Forge

Forge (バーン Burn) is a Mars Djinni found throughout the Golden Sun  series.

Forge is the first Mars Djinni in both the original Golden Sun and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. Forge is also acquired in Golden Sun: The Lost Age, and although it is not the party's first Mars Djinni, Forge is still ordered as the first Mars Djinni when equipped to  characters. Because it is not available until after most other Mars Djinn can be found, however, the separate Djinn list viewable with the Select button from the status screen lists Forge and all other Mars Djinn from Golden Sun after all of the Djinn introduced in The Lost Age. According to this order, Forge is the twelfth Mars Djinni in The Lost Age rather than the first, but this order has no influence elsewhere in the game.

Basic description
When Set, Forge increases its Adept's base HP by 10, base Attack by 2, base Agility by 2, and base Luck by 2.

When Forge is unleashed in battle, all currently active and alive Adepts get buffed with a 25% temporary increase to their respective attack ratings. This is twice as strong as High Impact/Angel Spear. All attack-boosting effects come in the form of 12.5% "stages", so therefore Forge boosts each Adept's attack rating by two stages, and the maximum amount of stages an Adept's attack can be boosted to is four, at +50%.

In Golden Sun and The Lost Age, Forge's unleash animation visually resembles the  user summoning a glowing, transparent image of a Mars Djinni that briefly hovers above the party, as each Adept affected by the effect has a swirling array of white-red energy orbs gather into them, and a sword image briefly flashes at each Adept's position to indicate an attack boost. In Dark Dawn, the 3D model of Forge appears and floats above the party and off the screen while a brief fire effect occurs at the point in airspace where Forge was summoned, and each currently-active Adept has a pinkish-purple effect swirl from the ground into them while a purple Sword image flashes in front of them briefly to indicate an attack boost.

Locations
Golden Sun: Forge resides in Goma Cave, on an elevated ledge near a person bystanding on the ground level. Talking to the bystander indicates to first-time players that wild Djinn like Forge must be defeated in battle  in order to add it to their Djinn collection, but they have the ability  to flee the battle - but the Djinni will reappear in exactly the same  position if one leaves and reenters the immediate area. An earth pillar near the bystander and the Djinni must be pushed right, then up onto the  circular indentation in the ground where the pillar will stay  permanently. Then the party continues to go through the dungeon, and will eventually make it to the elevated portion of the area where they  can hop across the earth pillar and initiate the battle with Forge. Once it is successfully defeated and acquired, the bystander will be  impressed and leave.

Golden Sun: The Lost Age: Players can transfer data from Golden Sun  to The Lost  Age, but even if they don't, Forge will be among the  Djinn Isaac's party has with them when they join forces with Felix's  party late in the game.

Golden Sun: Dark  Dawn: Forge can be found on a ledge in the first town the player vists,  Patcher's Place. There are several earth pillars located around a lone tree in the screen outside the Psynergy Training Grounds. Push them right around the tree so that three earth pillars in a row are  arranged as a hoppable path from the tree to the cliff ledge to the  right of that, then climb the tree and hop right across. Then climb down another tree at the right edge of the area, then cast the Growth  Psynergy on a vine to create a "ladder" leading back down into the main  town screen. Collect Forge nearby, which does not need to be battled.

As an opponent (Golden Sun)
Statistically, Forge has 172 HP, 14 PP, 45 Attack, 9 Defense, 22 Agility,  and 6 Luck. Like all other Mars Djinn that are fought, in terms of resistance, it has a Mars Resistance rating of 193, Venus and Jupiter  Resistance ratings of 100 each, and a Mercury Resistance rating of 25,  and in regards to its abilities it uses its available Mars-based attacks  with a Mars power rating of 125.

