Question about debuffs, debuff limit!

[RamNecro]

Hello! I'm new to FFXI and charting out how to build my character. Since I'm coming directly from XIV I would like to try something that's just not possible in that game, and would like to at least try to build my character as a designated debuffer. That said, this game is quite old and I have no idea what the buff/debuff limit is for enemies and if this may cause issues.

If one were to make a dark knight/black mage, how many of their absorb or elemental debuffs would actually be able to affect enemies at a time? From some cursory research I know that Dia and Bio overwrite each other, but I'm more worried that in a setting with five or so players an enemy may reach a point where negative effects stop applying to them altogether rather than just being incompatible with other players' applied effects. I know that this is probably very niche knowledge and I won't have to worry about it for quite a while but I may shift gears and build towards something else if the game doesn't really support this type of role.

[Alhanelem]

There's no attainable hard limit on status effects that I know of. On the player character, the game client will only track up to 30 statuses for display on the UI, but the server is still tracking everything that gets applied- that is, if you have 30 statuses and you receive one more, that status will still be applied, it just won't be displayed in the UI.. I'm under a reasonable assumption that mobs work the same way. with no (attainable) hard limits. There's a practical limit due to how some effects that are in the same category can't coexist (like opposite elemental DoTs, different tiers of haste and slow, different values of regen/refresh, etc), but not an enforced limit.

[RamNecro]

Awesome, thank you! It's also good to know that elemental debuffs counteract each other because I'm not sure whether or not I would have noticed that.

[Alhanelem]

Awesome, thank you! It's also good to know that elemental debuffs counteract each other because I'm not sure whether or not I would have noticed that.

There are two sets of three black magic elemental DOTs that can be used together because they aren't opposed- Burn/shock/rasp, and the other three. And yes, you wouldn't know this without being told because the game does not say the effect wears off if you overwrite one elemental DOT with another.