Fume Psynergy series

Fume, Serpent Fume, and Dragon Fume are a series of offensive Mars Psynergies featured in Golden Sun: The Lost Age and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. Like Heat Wave and Liquifier, they are valuable for dealing significant damage to single targets. Unlike Heat Wave and Liquifier, the Fume Psynergies are not considered Elemental Physical attacks.

Basic Description
Fume, Serpent Fume and Dragon Fume are all single-target Psynergies. The final amount of damage is determined by comparing the user's Mars Power to the target's Mars Resistance and using the difference to modify the base power of the particular Psynergy in use.

Visually, each stage of the series resembles a serpentine entity of flame being shot out of the user, which arcs over to crash into the target in an explosion. With each successive stage, the plume of flame becomes much larger, and the serpentine head more clearly defined.

Damage Calculation
Elemental Power attacks such as the Fume series use a set base power as the base damage to be modified. For example, the base power of Dragon Fume is 230. Thus an unmodified Dragon Fume would deal around 230 points of damage.

Dragon Fume'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, The Fume series takes 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 user'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 Dragon Fume on a monster with a Mars Resistance of 50:
 * damage = (base damage) * (1 + (Power - Resistance) / 200)
 * damage = (230) * (1 + (150 - 50) / 200)
 * damage = * (1 +  / 200)
 * damage = (230) * (1 + )
 * damage = 230 *
 * damage = 345

Therefore, a Dragon Fume cast under these circumstances would deal 345 points of damage.

Availability
The Fume series is available to the Flame User class series and the Pirate class series. Both classes are mono-elemental Mars-based classes that are the base classes of Jenna and Eoleo, respectively. Thus, the series is unique to both Adepts. For both classes, Fume is learned at level 5, Serpent Fume at level 26, and Dragon Fume at level 47.

Analysis
General:The Fume series is unique for being entirely a single target Power-based series. Each stage of the Fume series holds great power, making it a great tool for battle. However, it can become outclasses by Attack-based offenses at higher levels.

By Game
Golden Sun: The Lost Age: Fume is available to the level 5 Jenna at the prologue of The Lost Age, where it is an ideal weapon to defeat the Ruffians one-by-one. All three Psynergies are very powerful and practical as they are acquired. Serpent Fume, in particular, is excellent as an offensive measure in the boss fight against Poseidon, so it is extremely prudent to level up the party to level 26 before attempting Poseidon. Dragon Fume remains a powerful tool, but the large PP cost means that its uses are limited.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: By the time Eoleo joins the party, he will know both Fume and Serpent Fume. While both techniques retain their power, they are outclassed by Keelhaul and Vicious Chop, a series of Elemental Physical Attacks that are unique to Eoleo. While the Fume series's power remains fixed, the Keelhaul series grows in power as Eoleo's Attack increases. In addition, Eoleo's low PP pool limits usage of the more powerful members of this series.

In other media
The Fume Psynergy's dragon visual effect makes an appearance as a "power shot" in Camelot's Mario Tennis: Power Tour.

Trivia

 * Unusually, the PP cost of Dragon Fume is changed between games. In Dark Dawn, Dragon Fume costs 7 less PP per use than in The Lost Age. This is one of the few situations in which the cost of a Psynergy is changed.