Protect Wearing Off/Vanishing?

[SeanCanucks]

Wasn't sure where to post this, I tried to put it in the healer roles section but apparently my main character's level isn't high enough for whatever reason at 42.

Anyway, to the point, has anyone noticed that sometimes protect just vanishes on party members? I know of the usual causes like disconnects or changing classes will usually erase the buff, but a lot of the time they're just battling right in front of me, protect will have 23 minutes left on the clock and suddenly it's gone.

I'm really confused about this, I'm 90% sure they're not disconnecting because they're right there in front of me, battling away and of course you can't change class mid-battle.

Anyone got any ideas?

I'm playing on PS3 on the Moogle server if that changes anything.

[Mhaeric]

Two possibilities I can see:

1. They right-click the icon to remove it, usually accidentally. As a tank, I always try to remove regen before every pull and have on a couple occasions accidentally removed protect by mistake. (PSA: pls don't renew regen/whispering dawn right at the end of a kill, it makes the next pull more chaotic. There's a full GCD between the initial Shield Lob/Tomahawk and the first Flash/Overpower and a regen will cause all the additional mobs to head straight for the healer/fairy instead of the tank.)

2. They already had a stronger protect in effect on them, so the duration wasn't actually reset. You may see time remaining on your protect, but their timer was still the old protect's timer. You can notice this at the moment you cast protect in a couple ways: Target them and view their duration to confirm it has the full 29m duration, or pay attention to the flying text to see if it says 'Protect has no effect!' This only really occurs when playing as a Scholar or an untraited White Mage trying to over-write a traited White Mage's protect.

[SeanCanucks]

That's a great tip about regen, didn't know about that so thank you.
Funnily enough I think I've just found the culprit, after a week or so of it playing on my mind and just having had it happen to myself (considering I can't manually remove the buffs on ps3, AFAIK); it's the level sync!
I find it a bit strange that protect of all things is cancelled out by level sync, given that it's not really impacted on via level at all, but then again, I can't say for certain I know the exact equation for how much damage it prevents.

[Mhaeric]

That's a great tip about regen, didn't know about that so thank you.
Funnily enough I think I've just found the culprit, after a week or so of it playing on my mind and just having had it happen to myself (considering I can't manually remove the buffs on ps3, AFAIK); it's the level sync!
I find it a bit strange that protect of all things is cancelled out by level sync, given that it's not really impacted on via level at all, but then again, I can't say for certain I know the exact equation for how much damage it prevents.

Ah, yes level sync resets buffs. The reason for that is because the effects of protect are scale with your level, but are static for the duration of the effect based on the time of casting. As an extreme example, it would be seriously out of balance to be able to have the defence bonus of a level 50 character when syncing down to a level 5 character whose defence rating is far less than the level 50 bonus would be. The devs decided to go with buff reset instead of dynamic buff scaling to account for this.

[Bixby]

(considering I can't manually remove the buffs on ps3, AFAIK)

I think you can press Select until you get to your list of buffs, use the D-pad to get to Protect (or whatever), and Confirm to "click" it off. If that doesn't work, there's always mouse mode.

[HEC]

Ah, yes level sync resets buffs.

THIS ticks me really OFF!! How LAZY way of programing >( I join the fate even 1 or 2 levels bellow the required level, sync and - PUFF - all buffs gone! So now I need to waste at least 3 GCDs to get back Cleric stance, Protect and Stoneskin but I'm taking the damage in the meantime plus loosing the points. It's Even worse for those who can re-apply (some of) the buffs themselves ... what a waste.

[Sisqi]

Two possibilities I can see:

1. They right-click the icon to remove it, usually accidentally. As a tank, I always try to remove regen before every pull and have on a couple occasions accidentally removed protect by mistake. (PSA: pls don't renew regen/whispering dawn right at the end of a kill, it makes the next pull more chaotic. There's a full GCD between the initial Shield Lob/Tomahawk and the first Flash/Overpower and a regen will cause all the additional mobs to head straight for the healer/fairy instead of the tank.)

Wait a sec, are you saying that regen generates enmity for each 'tick' of the duration of the effect, not just the initial cast? Wow, I did not know that.

[Ddmk]

If your doing fates lvl sync removes all buffs

[Mhaeric]

Wait a sec, are you saying that regen generates enmity for each 'tick' of the duration of the effect, not just the initial cast? Wow, I did not know that.

Yes that is correct. Every time it tics, enmity relative to the amount healed is gained. This is why Medica II can cause quite a bit of enmity, and why Eos is so good at pulling hate early in a fight with Whispering Dawn.

[Niwashi]

Every time it tics, enmity relative to the amount healed is gained.

Or relative to the amount that would have been healed if more healing was needed. Even when the recipient reaches max health and regen no longer accomplishes anything, you still get the enmity as though it had been healing him/her. (So don't over-heal. It not only wastes MP, but adds unnecessary aggro as well.)