Buff

A buff is any ability intended to enhance its target. Buffs may have target restrictions such as self only or group members only. Buffs are usually temporary, and can be prematurely dispelled by by effect removal abilities, death, or by simply waiting for them to expire.

Types of Buffs

Ability Buffs

Ability buffs (also called stat buffs) enhance a character's strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, and/or spirit. These are the most common type of buffs.

Secondary Stat Buffs

Secondary buffs affect a character's health, mana, or stamina recovery rate, attack speed, power cost, or flat damage done. These types of buffs are harder to come by and usually do not last as long as ability buffs.

Boons

Main article: Boon

A boon is a special kind of buff granted by shrines. Boons last much longer then normal buffs and cannot be removed by any means except expiration and death.

Buff Bots

A buff bot is a character created only to provide its buffs for other characters, and to have no battle capability whatsoever. Buff bots are rarely played actively, and serve merely as a means to provide their services prior to battle.

History

In March of 2006, the developers of Shadowbane addressed the issue that buff bots have become a required standard to stay at an equal level with other players. This phenomenon was dubbed "Buffbot Syndrome". At first, one of the biggest concerns was that this buff bot wasted one of an account's seven available character slots. Since Shadowbane has become free to play, this is no longer an issue. One of the results of this has been an expansion to the Alchemy system, including the addition of buff potions.