[Tank] Buff Cap Problems?

Gromweld · 10/22/07, 9:52 PM

I ran into a curious problem last night during our kill of Illidan: during the fight my max health would suddenly plummet, and then I'd get insta-gibbed by a lucky string of max-hits from Our Favorite Betrayer. After releasing, I'd notice that my flask was gone...

Upon further review of combat logs, it appears that I was consistently hitting the buff cap and it was pushing my starting buffs - Flask, Fort, MotW, etc. - off of me, just like debuffs on a mob. With stacking HoTs from multiple Druids, Priests, trinkets, and my own Righteous Fury/Holy Shield/Devo Aura... I knew I had a lot, but not that much.

I'm curious if anyone else has encountered the same problem in their raids, and how/if you managed to work around this issue.

And apologies if this has been discussed/beat-to-death before. My Googlefu couldn't produce a recent thread discussing this on the WoW Boards or here.

Averun · 10/22/07, 11:43 PM

I know that used to be a major problem (I remember having to unclick MoTW when tanking twin emps for example so that I could have room for a renew or rejuv). I have yet to run into that problem in live however, especially after the alchemy changes.

• frmorrison · 10/23/07, 12:29 AM

You must have many Druids + Priests, iirc the buff limit is 40, but it may be 20.

How the buff removal works is the first buff applied is the first buff knocked out. So don't apply your flask first, and if you die making flask first, I guess start clicking off buffs that aren't useful, like Halloween buffs.

Darkmantle · 10/23/07, 12:54 AM

It used to be a common problem in naxx especially on Faerlina becasue you were trying to put every single helpful buff up. However the reason people were hitting the cap was because enchants(that is anything extra to an item like zg librams) counted as a buff albiet hidden from our display. They changed enchants to not do this and it became very difficult to hit the cap. Presumably you just stacked far too many hots and stuff and suffered for it.

Melthar · 10/23/07, 12:58 AM

When this occured pre-bc however there was also a change in one of the patch notes that Flasks, Stances, and Forms were "protected buffs" that wouldn't be removed before other buffs, considering the debuff priority system appears to be somewhat lacking in BC, there's the possiblity that this hasn't carried through either.

Darkrenown · 10/23/07, 7:39 AM

Although stances and some other stuff (set bonus and maybe enchants) no longer takes up buff slots, so at least you can't be forced into "no stance" anymore.

How many buffs did you have, grom?

Fierystix · 10/23/07, 9:30 AM

Going off general raid makeup and WWS from our kill:

Flask, ironshield, blood pact, MotW, thorns, fort, spirit, shadow prot, AB, BoK, BoW, BoL, 2x pally auras, seal, holy shield, redoubt, reckoning, righteous fury, avenging wrath, comm shout, 3x lifebloom, 3x rejuv, 3x regrowth, 2x renew, inspiration, PoM, healing way, ancestral fortitude, ES, LoTP, ToL, regeneration (piston proc), MD, PW:S, 1x spellsurge, 2x gift of the naaru, displacement (trinket use), bulwark of the lightbringer (Tome of the Lightbringer proc), stoneform, intervene.

I think Teck stopped using Tome of the Lightbringer early in the night, however. So I'm partially ignoring the proc. And gift of the naaru wasn't used all that much. But, given that people were stacking HoTs in transitioning to p3, I have no doubt that we could have pushed beyond 40.

In hindsight, I should have put a druid w/o spellsurge in the tank group and asked our priest to use a trinket other than the piston. Also, I should have kept switching the feral druid out of his group later in the night (we'd lost a hunter, so I stopped moving him out of the tank group). I should have also told our draenei not to use gift on Teck. Could have dropped thorns and the second pally aura, as well (the pally was left over from stacking other groups, so he brought a second aura to the group). Even then, we'd be pushing the limit, assuming it's 40.

But the likelihood we were reaching 40+ buffs is high, of course. And perhaps that could have explained why Teckbot got insta-gibbed coming into p5 on a few occasions (having flask, fort and/or BoK knocked off would have been a huge decrease in hit points).

Whiteknight · 10/23/07, 5:44 PM

I have a screenshot of one of the Flame tanks with 4 triple stacks of lifebloom running. I think it was from one of our earlier attempts seeing as our kill had only 3 resto druids. It seems druids add a lot of buff slots :s

I think next time we should just click off AI, spirit, thorns and a few of the less useful buffs.