Reflux


 * "Counter an enemy's attack."



Location
Reflux is found in Tundaria Tower, in a sliding-ice puzzle room you drop into. The room itself is reached when you get to a room with three stairwells going up; go up the center bottom stairwell and proceed to this room. Then from where you drop into, slide left, up, right, up, left, down, right, up, and right to bump into Reflux, then slide right so that you can then battle and acquire it.

As an opponent
Statistically, Reflux has 756 HP, 69 PP, 231 Attack, 68 Defense, 199 Agility, and 23 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.

Reflux can use the following battle commands:
 * Supernova: Used 53 out of 256 times, this is a Psynergy spell that generates a huge, extended explosion of fiery energy at the entire party, dealing a Mars-based attack with a power rating of 150 and a range of 7. It consumes 31 of its user's PP.
 * Inferno: Used 47 out of 256 times, this is a Psynergy spell that causes a large group of fire balls to spread out from the user and strike the party, dealing a Mars-based attack with a power rating of 140 and a range of 5. It consumes 23 of its user's PP.
 * Serpent Fume: Used 41 out of 256 times, this is a Psynergy spell that shoots out a large serpentine entity of flame that arcs over and crashes into the targeted Adept, dealing a Mars-based attack with a power rating of 130. This ability consumes 14 of its user's PP.
 * Fiery Blast: Used 35 out of 256 times, this is a Psynergy spell that creates a large lava-like explosion, dealing a Mars-based attack with a power rating of 110 and a range of 5. It consumes 19 of its user's PP.
 * Eruption: Used 29 out of 256 times, this is a Psynergy spell that causes two fiery pillars to explode at the party's position, dealing a Mars-based attack with a power rating of 90 and a range of 3. This ability consumes 14 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 Mars-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. Best to save before triggering the fight in this case.

When defeated, Reflux yields 794 EXP and 563 Coins, and the Reflux Djinni is added to your party's Djinn collection. If you fell it with an offensive Mercury Djinni like Sour, its rewards increase to 1032 EXP and 731 Coins.

Reflux seems especially fast among Djinn, so saving before attempting to defeat it in one turn with full-powered summonings is highly recommended.

Description
When Set, it increases base HP by 9, base Defense by 3, and base Luck by 2.

When Reflux's battle effect is used, the user is affected for the entire turn by a unique effect which has the "always strikes first" property; the user does nothing for the rest of the turn unless the user sustains some form of damage from an enemy's action, in which case the user will automatically counter attack with a visual taking the form of a glowing red, ellipsoid portal of sorts briefly manifesting and a holographic image of a Mars Djinni shooting out to collide with the offender like a bullet. This counts as a Mars-based attack equal in power to the user's normal physical attack. In concept, it is just like the Counter-Rush ability of the boss Poseidon, even with the same visual that transpires when the effect is first cast (but red instead of blue, of course).

Ability analysis
Reflux, though a unique effect not available to the party in any other form, can be problematic to use. It first assumes you're willing to give up the user's action this turn for what could likely be a useless effect, since it is entirely dependent on the user being hit by a damaging form of offense that turn. Even if the user does get hit once this turn, all you get out of it is a normal-powered physical Mars attack with against one enemy, whereas simply attacking an enemy in battle is superior because of the chance to get a critical strike or to Unleash the user's weapon's Unleash effect. Reflux can only be useful if: you're somehow certain the user will get hit at least twice this turn, the opponent's is weak to Mars-based attacks, and if you're planning to use the on-standby Reflux as part of a summon sequence next turn or further down the line.

In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
Reflux is numerically the game's eighth Mars Djinni. It is automatically obtained when Eoleo joins the party.

Reflux's Djinn Guide entry is as follows:
 * "This spirit of burning pain joins the party with Eoleo. Reflux is essentially cowardly but lashes out with horns when approached."

As an aside, 's ability description reads "Boost counterattack rate", which is slightly different to The Lost Age (quoted at the top of the page).

Name Origin
Reflux is a process that involves boiling the contents of a vessel over an extended period of time. It is very widely used in industries that utilize large-scale distillation columns and fractionators such as petroleum refineries (petroleum is highly flammable). The name may also be a pun on "reflex", since it is based on the user instinctively counter-attacking any attack used against them. Also the main symptom of gastroesophageal reflux disease is pyrosis also known as heartburn, both terms making allusion to the burning sensation in the sternum after ingesting some meals.

Trivia
If this Djinni's effect is used against Poseidon in Battle mode, one might assume that if an adept happens to unleash Reflux the same turn Poseidon uses its similar ability, Counter Rush, that the opponents would volley counter attacks back and forth until one of the two is felled. This has been tested, and is not the case; either there is some sort of safeguard in place such as both attacks being limited to one counter in any given situation or turn.

Reflux's Djinn Guide entry is as follows:
 * "This spirit of burning pain joins the party with Eoleo. Reflux is essentially cowardly but lashes out with horns when approached."