Basic buffing question

When a buff from the same player is applied to somebody, I know it does not stack(in most cases) but does it "renew"?

For example, if I put fortitude on a player that lasts for 1 minute, and I put fortitude on him again before the buff expires, is the timer reset at 1 minute or does the first one expire?

It renews it. All non-stackable ally buffs and nearly* all non-stackable effects in general work like this.


*I say nearly cos there might be a couple of oddities I don't know about

Yup, PhroX is right. The second application terminates the first one and overwrites it.

This can be demonstrated by casting something like an enhanced shield buff on a pet, then enhancing the power and recasting. If you look at the combat attributes monitor for the pet, you'll see the old defense number being replaced by the second enhanced value. If you also use something like Hero Stats, you'll see the shield timer value was refreshed as well.

TDLR - yea. It renews.

You might also find it helpful that longer-term buffs like Force Field and Sonic Resonance shields (and others I'm sure) CAN be stacked from the same caster if you switch zones between casting.

i.e., I'll buff the team before we enter the mish, and when the mish starts, buff again for stacked goodness.

I think Clear Mind stacks. But that's an exception.

Then there's always fun things like Increase Density, which partially stacks (Mezz protection) and partially doesn't stack (Damage Resistance).

The stacking rules are a bit complex in this game. Here's the basics:

1. An effect can be flagged to stack - meaning you can keep applying it and both applications will apply to the target additively - or not stack. When an effect is flagged to not stack, this means any attempt to apply the effect twicefrom the same caster will fail. This doesn't affect multiple casters using the same effect.

1a. Odd bug: when you zone, you are "destroyed" and "recreated" in the new zone. So leaving and/or re-entering a zone means you're now a different entity as far as the game is concerned. Thus the oldest stacking exploit in the game: buff outside the mission, zone into it, and then buff everyone again. Used to be used a lot with things like FF bubbles and sometimes Kinetic buffs.

2. If an effect is flagged to not stack, if its cast on a target that already has the same buff from the same caster it could alternatively either simply fail to do anything at all, or remove and reapply the original buff. If it fails, nothing happens. If it reapplies, the new buff takes the place of the older buff, and essentially the new buff has a new duration.

2a. Odd bug: because remove and replace was and is not atomic in the game engine, you could have a brief instant where you didn't have the buff at all. Perma-Eluded scrappers in particular noticed this bug back in I2 when they discovered there was a brief moment of vulnerability right in the middle of the backflip when they reapplied Elude.

2b. There was tech added recently to bypass this bug, whereby its now possible for a buff to simply extend or replace the duration of the existing buff, so the game doesn't have to remove the old one and replace it with the new one.

3. Regardless of how effects are coded to stack or not stack, the rules only apply when the effect comes from the exact same power from the exact same caster. Meaning: if you have two attacks with -10% defense debuffs, and they are both coded to not stack, each attack can still land the debuff and they will stack with each other. They may be numerically identical, but the game counts them as two different debuffs. They "stack" but as far as the game engine's stacking rules are concerned, they are not "stacking buffs."

4. Stacking rules affect individual effects, not powers. Each individual effect of a power can be configured to stack (or not stack) differently. A power might buff damage and defense, and the damage buff could stack and the defense buff could not stack.

5. In general, most debuffs in attacks stack. Most self buffs stack. If an ally buff recharges very fast and has very long duration, its likely to not stack. Certain things are less likely to stack: ally defense and resistance buffs in particular.

6. Technically, the game engine stacking rules only apply to "effects" of powers. There are certain things in the game that aren't "effects" per se, and obey completely different and special rules. For example, the "bruising effect" added to Tankers recently is actually a *power*. When a tanker applies Bruising to a target, they are giving the target a temporary power that debuffs the target's resistance. This power itself obeys a special rule: the target can only have one copy of it at any time. Because all tankers have the exact same effect and try to grant the exact same power, no tanker can "stack" this effect onto the same target with their own attacks, and for that matter no two tankers can stack the effect onto the same target. This isn't part of the normal stacking rules of the game, but a special effect engineered by the devs.