against large groups of foes who use many normal attacks. The side effect aside, Spout is a definite combat option any Adept that has it Set can consider.

Ability analysis
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: Spout is a strong addition to the party's collection of offensive measures and is close to being an ideal attacking Mercury Djinni. However, the best attacking Mercury Djinni in the game is arguably Serac, found earlier in the game in Harapa Ruins. With a set damage bonus of 70, Serac is almost as strong in terms of being a physical attack, but it also has probably the best side effect that any attacking Djinni can have, a chance to instantly fell the enemy. Therefore, you would want an Adept that would unleash an attacking Mercury Djinni to unleash Serac. But Spout can be useful either as a second high-damage attacking Mercury Djinni for that same Adept to use, or as a primary attacking Djinni on a separate Adept.