Thread: Stacking buffs in U6

Here's the buffs updated from live:

Safeguard alone
This will give you the "Advanced Shieldwork" buff:

My buff is 30s because I've got the trait for +10s and a legacy for another +10s.

Safeguard+Safeguard
This will give you the "Enduring Advanced Shieldwork buff:

Basically, its the same buff +20s.

Celebration of Skill:
This HoT will give you the "Expert Shieldwork" buff. It is better than what the tooltip states. This may be a bug.


Safeguard/Celebration of Skill + Celebration of Skill:
Either buff can get upgraded to the "Enduring Expert Shieldwork" buff:

Once again, its an increase of 20s.

Restoration has no associated buff.

Adding a "like" buff will extend the buff. An extended buff will be given to a like or 1 Tier below buff.

Current State	Gambit	Final State
No Buff	Impressive Flourish	Long T0 Crit Defense
No Buff or T0 Crit Defense Buff	Maddening Strike	T1 Crit Defense
No Buff or T0 Crit Defense Buff	Dance of War	T2 Crit Defense
T1 Crit Defense Buff	Maddening Strike	Long T1 crit defense
T1 Crit Defense Buff or T2 Crit Defense Buff	Dance of War	Long T2 Crit Defense
No Buff	Persevere	Long T0 Block Buff
No Buff or T0 block buff	Safeguard	T1 Block Buff
No Buff or T0 block buff	Celebration of Skill	T2 Block Buff
T1 block Buff	Safeguard	Long T1 block Buff
T1 block buff or T2 block buff	Celebration of Skill	Long T2 block Buff
No Buff	War Cry	Long T0 Evasion Buff
Any State	Brink of Victory	Nothing--missing buff!
No Buff or T0 Evasion Buff	Surety of Death	T2 Evasion Buff
T2 Evasion Buff	Surety of Death	Long T2 Evasion Buff
Long T1 or T2 Any Buff	Any matching gambit	Nothing!

So the fastest way to buff up is with 3-length followed by 4-length gambit. Either that or use Potency to double-proc the gambit.

--Harper

First off I want to say thanks for bringing all this info on to the forums for those who may not have time to go on BR.

On BR I have the legacy for the +shield duration buffs but am wondering if I should ditch that when I come to my legacy selection on Monday.

I find that having 50s duration buffs on the same gambit line that my HoT's are only 24s is maybe not quite the most efficient use of a legacy as I go back to the Sh-sp line for the HoT well before the block buffs expire.

Similar with the sh-fi line. DoW gets the +10s duration from the legacy but the crit/phys mit/tac mit/ buff on the same line does not. So I end up refreshing DoW evade with many seconds left over.

What do you think?

my rotation when I need to refresh all buff will be this, i think this is the fastest way withour going up by all gambit lines:

Goad
SoD
SoD in BM

for increase avade buff at the top and have also a lot of single treath

Sh-Sh defensive strike
DoW
DoW in BM

for huge aggro leech and un the corrispective buff at crit defence at the max tier

safeguard
celebration of skill

to get the best heal pool and the shield buff max tier up in less time possibly
------

Using this rotation I can have all buff in less than 8-10 secs and I can also put some aggro skill between one a the other buff.
I think that tiering up from the less gambits to the highter ones is not useful in time's matters and costs.

I made a mistake with the stacking buffs. Maddening Strike/Dance of War crit defense does not stack or extend. However, the evade bonus from War Cry/BoV and Surety of Death do extend.

--Harper

Originally Posted by baranhir

my rotation when I need to refresh all buff will be this, i think this is the fastest way withour going up by all gambit lines:

Goad
SoD
SoD in BM

for increase avade buff at the top and have also a lot of single treath

Sh-Sh defensive strike
DoW
DoW in BM

for huge aggro leech and un the corrispective buff at crit defence at the max tier

safeguard
celebration of skill

to get the best heal pool and the shield buff max tier up in less time possibly
------

Using this rotation I can have all buff in less than 8-10 secs and I can also put some aggro skill between one a the other buff.
I think that tiering up from the less gambits to the highter ones is not useful in time's matters and costs.

