A painful realization from buff limits outside of bozja

https://gfycat.com/pointedflakyafricangroundhornbill

I have no idea why it happened till I learned that I've hit the buff limit that prevents inner release from doing what it does.

I'd probably remember it vaguely and be slightly more aware of it in bozja.

Did not expect to hit it in not bozja.

Would it be possible to increase the buff limit? Or to combine some buffs from the same use such as some of the defensive cooldowns that give 2-3 separate buffs.

Very niche, but something I don't think people would expect to know, reach and encounter and likely a pain to have as an issue.

Yes, what happened to you was that you reached the buff cap, at which point you can no longer get any more buffs or debuffs, thus dodging them.

There's a limit of 30 buffs in the game that includes both buffs and debuffs. Anything counts for this: FC buffs, squadron buffs, food, etc.

As you say, it's something that happens more frequently in Save the Queen areas, especially Delubrum Reginae Savage, but can also happen outside by purposely stacking buffs or the example you provide.

The solution would be to increase the buff cap to at least 40 (though there shouldn't be one to begin with) and to make buffs and debuffs have different slots so that they don't count together, as having them in the same slot can cause problems, since it is possible to skip important (de)buffs by virtue of the buff cap. This happened in Baldesion Arsenal in the past to bypass the resurrection restrictions there until they hotfixed it, and it can also be used to dodge the bleed caused by the raidwide AoEs from Trinity Avowed and The Queen in DRS or other mechanics in critical engagements, for example.

When doing DRS with rays of valor, you need literally zero defensive buffs any time you're using your burst and offensive actions, or you'll most likely dodge buffs. You can dodge anything: buffs that allow weaponskills or abilities to be used such as NIN mudras, DRG's positional buffs or Mirage Dive, MNK's forms and Leaden Fist, BLM's Triplecast, WAR's Inner Release, etc. DNCs and their partners are especially affected by this, due to the fact that DNCs provide a total of 5 offensive buffs, and can provide more with their defensive utility.

In order to avoid unwanted buffs, those of us that like doing DRS have had to create macros to dispel defensive buffs and use them in such burst windows, but this is tedious and annoying and should not be needed, plus it doesn't always work properly due to the way macros work. You also want to avoid defensive actions such as Lost Bubble or Lost Shell (II), as well as healer bubbles, since they also provide buffs that are continuously refreshed. This is counterintuitive and contradicts the idea of this kind of content by actively avoiding the unique helpful tools available thanks to the lost actions.

There's no reason why the buff cap should not be increased. Surely an increase of at least 10 (even without the buff/debuff split if this is harder to implement) would not break the game considering that it only happens in very specific, niche even, instances? Such a change would make those who enjoy this kind of content not have to worry about this and avoid any exploit or bug in the future.

As a side note, enemies also have a buff/debuff cap of 60: 30 being in the "first" slot and visible, and the other 30 in the "secondary" slot and hidden but still doing their work. In some cases such as The Queen in DRS, your debuffs can be pushed out and disappear when she gets the four buffs provided by her Sovereignty bar filling to 100 (this is the point in which she summons the lightning orbs). This further proves the need to separate buffs and debuffs into different categories to avoid such situations.

Hopefully the devs will take notice of this and increase the buff cap!

Agreed. Though I’ll note that if the cap cannot be separated between buffs and debuffs then we should see the increase go to at least 60, to additionally accommodate the potential situation where we have at least one but often multiple debuffs present from every single player on a single boss in most content. Another option is to hard code raid-specific debuffs/buffs (Ex Addle and Searing Light) as binary on/off effects per entity so they’re never even considered in that cap. I would only consider this for role actions, weakness and FC buffs(which can be coded in as a set of two bit operands) and encounter specific modifiers to enemy mobs. Due to the nature of DoTs and HoTs it cannot be applied to them.

This issue has occurred in the new TOP ultimate to the point healers can't apply shields, etc, from too many buffs.

More than that, damage buffs are getting dropped too, which is apparently making the 4th phase a nightmare to beat enrage on.