The Buff Bar - Again - For the First Time

#1 - Oct. 8, 2015, 2:33 a.m.

So this is about the Buff Bar, again, but prompted because it's the first time I've experienced the situation, where it actually caused me trouble.

Last night I am pushing GR60s with a few guys. We had a Sader, Monk, and WD (I'm a DH). Not a bad group, until you look at your Buff Bar.

I couldn't tell if any of my skills were proccing, because the bar was continuously filled with the buffs of the other characters. This is especially bad with the Sader and Monk, whose buffs never end.

So I would like 2 things.

1. A dozen spots for buffs.

2. My character's buffs will come first, and push any other buffs off the end of the bar.
For example, my character's buffs will appear at the left side of the bar (the beginning), pushing toward the right (pushing older buffs off the bar). Buffs from other characters will be added to the right end of the bar (the end), only if there is a spot open.

#11 - Oct. 8, 2015, 11:03 p.m.

10/07/2015 07:04 PMPosted by atom0s
Taken from the Q&A, this is Blizzard's Wyatt Chengs (Game Designer) response to this same question:

We have been avoiding simply adding more buffs because having a large number of buffs on the screen is not only visually unappealing, but it can be just as frustrating to locate the buff that you care about in a sea of buffs.

Sadly, this is Blizzard making our opinion(s) and interests invalid and unheard. Instead, they are making the choice for us in terms of what we the players think is "unappealing" or similar.

It's dangerous to take quotes out of context, because sometimes a bigger picture gets missed. Here's the rest of the quote from Wyatt for those interested (emphasis mine), with the full version available in our Q&A transcript:

I view buffs broadly in 3 categories:

Category 1: "Always On" buffs. Really obvious ones are the Multiplayer buff, or when there is a Community event in place. These buffs are great to know, but they take up one of your precious buff slots. Monk Mantras are a slightly less "always" version of this. If I'm in a party with a monk wearing Inna's Mantra, suddenly all players in the party have half of their buff slots tied up.

Category 2: "Reassuring buffs". These are buffs that you want to know they are on you, but they don't affect your moment to moment gameplay. A good example of this would be Storm Armor on the Wizard, or Frenzy skill stacks on a Barbarian. Many times you want to know the skill is working correctly, but you aren't checking on the buff in the heat of combat.

Category 3: "Moment-to-moment buffs". These are the buffs that actually affect you moment-to-moment and are usually the source of complaints. Focus and Restraint are a great example here.

Overall our goal is to find alternate ways to communicate Category 1 and Category 2 buffs so that Category 3 buffs can take center stage on the buff bar.

We don't have anything to share at this time, but I assure you that with the introduction of all the extra powers players have from Kanai's Cube, combined with new Legendary items that make you powerful but require some degree of buff tracking (builds that use Vyr's Amazing Arcana or Chantodo's Resolve come to mind) the desire to address this is greater than ever.

TLDR: This is something we're working on in a way that helps organize the buffs in the categories listed above. While we don't have anything to share just yet, as there's still some refinement left to do, some of the options thrown around have looked pretty cool. We're looking forward to sharing it with you all when things are more finalized.