On another note, can we finally kill the battle memory morale penalty and just make BM skills use the regular power cost of the skill?

A rotation like the one above is great but there is always that nagging question of whether the 8% morale (for the 2 four length gambits) is worth the extra quickness in using battle memory.

We have enough stuff beating down on us without beating down on ourselves. Especially with the current survivability issues in tougher content where BM would be most useful.

Here's how I think it works (I haven't tested all combinations yet):

Block Buffs
Persevere = T0 block buff (Shield Use - + 1200 block, +2% partial block)
Safeguard = T1 block buff (Advanced Shield Use - +1500 block, +4% partial block)
Celebration of Skill = T2 block buff (Expert Shield Use - +2100 block, +6% partial block)
T0 block buff + Persevere = T0 long block buff (Enduring Shield use, Base duration +20s)
T1 block buff + SG or Persevere= T1 long block buff (Enduring Advanced Shield Use, Base Duration + 20s)
T2 block buff + CoS or SG or persevere = T2 long block buff (Enduring Expert Shield Use, Base duration + 20s)

Evade Buffs
War cry = T0 evade buff (Evasion, +600 evade)
Brink of Victory = No buff!
Surety of Death = T2 evade buff (Expert Evasion +1500 Evade)
T0 evade buff + WC = T0 long evade buff (Enduring Evasion, Base duration +20s)
T2 evade buff + WC or SoD = T2 long evade buff (Enduring Expert Evasion, Base duration +20s)
Dane of War = Unique T2 evade buff (Dance of Battle, +1500 evade, stacks with other evade buffs, not replaced!)

Crit defense Buffs
Impressive Flourish = T1 crit defense buff (Armor Use, +300 crit defense, +225 Physical mitigation, +225 tactical mitigation)
Maddening Strike = T2 crit defense buff (Advanced Armor Use, +600 crit defense, +338 Physical mitigation, +338 tactical mitigation)
Dance of War = T2 crit defense buff (Expert Armor Use, +900 crit defense, +563 Physical mitigation, +563 tactical mitigation)
T0 crit defense buff + IF = T0 long crit defense buff (Enduring armor use, Base duration + 20s)
T1 crit defense buff + IF or MS = T1 long crit defense buff (Enduring Advanced armor use, Base duration + 20s)
T2 crit defense buff + IF or MS or DofW = T2 long crit defense buff (Enduring Expert armor use, Base duration + 20s)

Parry Buffs
Wall of Steel = T2 parry buff (Wall of Steel, +1800 Parry)

So the quickest way to get a long powerful buff up is to do T2 then T0 version to extend it before it expires. Too bad there isn't something similar with parry for Wall of Steel. A T0 parry buff on Onslaught would be great! Also, we are missing the T1 evade buff on Brink of Victory, but given the mechanics as they stand, its no big deal.

--Harper

Originally Posted by Harperelle

Here's how I think it works (I haven't tested all combinations yet):

Block Buffs
Persevere = T0 block buff
Safeguard = T1 block buff
Celebration of Skill = T2 block buff
T0 block buff + Persevere = T0 long block buff
T1 block buff + SG or Persevere= T1 long block buff
T2 block buff + CoS or SG or persevere = T2 long block buff

Evade Buffs
War cry = T0 evade buff
Brink of Victory = T1 evade buff (not in the tool tips--can someone confirm?)
Surety of Death = T2 evade buff
T0 evade buff + WC = T0 long evade buff
T1 evade buff + WC or BoV = T1 long evade buff
T2 evade buff + WC or BoV or SoD = T2 long evade buff

Crit defense Buffs
Impressive Flourish = T1 crit defense buff
Maddening Strike = T1 crit defense buff
Dance of War = T2 crit defense buff + DoW evade buff (no partials, stacks with other evade buffs)
T1 crit defense buff + IF or Maddening Strike = T1 crit defense buff (Overwrites and resets, like many bleeds and T0 HoTs do.)
T1 crit defense buff + Dance of War = T2 defense crit buff (maybe long version? Need confirmation)

Wall of Steel = T1 parry buff

So the quickest way to get a long powerful buff up is to do T2 then T0 version to extend it before it expires. Too bad there isn't something similar with parry for Wall of Steel. A T0 parry buff on Onslaught would be great!

