Buffs and Debuffs
Buffs and debuffs are blue or red icons respectively which provide percentage-based positive or negative effects to a character respectvely. They may have limited durations (from skills), or permanent (from equipment, such as Weapons, Armor or Grasta). There are also some rare buffs which have purple icons.
Note that buffs and debuffs are distinct from Status Effects and named stacks from character skills. Status effects are usually purple icons, while named stacks are white or red orbs.
Named Stacks[edit]
Named stacks are white 
, red 
, white hexagon-shaped 
, and red hexagon-shaped 
on characters which may have positive or negative effects. While technically not buffs/debuffs, they may provide similar effects. They are not removed by skills which cleanse buffs/debuffs. Some character skills create and consume stack as a skill multiplier. Some stacks may provide fixed increase to a character's stats, or may provide a %-based effect similar to buffs. Named stacks with %-buffs/debuffs have similar stacking rules with buffs/debuffs, while fixed stacks interact with the Damage Formula directly. See Damage Formula for more details.
Effects duration[edit]
Effects of Buffs/debuffs or some other things applied during battle (i.e. not from equipment) will have a stated duration. The turn it is applied can be considered as "turn 0". If the buff/debuff is going to expire at the end of the turn, the icons will flash on the character. The duration of Another Force is considered as a single turn and any buffs/debuffs active will last throughout the whole AF. Durations count down normally for characters in reserves as well. For some buffs/debuffs which are counted per move, they may not have turn duration i.e. they do not expire if the effect is not used.
Start of Turn/Battle activated effects are not as consistent with effect descriptions and duration shown (if any) in character status tab. So "turn 0" will not be present in calculations for this type of actions. Wiki uses (3 turns-) naming, with minus, to show that there are no further additions to exact duration shown, and to keep numbers consistent with, sometimes visible to player, in-battle counters.
Examples:
- A lot of Valor Chants last 1 turn. They will take effect immediately once the character comes to frontline ("turn 0"), and last until the next turn ("turn 1"). The effects will disappear in the following turn ("turn 2").
- Turn-end buffs from zone setters last 1 turn. They take effect at the end of "turn 0" and last until the end of the next turn, "turn 1". In practice, this means only 1 turn to take advantage of this buff. (Note that EoT attacks generally occur before EoT buffs are applied)
- Some buffs only last until the end of the turn, such as some buffs from Yipha (Another Style))
Some buffs, such as type damage buffs from skills, or (physical or magical) critical rate buffs are move-based. These are consumed for each damaging skills used.
- Critical rate buffs (which are for physical damage) are only consumed by physical attacks. Magical critical rate buffs are only consumed by magical attacks.
- Move-based buffs are consumed for each skill use (not skill selection where the player choose which skill to use).
- VC attacks or EoT attacks consume 1 stack.
- Lunatic - Copy repeat consumes 1 stack
- Attack again move repeats consume 1 stack each
- Moves which last multiple actions like Hismena's Rosa Azul consume 1 stack for each action
- Counters do not consume stacks
- Repeats from Persona characters' 1 More, Kikyo's Another Self, Cerrine's Invigorating Flog, do not consume stacks
Chance of Inflicting Buffs and Debuffs[edit]
- In general, non-attacking skills have a 100% chance to inflict debuffs on the target.
- Skills with multiple stacks (e.g. Fascinating Saga) also have 100% chance to inflict debuff.
- Attacking skills, including those which do no direct damage but only inflict statuses, tend to not have a 100% chance to inflict debuffs.
- Additionally, manifest-enhanced attacking skills tend to have a 100% chance to inflict debuffs, but this is not always the case.
- As of Global ver2.9.100, no enemy has debuff resistance, so skills which have 100% chance to inflict debuff will guarantee a debuff.
- Also see Status Effects#Status Affliction Chance, which applies to debuffs as well, except enemies have no debuff resistance.