Forge can use the following battle commands:
 * Flare: Used 129 out of 256 times, this is a Psynergy spell that causes a small patch of fire to go through  multiple Adepts and deal a Mars-based attack with a power rating of 15  and a range of 3. This ability consumes 4 of its user's PP.
 * Blast: Used 76 out of 256 times, this is a Psynergy spell that causes a small explosion of vaguely liquid-ish fire  to combust at the enemy's general position, dealing a Mars-based attack  with a power rating of 25 and a range of 3. This ability consumes 5 of  its user's PP.
 * Attack: Used 40 out of 256 times, this is this monster's standard physical attack, but for this  monster it is counted as a Mars-based attack rather than a  non-elemental attack.
 * Flee: Used 11 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, and the Mars Djinni disappears from its  field spot. If this happens to you, however, available entrances/exits  are very close by, so going in and out of one of them will make Forge  reappear in its usual spot right away, and it can easily be battled  again.

When defeated, Forge yields 28 EXP and 85 Coins, and the Forge Djinni is added to your party's Djinn  collection. If you somehow have an offensive Mercury Djinni in your possession and use it to score the killing blow on Forge, its rewards  increase to 36 EXP 110 Coins.

As the first fought-and-earned Djinni in the game and the series as a whole, Forge is  certainly capable of a lot more damage than the random monsters fought  throughout Goma Cave, with a lot more HP as well. And unlike other fought Djinn later on, at this extremely early point in the game you do  not have any big summons to unload on it and defeat it right away, so  you will have to attack it with weapons and offensive Psynergy like  Ray and hope it doesn't decide to run away while you're doing so.

Analysis
General: The mass-attack-boosting effect that Forge and other Djinn have is easily one of the best buffing  effects in any of the games because the party's damage outputs with any action  based on their physical attack statistics will be significantly increased, highly  justifying the turn an Adept takes to cast it. Forge is useful from when it is first found all the way to the endgame of each game it appears  in. It is probably best to have it Set onto an Adept that has low attack rating and is dedicated to supporting the party to begin with, so that  other, damage-dealing Adepts won't have to interrupt their attacking  procedures in order to unleash Forge.

By game
Golden  Sun: Forge is the one Djinni that is High Impact doubled in  effectiveness,  and since High Impact is a Psynergy that is not  available to any Adept  until level 21 while this Djinni is acquired  close to the start of the  game, this can be a very valuable battle  effect to players who  incorporate buffing all party members' attack  ratings in their battling  approaches. Technically, this Djinni only gets better as the game  progresses and party members' attack ratings  increase. Using the mindset of buff-then-battle, this has the capacity  to be very useful as an  upgraded High Impact substitute on an Adept  that does not have the spell  (i.e. Garet when in his mono-elemental  Guard class series), even  when another Adept in the same party does  have the spell (i.e. Ivan when  in his mono-elemental Wind Seer class  series). Note that attack-buffing effects like these stack with each  other up until all  Adepts have +50% attack rating modifiers.

Golden Sun: The Lost  Age: When Isaac's party joins Felix's party along  with their returning Djinn,  Forge's ability makes it a second  Kindle, a Mars Djinni with the  exact same effect that the TLA party  finds relatively early on in that  game, and these two together are the  only Djinn whose effects are two High Impacts worth of attack buffing  at once. Whether you find it useful for Adepts, with or without High Impact, to have one or both of these  Djinn Set onto them ready for them  to use is entirely up to you and  whatever battling approach you deem  worthy, though. It will be most beneficial to a party that has the Sol Blade and other weapons with damage-multiplying Unleash effects.

Golden  Sun: Dark Dawn: Forge is a powerful Djinni as always, for it  and its identical  equivalent in this game, Stoke, significantly  increases the total damage of the whole  party's physically-based  offenses for several turns. As the boost to damage comes about from an  increase to Attack rating, enemy Defense  ratings end up being a less  significant obstacle because they only  decrease the damage of physical  hits by a set value rather than some  sort of percentage. This means that even Adepts that don't have high  Attack, and score small amounts  of damage when they physically hit  certain enemies, will find the  amount of damage they do with physical  attacks to be much better than  before, in relative terms. Since it boosts all four Adepts' Attack  ratings, using it makes the Venus Djinni Chain, an attack based on  the sum total of the physical hits of all  currently-active party  members, much more powerful than it already would be.

Name Origin
To forge something is to use extreme heat to melt raw materials. A fine name for a Djinni based on fire. To burn something is to set it on fire and cause it to combust. Also a fine name for a Djinni based on fire.