--Harper

I think I tried reverse order buffs (CoS-->safeguard etc..) and it didn't work.

Drat BR is closed, guess no more testing until Monday.

I specifically tested CoS + SG today. It gives you a long T2 buff. I didn't try it with Persevere though.

--Harper

I went over my screenshots from Bullroarer and updated the guide. Its looking pretty good for buffs in U6. There are a few basic rules to remember:

1. A stacked buff will always stack at the highest tier.
2. A second stacking buff always extends the current buff to (base duration + 20s)
3. Dance of War and Wall of Steel are all by themselves and do not extend (but can stack)

The lesson is that you should always open with T2 buffs, then you can maintain and extend the buff via T0 gambits forever. So if you want +1500 evasion, you can keep it up by using War Cry whenever it looks like it will expire. Get your Crit Defense up with Dance of War, then renew it with Impressive Flourish whenever it is about to expire. Once you have all three T2 buffs up (Evade, Block, Crit Defense) you can have them all running at 50s duration, with 2-length gambits to maintain them. This is an incredible improvement from the current situation of 20-30s buffs of 4 length gambits.

--Harper

Thanks Harper for all your posts. This is awesome.

+ Rep for you.

FYI, to get the best/longest evade buff from Fi/Sh gambits, use Surety of Death twice in a row. This is because of the bug with Brink of Victory.

This might (hopefully), be fixed on Monday but if not, that's the best way for the WC line evade buff.

just wish it was easier keeping track of buffs, even solo i break into 3 rows easy atm, and i tried buffbars not much help either

Originally Posted by grenith

just wish it was easier keeping track of buffs, even solo i break into 3 rows easy atm, and i tried buffbars not much help either

In buffbars I think you can create as many bars as you like. I am going to try to create 2 different buffbars. One buffbar more of to the side for buffs that have more than 10 seconds left on them. Then a second buffbar that only has buffs that are <10 seconds left on them, and put that one in a more center screen position.

I figure I can do less "glancing over" at my buffbars this way. If a buff appears in my <10 second area I know I don't have to look at the amount of time left, rather that I should just consider a refresh.

Never got used to the slider feature...

Edit: Seems buffbars can not filter out buff durations on the fly. You can instruct it not to show buffs that are longer than, say, 10 seconds but it only filters out those whos initial duration is longer than 10 seconds, rather than those who eventually come down to 10 seconds from a higher amount.

Originally Posted by horus418

FYI, to get the best/longest evade buff from Fi/Sh gambits, use Surety of Death twice in a row. This is because of the bug with Brink of Victory.

This might (hopefully), be fixed on Monday but if not, that's the best way for the WC line evade buff.

My testing showed that a lesser buff will extend a bigger buff, so you can get the Long T2 evade buff by using Surety of Death, followed by War Cry. This may be a bug, or it may be WAI. I think it is WAI because the other option would make people mad. Lets say you got your big evade buff from Surety of Death, followed by a small buff from War Cry. You wouldn't want the War Cry to overwrite and extend Surety of Death. Surety of Death and War Cry cannot stack (that's the mechanic--replace, not stack) so the only option left is to take the existing big buff and replace it with a longer buff of the same tier. Its definitely gaming the mechanic, but I predict the T2 buff followed by the T0 extender will become the norm within weeks. And its great news for wardens. If you get your T2 buffs out early, you need only maintain them with 2-length gambits.

--Harper

Originally Posted by Harperelle

My testing showed that a lesser buff will extend a bigger buff, so you can get the Long T2 evade buff by using Surety of Death, followed by War Cry. This may be a bug, or it may be WAI. I think it is WAI because the other option would make people mad. Lets say you got your big evade buff from Surety of Death, followed by a small buff from War Cry. You wouldn't want the War Cry to overwrite and extend Surety of Death. Surety of Death and War Cry cannot stack (that's the mechanic--replace, not stack) so the only option left is to take the existing big buff and replace it with a longer buff of the same tier. Its definitely gaming the mechanic, but I predict the T2 buff followed by the T0 extender will become the norm within weeks. And its great news for wardens. If you get your T2 buffs out early, you need only maintain them with 2-length gambits.

