User:Aluthal/Modified Buffer

Superbuffing

If you've toiled as a normal buffer with the supposed Holy Trinity of buffing (Support/Lingering Kindness/Healing), then ocassionally you may notice that sometimes another buffer just walks in and makes you completely useless. Their buffs are simply larger than yours, and not by a small amount, but by an insane amount. Did you pick the wrong skills? Is there some power you're missing? What kind of gear do they have that lets them do that?

The answer is that they are simply playing a different game than you. They possess the Modified flaw and have taken a set of modifications designed to maximize the magnitudes of every buff they throw out to ridiculous heights. Everything you could possibly get out of Support and Healing is duplicated entirely by a single application of the Heavy Modifier, and Lingering Kindness just isn't worth it at that point. At this point, you should be asking, "But how does this help me?" Well, you're going to want to walk yourself up to the Zephyr Inc Nanite Workshop and take a look at the Medical Implanter.

The Medical Implanter gives you the Modified flaw, which sets all of your combat skills to 0. So now you're feeling all weak because you don't have any bonuses to your buffs, but that's okay, because the store also has the schematic for a 'Modification'. The Modification, if you've been following along with +rpinfo, simply adds all of the bonuses and penalties of any Modifiers applied to it to everything you do. So let's take a look at something relatively simple, an Overwhelming Modification. By equipping this monster, the Charge time of all of your powers is reduced by 20%, the Loadout and Upkeep both increase by 20%, and importantly all Status Magnitudes are increased by +40%. That last bit is the important one for you, because Status Mag is everything that you do as a buffer. So let's take a look into the Modification that you're going to make to go along with your Modified flaw.

Modifications

There are a few options for Modifications, so let's examine them by levels (and thus, the order you'll take them in.)

Level 15: You get your first Modifier. That Modifiier is going to be Heavy. You may be wondering why we're taking a Modifier with such large penalties this early, but it's really simple. We're going to be getting the weight increasers out of the way so that you don't make any equipment decisions based on normal equipment limits, and we're choosing Heavy first because it pulls so much weight. There's another concern that we'll get into at Level 45, but we'll leave it there for now. Heavy does a lot of things. The first thing you're going to care about is that it increases Loadout by +10% and Upkeep by +15%. So you're hurting. It also decreases your Accuracy by -10% and increases your Charge by +25%, your Cooldowns by +40%, and your Energy by +25%, but hey, it increases Damage by 40%! Realistically, you're going to be buffing yourself to reduce all of those penalties, so you're just going to eat them right now. What you really care about is that your Status Chance is being improved by +50%, your Durations by +30%, and most importantly, your Status Magnitudes by +30%. If that looks like everything that Support could ever do for you plus change, then you're starting to learn what it means to be a Superbuffer.

Level 30: Two Modifiers! This is where something really magical happens and you really learn why Superbuffing is so very powerful. Your Modification for today is Overwhelming. So now you have the two modifiers that have been put on almost every buffing item ever made. We already talked about what Overwhelming gives you, so we'll ignore that for now. In fact, you can just use +rpinfo when I mention a modifier from now on. However, it's even better than what +rpinfo may suggest. When you slap your Heavy, Overwhelming Modifcation onto your brainstem, you'll notice that the numbers don't quite match up to what you may have been expecting. Your Status Mag bonus isn't quite the the *170% you might have been expecting, but is in fact *182%. You just walked into one of the key tricks of the Superbuffer. Modifications don't stack linearly like Modifiers on equipment do, but multiplicatively. This will become very important. For now, all of your buffs are bigger than normal buffing could ever do and you're starting to really make the normal buffers feel small in the pants.

Level 45: Your third Modifier gives you some actual choice in the matter. You can take Sucking, Flexible, or one of the Quality Slot modifiers such as Improved, Overcharged, or Unpredictable. Sucking is the obvious first pick, because of the +30% Mag (bringing you up to an impressive 236.6%). However, Sucking has the pricetag of three Sacramento Suckers, which are a bit hard to obtain, so even if your build includes sucking, you may want to hold out until your final Modification. Flexible has some real benefits, the biggest being the Status Chance increase. However, the Defense bonus only applies once (twice including the passive) and is smaller than some of your other options. Improved is a strict upgrade, but may be too small for your tastes. Overcharged is a very safe pick, but is a bit hard to obtain. Unpredictable has some serious flaws, but if you really want the extra 5%, it may be what you need. Think long and hard before including it in any build.

Level 60: Your option for your fourth Modifier is much the same as your third, minus whatever you took. At this point you have the option of Dropped Craftmods, which give you a bit more freedom on what Modifiers you can take and also give you the chance of getting a Tier 2 Dropmod, which will add a 5% bonus to everything you do with diminishing returns.

Buffs

No matter how much Status Mag you pile on, you're not going to do anything unless you have some buffs to use it with. Below are listed buffs that will give all of your friends phenomenal cosmic powers.

Self-Buffs

Long Ears/Abrasive Hide/Quick Fix: Statusboost is very useful and you'll want a lot of it. Also maybe these do other things?

Cool/Amplifying Modules: Good All Around Buffs made better by your StatusMag.

Stretchy: Huge Aoemod. You want and need this.

Scattershot 2000: Less huge Aoemod that stacks with Stretchy.

Offensive Buffs

Leap: Big Recharge Bonuses here. Essential for making up for your extra Cooldown.

Incite Riot: Haste Bonus to all your friends with a huge Energybreak attached.

Sugar Rush: Hard to maintain, but it's the biggest Haste buff in the game.

Scent of Victory: Easier to maintain. Big enough that you can remove the Energybreak penalty.

Breast Waggle: Accuracy and Damage.

Howl: Huge Damagebuff.

Defensive Buffs

Nanite Buffer/Protein Shield: HPBuffer will keep you and all of your friends alive.

Honey Gift: Enough HP for everyone to survive big hits.

Nurse: Regen is a lot like ablative damageresist that doesn't actually prevent death. But when you have this much of it, that'll do.

Chock Milk/Lactaid/Medicinal/Delicious Treat: Not a buff, but an emergency heal.

Protein Armor/Moo: Damageresists. Moo's kind of bad, but at least it works on you.

Force Shield: A fairly nice buff, but you don't want to rely on it.

Other Buffs

Trivia: Large multi-purpose buff.

Coordinated Work: Difficult to get, but very powerful. You'll want the Statusboost.

Banners: Slap a modifier on one and call it a buff!

Area Modules: Very expensive, but potentially very powerful.

Debuffs

Wing Dust: Strip those F&C's of their annoying Damageresists!

Blowhard/Vine Torrent: If they can't get up, they can't hurt your friends.

Terrifying Visage: A lot of fun things here, and hard for normal debuffers to use.