Periodically Maexxna performs an 8 second stun on your entire raid. Prior to this stun you need to load the tank up with enough HP, AC and healing over time to survive 8 seconds with no direct healing. Additionally Maexxna does a poison attack which reduces healing by 90% which means you also need to put abolish poison on there as well. Add in the fact that surviving 8 seconds of melee damage from Maexxna is not exactly easy even with heals over time you end up stacking the tank with every HP and AC buff available. I imagine that all of the buffs used plus having every heal over time on you PLUS abolish poison leads to this being the fight everyone sees the flasks vanishing on.

Maexxna's stun is such that you can't Divine Shield out of it or use a FAP? One of those scripted boss stuns, I'm assuming?

Yeah, it goes through everything, just about, though there's some cheese you can use to get around it in a pinch (DI, spirit of redemption, soulstone/ankh up after intentionally dying beforehand, etc.). But anyway, yes, Maexxna demands every conceivable HoT and mitigation buff on your MT at the same time, tightly coordinated. When the tank is going in with a full set of consumables and then getting hit with Renew, GHeal Renew, Rejuv, Regrowth, Abolish Poison, and Ancestra/Inspiration at the same time, it's going to push things off.

there's no way out of the stun unless you
1. time the dots on the cacoons to pop during the stun
2. paly DI
3. shammy rez
4. druid rez

That'd be a bad idea. Presumably, you're using expensive short-term emergency-use buffs for a reason, since they tend to be pretty powerful. Last thing you want is to have PW:S knocked off by a Crusader proc.

I asked a Warrior to figure out how many buff slots they had, because we had previously lost a Flask and a Stance on a Patchwerk attempt. He tested it and reported the results.

It's pretty obvious that the original post that reported that it was "Auras" that take up buff slots is wrong. He ignores the Fire Resist on Wrath, for example.

It's not that complicated overall. A person's regular gear doesn't take up the buff slots. They then gain buffs from their enchants. The stance is also a buff, it's just invisible. For most Warriors that will be 12 slots taken up by invisible buffs, giving them 20 buff slots before something important gets knocked off.

Look at this:
http://thottbot.com/?sp=20010

It casts this:
http://thottbot.com/?sp=19984

Compare that to:
http://thottbot.com/?sp=11405

The whole "auras are buffs" thing is questionable though. First of all nearly all talents apply auras, and if they were buffs you'd barely able to buff yourself. You'd have 10-15 talent buffs, 10+ enchant buffs, and then with a few normal buffs you'd be knocking off talent buffs. The main difference is that Enchants and set bonuses are not applied when you're dead, while I believe talents still are (I think).

Also certain set bonuses are most definitely buffs, if anyone recalls the problems people once had ages ago with Dal'rend's Arms +50 Attack Power set bonus not applying correctly if you had a Nightbrace Tunic (i think?) and it definitely didn't show up when you were dead. At least any set bonus that is a stat buff is a buff, I can't speak for bonuses such as 3/8 Wrath.

No, I don't buy into the "auras are buffs" thing either. It's not all auras. The theory is that enchantments work, clumsily, by actually "casting" a real buff that has no tooltip info and thus is hidden.

Enchant: http://thottbot.com/?sp=25086
Talent: http://thottbot.com/?sp=13712

There are differences between the two.

I think we're phrasing this wrong. Look carefully at the Thottbot links. It's not the auras themselves that are taking up slots (or else everything would count for a slot). It's that some bonuses are implemented as a continuous effect, on the player, which contributes to an aura.

I am going to have to disagree with this... because when i wear 5/8 NS... i am pretty sure when i die I have 10 energy on my bar. That would mean the set bonus is applying while i am dead. I will try this when i get home and post the results if nobody beat me to it.

Actually, I've always wondered why my characters have varing (non-zero) amounts of mana while dead. If the +4 stats enchant applies while dead, that'd explain having 60 mana as a ghost.

Using 5 NS, I also recall you have 110 energy when dead. That should means it an aura, since it persists thru death (also thott says it is an aura).

I am confused which auras count as buffs.

Look at the example Gurgthock gave above. The point is that auras themselves never count as buffs. Some things, however, are implement by casting a permanent spell on the player, which in turn applies the aura.

Ouch. Yeah, it looks like any tanks with a legacy accurascope on their old ranged weapon should replace it ASAP because it's eating a buff slot, whereas a +7dam scope wouldn't, it seems.

On the other hand, +3 hit is kind of nice for a tank slot in the first place.

The old one was +3 hit for all attacks not just ranged. For obvious reasons it was removed from the game.

+dmg enchants should act the same as the +hit% enchant. If a Warrior is worried about their buff limit, they just shouldn't have any scope on their ranged slot.

Look closely at the Thottbot entry for Sniper Scope and then the one for Accurascope and then report back with your findings.

On the topic of losing buffs, has anyone else ever experienced an occurance in BWL where a Winterfall Firewater buff is immedietly lost after being applied? It was a few months ago, but it happened to me twice in the area of the Broodlord gate and again outside Chromaggus' chamber. At first I thought it may have been an addon or UI anomaly, but then another member of the raid complained of the same thing.

I could understand if we were buffing beyond reason and the effect was pushed off as a result, but it was a normal ho-hum BWL clear and beyond normal raid buffs we were just popping consumables to speed up the drudgery.

It was a little comical seeing my player grow in size then quickly shrink back to normal.

Yes one of our tanks kept having this happen to him on Gothik last week. No clue what caused it, either.

Did you happen to have the +30 str juju power? i don't believe they stack. I had the firewater do that to me once, and that was supposedly the cause, according to GM >_<