--Harper

It never worked that way for me on BR, and is working the way I said on live right now. 2x SoD gives the best buff, longest duration.

Live is acting differently than on BR. I'll update later, here are some things I've seen:

Crit Defense
1. Impressive Flourish will always give "enduring armor use" (30s with legacy) unless another "armor use" buff is up, in which case it gives nothing.
2. Maddening Strike will give "Advanced Armor Use (20s)" for the first use, and "Enduring Advanced Armor Use" on the second use. It will give the longer buff if "Enduring Armor Use" is already up.
3. Dance of War gives "Expert Armor Use (10s)" for the first use, and "Enduring Expert Armor Use" if "Expert Armor Use" or "Advanced armor use" or "Enduring Advanced Armor Use" is up.

Block
1. Persevere will always give "Enduring Shieldwork" (50s with legacy and trait) unless another "Shieldwork" buff is up, in which case it gives nothing.
2. Safeguard gives "Advanced Shieldwork" (30s with legacy and trait) unless "Advanced Shieldwork" is already up, in which case you will get "Enduring Advanced Shieldwork" (50s with legacy and trait).
3. Celebration of Skill gives "Expert Shieldwork" (30s with legacy and trait) unless "Advanced Shieldwork" or "Expert Shieldwork" (or the enduring versions) in which case it gives "Enduring Expert Shieldwork"

Evade
1. War Cry will give "Enduring Evasion" (40s with legacy) unless another "Evasion" buff is up, in which case it gives nothing. Dance of War is not considered an evasion buff in this case.
2. Brink of Victory gives nothing under any circumstances
3. Surety of Death gives "Expert Evasion" (20s with legacy) unless "Expert Evasion" is already active, in which case it gives "Enduring Expert Evasion" (40s with legacy). Expert Evasion will overwrite "Enduring Evasion"

So things changed considerably from the last BR build and our best way to get long buffs up is now to either build up from T1 to T2 or to do two T2 buffs. Looks like I'll be reworking my rotations!

--Harper

Yah I was never able to "refresh" buffs using the T0 version of them at any point. Live seems to be the same.

Either your Warden was bugged out in a very nice way or you were...errr...wrong (no offense).

Best way to get the longest/best buff is T1-->T2 skill, ommiting T0 completely.

The only refresh mechanic that I can see is either a one time doubling up of the gambit (to get the longer version) or a tiering up to the next level gambit.

Once you have the long/best version at T2 you have to wait for it to expire...

Originally Posted by danno8

Yah I was never able to "refresh" buffs using the T0 version of them at any point. Live seems to be the same.

Either your Warden was bugged out in a very nice way or you were...errr...wrong (no offense).

Best way to get the longest/best buff is T1-->T2 skill, ommiting T0 completely.

The only refresh mechanic that I can see is either a one time doubling up of the gambit (to get the longer version) or a tiering up to the next level gambit.

Once you have the long/best version at T2 you have to wait for it to expire...

I could easily have been wrong about the T0 refresh. But I kept careful screenshots and went back to see that SG refreshed the CoS Buff.

I can't get CoS to refresh the Enduring Shield buff duration at all. Even if I land CoS a few seconds before the buff expires, I get no buff extension -- which means I have to completely let the buff expire and then cast double CoS again to get the full duration buff.

Originally Posted by nelar

I can't get CoS to refresh the Enduring Shield buff duration at all. Even if I land CoS a few seconds before the buff expires, I get no buff extension -- which means I have to completely let the buff expire and then cast double CoS again to get the full duration buff.

That is a very annoying behavior!

--Harper

only lvl 30 atm, but am I the only one wondering, why wardens have to use same buff or a 2 gambit then 3 gambit version of the same line to get buffs going?
I fully admit i am a newb, but it just seems well slightly silly to buff twice for a duration less than 1 min, and have to do that for 3 different buffs.

On the upside i LOVE how they consolidated those partial buffs into 1 single buff icon and just put a counter in it