Buff changes are detrimental to the game experience

I have to say, I find the changes to stacking/charging buffs extremely disappointing. This was one feature I thought the devs had done right, and made it worthwhile to invest the time and energy into leveling up the various buffs. Now there is no point to stacking/charging. I'd strongly suggest undoing/reverting this change.

 

going to pile on this -

Yeah in another post also -

This is one of the worst ideas EVER - you are basically making training a skill completely WORTHLESS - a focus reduction LMAO.

Make an better change -

Only so many buffs active at one time and this means basically the cards from each and every buff - so like this 10 buffs = 2 of level 5 buffs or 5 of level 2 buffs.

At least then training and using skills still has value and not totally useless.

You can group them into schools if so needed so 5 Stat buff, 10 Def buffs, 10 off Buffs . . .

But not getting anything out of stacking / charging is a bad idea,

 

What is the other post, we will redirect.

 

It was a comment here: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/buffs.102537/#post-894219

 

Yea this change is unfortunate. Really seems like there was a heavy focus on preventing heavy armor from being able to cast spells since a lot of these buffs have higher fizzle rates and that makes it difficult to rebuff during combat. The duration minimums of 1 minute really is harsh.

I’d like to see the shield spells get the same treatment buff time wise as the stat buffs so they’re at least usable by everyone that’s been using them as an out of combat pre-buff.

Rough patch for sure.

 

I think the change is good. There is still plenty of reason to level the skills up.

• My lvl 80 dex buff gives about 21 dex for 25 mins.
  
• Stacking it 5 times made it around 25 dex for 30+ min.
  
• Its VERY useful either way.
• Stacking it 5 times was just icing on an already very powerful buff.

I agree that they ultimately need to handle these things like they did the shield spells (Only 1 active at a time), but this change is hardly "detrimental to game experience"....

 

Agreed - @Chris are these spells set to 100% unlearn ?
-- looks like they will be set to 100% unlearn in the patch later today.

 

I take it you don't use the shield buffs, such as shield of crystal, where the stacking was significantly useful.

 

Air mage here. Stacking shield of air is pretty useless.

Shield of crystal gives you a nice attunement buff (+18 attunement at lvl 80) and some free hit points. Its a win win with no drawbacks. Stacking is icing. I doubt that anyone that is using shield of crystal right now is going to say: "What!?!?! I cant stack it!!!! Well then forget it. I don't want the attunement buff and free hit points!!!"

I consider all of the shield spells (except shield of air) to be very useful. There is no question about whether or not you should have them up all of the time. Even shield of air is situationally useful, but you do have to build your character around the drawback of losing all of your power in 3 seconds if you are in a tight spot taking significant damage.

 

I can live with everything else, but having to cast the shield spells during combat is problematic. Honestly the only reason I stacked many of these spells was for the extra duration as a convenience. You're 100% correct that the added "statistical" benefit was just icing, but the added time made these skills usable vs not in many situations.

 

Agree 100%. The increased duration of the shield spells matter for my playing.

 

I don't see any issue tbh. With big ones we are fine, right? 30min buffs.. no need to use them in combat. So, if your ice ashield last 2min now, just cast again when you need your buff up. What they are trying is to not let us use one buff in combat and keep it up for 10min+, if we are using these skills in our combat bar, we can always cast again anytime we need (selective skills, we always need to think what we really need in our deck). Otherwise whats the sense of having a buff for 5+ min in our combat deck?

 

i just cry i loved the 5 stack of buffs made them realy nice best shange to buff i seen now this smack in the face hurts plz bring them back

 

I view buffs as something I would *not* ever have in my combat deck. If it doesn’t have some reactive function geared towards combat why would I want to use it in combat? I don’t personally find the added bloat of buffs a compelling gameplay feature for a combat deck. The widespread use of a buff deck is pretty case/point that I don’t think I’m an outlier in this sentiment.

Truly semantics though of what you expect of buffs. I personally expect buffs to be *preparatory* in nature. I do this before I fight deal. Things like douse with a reactionary aspect can be argued more realistically for shorter durations because it could be something realistically expected to be done during combat.

I hope durations get normalized some because this change really doesn’t make it any more difficult to use stat buffs but MUCH more difficult to use shields.

 

I think the overall bar concept in the game is messy... For example, you can't put all the agriculture skills on anything but the utility bar, which is already overloaded with other things. Personally, I think the entire bar UI needs to be redone. But that's still a bit separate from the buff changes.