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Most often, a buff refers to a temporary beneficial spell or effect placed on a player. Buffs can range in effect from simple personal shields to buffs which augment almost every category of stats a given player may have for their race or class.

Buffs can be of two types: those that expire over time (simple buff like Spell holy magicalsentry [Arcane Intellect]) and those that are dependent of the environment around you (like the AoE effect given by totems).

You can dismiss an active buff that expires over time by right-clicking on its icon.

Most buffs do not stack with other similar buffs. One prominent exception is heal over time spells, heal over time spells from multiple characters and different heal over time spells from the same character (such as a druid's Spell nature resistnature [Regrowth] and Spell nature rejuvenation [Rejuvenation]) will stack with eachother.

Buff can also be used as a verb, i.e. "to buff" means to apply buffs.

Buff is also used to represent a change to a class or ability that makes it more effective or useful. It is the opposite of a nerf.

List of notable buffs obtained from other players

By class

Death Knight:

Druid:

Hunter:

Mage:

Paladin:

Priest:

Rogue:

  • Ability rogue honoramongstthieves [Honor Among Thieves] - Increased critical strike chance
  • Ability creature poison 06 [Master Poisoner] - Increase the critical hit chance of all attacks made against any target you have poisoned by 1,2,3%
  • Ability creature disease 03 [Savage Combat] - all physical damage caused to enemies you have poisoned is increased by 2,4%
  • Ability rogue tricksofthetrade [Tricks of the Trade] - Redirects all threat caused by the rogue's attacks to the targeted raid member for 5 seconds, and increases their damage by 15% during this time.

Shaman:


Warlock:

Warrior:

Consumable:

By type

Similar buffs do not stack with eachother unless otherwise specified.

Physical damage buffs

+Agility and Strength
10% Physical Haste
4% Physical Vulnerability
10% Attack Power
12% Armor Debuff
30% Bleeding Damage increase

Universal buffs

5% Critical bonus
5% Increased stats
3% Increased damage
30% Haste

Magic damage buffs

8% Magic Damage taken debuff
6% Spell Power
10% Spell Power
5% Spell Haste
5% Spell Critical debuff

Mana buffs

Increased mana pool
Increased mana regeneration
Spell magic managain [Replenishment]

Survivability buffs

Increased health pool
Increased Armor
Reduced physical damage
Increased resistances

List of notable buffs from environment

Lordaeron's Blessing

Increases stamina by 5%.

Lasts: 30 min

How to get: Take control of the northpass tower in Eastern Plaguelands, click the altar that appears outside the door.

Notes: Persists in Scholomance and Stratholme, and persisted in the original Naxxramas.

Fire Resist

Increases fire resistance by 83.

Lasts: 1 hour

How to get: Spell shadow shadowworddominate [Mind Control] (either by the Priest spell or the Engineering device) a Scarshield Spellbinder, found in Blackrock Spire.

Notes: Sometimes the tooltip will say differing amounts of Fire Resistance, but the buff always provides 83 resistance. Stacks with Paladin's Spell fire sealoffire [Resistance Aura].

Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer

Increases critical chance of spells by 10%, melee and ranged by 5% and grants 140 attack power, for characters below level 61.

Lasts: 2 hours

How to get: When the head of Onyxia or Nefarian is returned the players located in (or nearby) Orgrimmar or Stormwind are buffed with this buff.

Spirit of Zandalar

Increases all stats for a value depending on level for 2 hours.

(Old Effect: Increases movement speed by 10% and all stats by 15% for 2 hours.)

Duration: 2 hours (As of 1.11, this buff no longer persists through death)

How to get: When the Inv misc gem bloodstone 02 [Heart of Hakkar] is turned in to Molthor on Yojamba Isle as part of The Heart of Hakkar quest, players on the Isle and in Booty Bay will receive the buff.

Warchief's Blessing

Blessing of the Warchief: Increases health by 300. 15% haste to melee attacks. 10 mana regen per tick.

Lasts: 1 hour

How to get: When the head of Rend Blackhand is returned after a player completes "For the Horde!", the end of the first part of the Onyxia prequest chain, all players located in Orgrimmar are buffed with this buff.

Songflower Serenade

Increases critical strike rating and spell critical strike rating by 70 and all attributes by 15.

Lasts: 1 hour

How to get: Cleanse a Corrupted Songflower in Felwood.

Buffs, debuffs, and raid stacking in WotLK

In the Wrath-Logo-Small expansion, buff stacking and whether buffs affected the raid versus only the party were significantly changed. Here is the official release of this change from Blizzard on the forums:

2008-08-29 00:20 | Blizzard Entertainment Vaneras

With the release of patch 3.0.2 players will see a change in the way we allow buffs and debuffs to stack exclusively in a raid. For the most part, what this change means is that many buffs and debuffs that were previously allowed to stack together no longer can, and that many buffs and debuffs that only a single talent specialization could bring can now be brought by multiple different specializations. The philosophy behind this change shows up in many of the changes we have made in Wrath of The Lich King, such as when we made almost all buffs raid-wide. We want players to be able to form raids and parties based on who they want to play with, rather than who has the correct talents and abilities to min-max their raid performance.