Overwriting Buffs/Debuffs in Battle[edit]
Each category of limited-duration buffs/debuffs can only be applied once per source per character. The sources are VC, Skill, and Equipment (includes weapon and ores). If the same buff/debuff is applied again from the same source, the newest instance will overwrite the previous instance from the same source. Buffs/debuffs which have more than one stack are considered to be the same as Buffs/debuffs which don't.
- E.g. Consider the following sources from Claude: PWR debuff from Claude Valor Chant (VC) + Forefather (Skill) + Cruel Angel's Bow (Equipment) + Occasional PWR- Ore (Equipment) They can stack on a single target, leading to 3 PWR down debuffs solely from Claude. Note that Cruel Angel's Bow and Occasional PWR- Ore are both equipment so they will overwrite each other's debuffs, and only one of them will count, totalling to 3 debuffs instead of 4. Using High Power Down (skill) from Power of Curses will also overwrite the PWR debuff from Forefather (skill).
- E.g. Consider the following: 4 slash moves are used in turn 2 in Dazzling Slash Stance, allowing Radias to provide a +60% Sword damage buff in turn 3. If Radias uses True Sword's Prayer (skill obtained fromsupport grasta, the 50% Sword Damage Buff overwrites the 60% Sword damage buff.
- Regardless, the same category of buff/debuff are still subject to their usual stacking rules so this mechanic may be less useful than what is immediately obvious.
Buff and Debuff stacking[edit]
See their respective sections in resistance buffs or buff stacking or Distinct buffs and debuffs
Testament[edit]
Some Grasta Life upgrades, as well as a badge have a ability called Testament, which transfer buffs and debuffs from the equipment holder to the backline character when switching. Some rules:
- When transferring effects, the effects may override buffs held by the switched character. This is similar to a reapplication of the effects with the remaining duration onto the backline character, so the (de)buffs held by the front character may override those held by the character moving front.
- Testament ignores resistance, i.e. debuffs are transferred even if transfer target has 100% resistance
- All durations count down normally
| Character(s) | Skill & Effects |
|---|---|
 Null
None
Passive Transfer all Buffs and Debuffs from user to reserve party member during switch.
N/A
|
Equipment Buffs/Debuffs[edit]
Equipment buffs/debuffs (marked by E on the icon) cannot be removed during battle. All (E) buffs/debuffs can stack. The effects of equipment can be found under Party > Status > Ability > Ability Effect
Buff/Debuff Size[edit]
For party buff/debuffs, the size of the buff will generally be included in the skill description.
For buffs/debuffs inflicted by enemies during battle, the size can be inferred from selecting Status in the top left hand screen and selecting the afflicted character. Approximate numbers below:
- S is between 0% to 25%
- M is between 26% to 50%
- L is between 51% to 100%
- XL is above 100%
Unique Buffs[edit]
Unique buffs can count towards damage condition of some skills. See Damage Formula#Distinct Buffs for details.
Filters[edit]
The Characters page has filters for different kinds of buffs, debuffs and conditions.
PWR/INT Debuffs for Defense[edit]
PWR and INT debuffs are notable for having greater damage mitigation results than what the relatively small numbers may lead you to believe. The effectiveness of a debuff varies per battle, but one rule of thumb that works at the lower end of the debuff size spectrum is that a stat debuff performs roughly as well as a resistance buff of double the size (e.g. a 15% PWR debuff can be though of as roughly as good as a 30% Physical resist buff). However, as the size of debuffs increases this no longer holds true; a 50% PWR debuff is not going to mitigate damage as well as a 100% Physical resist buff.
In general, against physical attacks, only a PWR debuff is relevant, even when it includes a Type/elemental component. Against a magic attack, only INT debuffs will be relevant. Note that some enemies can do both types of attacks. Also note that certain attacks may appear to be physical attacks or magic attacks, but are actually fixed damage which cannot be mitigated by pwr/int debuffs.
An example of using debuffs in helping to clear Weapon Manifestation battles can be found in this reddit post.
