Party buff stacking and party composition – What you should know

This post will address how buffs stack and therefore strategies for party composition. Before I get started, one thing to note is that this is absolutely not necessary to clearing 95% of the game. So if you’re playing multiplayer and end up in a party of all Shooters, don’t fret about it. You may certainly take longer to beat the boss then if you were in a party with optimal buff stacking, but it’s not necessary. Only the most difficult content in JP (currently the 60 AP “Zetsu” fights and 100 AP “Hakyuu” fights) really require at least some party optimization.

With that said, here are the basic rules to know:

Identical Buffs do not stack

For harder content in Japan, party leaders will often kick identical characters. This is because any identical talents do not stack, and therefore, dupe characters provide no additional benefit to the team. When two buffs are of the same type, only the buff with the larger magnitude takes effect. So for instance if you have two Attackers in the party, one that grants party-wide ATK +30% and one that grants party-wide ATK +40%, your party will only get +40% (not +70%). Some notable exceptions:

• Characters with solo buff talents have those talents directly applied to their stats so they can still benefit from party-wide ATK boosts. So for instance, Cliff’s solo ATK+30% will still stack with party-wide ATK +40% (only for Cliff, naturally). This is NOT true for non-primary-stat Talents; Phia’s solo Crit rate/crit dmg +50% Talent will not stack with any of the party-wide Crit rate/crit dmg talents.
• Temporary boosts from buff spells will stack. So for instance future Healers and Casters will have spells like Growth (party ATK +25% for 20 sec) and Angel Feather (party all stats +20% for 20 sec). This will stack with any and all Talents.
• Rush Combo temporary party buffs do not stack, however. So for instance, upcoming character Claire’s Rush grants Damage +80% to the whole party for 20 seconds. This will overwrite Maria’s Damage +40% for the 20 seconds it is active, after which the party reverts to Maria’s base +40% damage.

There are many different types of damage buffs and the different types DO stack

Since identical buffs do not stack, the key to party optimization is to mix different types of buffs that do stack. Even talents that sound the same might be in different categories. In JP they are pretty careful about specifying this by the wording of the talents; hopefully they’ll pay similar attention going forward in NA.

The various categories are:

• Pure stat buffs (i.e. ATK +X% or INT +X%). For the most part this is carried by Attackers (Party-wide +INT is not as common amongst Casters).
• Plain damage buffs (Damage +X%). This is mostly held by Shooters.
• Single-target damage or AOE damage buffs (ST damage +X% or AOE damage +X%). Since the vast majority of bosses are single targets, obviously the former is more valuable than the latter. ST damage +X% talents are mostly held by Defenders.
• Typed damage buffs (ATK Dmg +X%/INT Dmg +X%). Yes, this is a different category than the above. This is a comparatively rare/new type of buff in JP and is only held by a few characters at present (Summer Sophia, Mystina, Maid Claire, Nurse Fiore etc.)
• Elemental damage buffs (Elemental Dmg +X%). Obviously this only takes effect if you use an elemental skill or are equipped with an elemental weapon. It should be noted that single element typed Talents are treated the same as All Element-typed damage. So for instance, Iria has a “party fire damage +20%” talent; this Talent will be completely overridden by Federation Anne’s (Party all elemental damage +30%” talent.
• Race specific damage. (i.e., +40% damage to Plants, etc.) This is mostly on weapons but a few characters also have race specific damage Talents.
• Crit damage buff (Crit damage +X%). Obviously only affects crits.
• Skill or Rush specific buffs ((name of skill) damage +X%). Typically found on event weapons. This stacks with everything else but obviously only affects the specific skill named, which is usually unique to that character.
• Damage debuffs on target. Some characters have talents that are along the lines of “Target takes +X% damage when hit by (name of skill) for 10 sec”. This is a separate category from the rest and stacks.
• ATK/INT Damage debuffs on target. Similar to the party buffs, ATK/INT damage is treated separately from plain damage so Talents that are like “Target takes +X% ATK/INT damage when hit by (name of skill) for 10 sec” will stack with the previous category as well as everything else.

How to compose my party then?

What all this means is that in order to optimize damage you’ll want to have as many different types of buffs in your party as possible. Obviously since there’s only 4 slots, you won’t be able to fit absolutely everything. Early on in the game when you haven’t memorized everybody’s Talents, you can use the fact that most of the Talent types are predominantly held by specific classes to shortcut things. So if you set up your multiplayer with one Attacker slot, one Defender slot, one Shooter slot, and one Healer slot you have a pretty good chance of stacking two or three of these categories.

There are exceptions, of course. (There are always exceptions).

A final word

Again, optimal party composition is only necessary for the most difficult content in JP. For most of what’s in the game, it’s far easier to relax and just go into whatever multiplayer party is available rather than waiting for the one with perfect composition. Also, damage is not everything; you’re going to need a Healer if everybody is not experienced at dodging all of a boss’s attacks, or you’re going to want a Defender (or somebody else with Super Armor) if you keep getting stunlocked. Even in Japan, there are sometimes good reasons to have dupe characters as well (double Maria was common in the last Hakyuu event so they could consistently buff strip with their Rushes; this month’s Hakyuu event sometimes sees double Nels for maximal Poisoning possibilities). So consider everything above as just a starting point for determining your party comps.

EDIT: Oh yeah, one more thing. “So does this mean characters without party buffs are useless?” Far from it. When the game devs announce new offensive characters they typically refer to them as “buffers” and “finishers”. Buffers are those with party buffs, whereas finishers are characters who usually have self buffs and high Rush multipliers. So Cliff is a classical Finisher. Optimizing a party can become an interesting game of experimenting with mixing party buffs versus sacrificing a party buff to include a Finisher to round your Rush Combo chains, etc.