Raid composition will still matter to some extent, but without this change, it would have overwhelmed every other aspect of raid planning (as we added new capabilities to each of 30 different talent trees). You no longer need to rigidly control the melee/spellcaster balance of your raid, or make sure every group has all the critical buffing classes, etc. This change has many class balance implications.

IMPORTANT! Before we are done, we will thoroughly test the performance of every class. It should not be assumed that one class' current performance relative to others in beta is final. Some classes (and specializations) will need to be reduced in power and some increased. Many may feel the change has more impact on class X than class Y. We will address all of those concerns via our internal testing and community feedback.

There are thirty or so different categories into which buffs and debuffs fit. Here you will find a comprehensive list of the changes made broken down by category and which spells/talents are in that category.

In each category, you can only benefit from the most powerful spell granting that effect. For example, Fel Intelligence grants spirit and intellect, both weaker than Arcane Intellect and Divine Spirit. If a player has Fel Intelligence and receives a stronger Arcane Intellect buff, he will gain the intellect value from Arcane Intellect and the spirit value from Fel Intelligence.

In most cases, fully-talented players will have exactly equal power on the strength of these buffs and debuffs. Fel Intelligence is an example of where one ability is weaker than others. The buffs in the "Increased Spell Power Buff" category are also not all the same potency, as they scale and grow in radically different ways. In virtually every other case, however, the buffs are equal. This means, for example, that fully-talented Battle Shout and Blessing of Might now grant the exact same amount of attack power.

In addition to this change, we also needed to address the "mana battery" roles in a raid. The mana regeneration effect they grant is no longer limited to their own party, and it no longer depends on the amount of damage they deal. Each time they trigger the mana regeneration effect, 10 people in their raid group will receive a buff which causes them to regenerate 0.5% of their maximum mana each second. This buff, Replenishment, will be given preferentially to raid members with the lowest mana, but will re-evaluate which raid members receive it each time it is fired. Replenishment is provided by Shadow Priests, Survival Hunters, and Retribution Paladins.

Finally, we have modified Heroism and Bloodlust to affect the entire raid. However, all affected raid members will be unable to cast or benefit from Bloodlust/Heroism for 5 minutes.

Below you will find a list of the changes to abilities which exhibit new behavior regardless of the exclusive categories. The changes usually mean the old behavior was removed and replaced by the new behavior. Numbers listed are for maximally-talented versions. Here is that list of changes:

  • Ability mage fierypayback [Improved Scorch]: Increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
  • Winter's Chill: Also increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
  • Spell shaman elementaloath [Elemental Oath]: Grants 5% spell crital strike to raid members.
  • Improved Moonkin Aura: Grants 3% haste of all types.
  • Ability druid earthandsky [Earth and Moon]: Increases spell damage taken from all schools by 13% on the target.
  • Misery: Causes spells cast at the target to have +3% spell hit.
  • Spell shadow blackplague [Shadow Weaving]: Buffs only self.
  • Spell shadow shadowbolt [Improved Shadow Bolt]: Buffs only self.
  • Ability rogue findweakness [Expose Weakness]: Buffs only self.
  • Spell shadow shadowembrace [Shadow Embrace]: Buffs only self.
  • Spell shadow bloodboil [Blood Pact]: Grants health instead of Stamina.
  • Spell shadow brainwash [Fel Intelligence]: Has replacement ranks that grant flat values of Intellect and Spirit.
  • Spell deathknight frostpresence [Frost Aura]: Excludes properly against all other resistance buffs.
  • Spell holy hopeandgrace [Grace]: Reduces damage taken by target by 3%.
  • Ability warrior rampage [Rampage]: Increases melee and ranged critical strike chance by 5% for the raid.
  • Spell nature faeriefire [Improved Faerie Fire]: No longer benefits melee and ranged hit chance, only spell hit.
  • Ability hunter markedfordeath [Hunter's Mark]: No longer increases attack power bonus from attacks against the target.
  • Ability hunter snipershot [Improved Hunter's Mark]: No longer grants melee attack power.
  • Spell nature slowpoison [Sting] (Hunter pet): Now acts as a minor armor debuff.
  • Ability hunter traplauncher [Waylay]: Attack speed reduction changed to 20%.
  • Spell deathknight icetouch [Icy Touch]: Only slows melee attack speed (not ranged or spell).
  • Tree of Life: No longer grants healing based on spirit, grants 3% increased healing received to raid.
  • Spell shadow demonicpact [Demonic Pact]: Now buffs raid instead of debuffing monsters.
  • Spell arcane studentofmagic [Focus Magic]: Now buffs raid instead of debuffing monsters.
  • Spell fire totemofwrath [Totem of Wrath]: Now grants a flat amount of spell damage, and all enemies in its radius have an increased chance of being struck by criticals.
  • Ability shaman heroism [Heroism]: Cannot be recast while caster has Exhausted debuff, and those with Exhausted debuff cannot be affected by it.
  • Spell nature bloodlust [Bloodlust]: Cannot be recast while caster has Sated debuff, and those with Sated debuff cannot be affected by it.
  • Spell holy stoicism [Vampiric Touch]: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on dealing damage.
  • Ability hunter huntingparty [Hunting Party]: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on specified shots.
  • Ability paladin judgementofthewise [Judgements of the Wise]: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on Judging.

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See also

External links

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