Buff

Buff (n.)

A yellowish-beige color, or a stout, dull yellow leather with a velvety surface.

Buff (v.)

To polish something. When applied to games it refers to something being made better or stronger. This is usually done (hopefully) to bring things into line with others in hopes of making them relevant or competitive. This will usually cause a great deal of rage from other players that their own stuff hasn't been buffed. This may or may not lead to said character or thing being nerfed after realizing that they were made to good.

Examples of Buffing

(tabletop/traditional games only please)

• After being stuck with a weak, outdated codex throughout 5th edition Tau became the most powerful army in 6th edition. The codex alone made them great, with Riptides, making Etherals and Kroot actually useful, and giving them the Farsight Bomb, but 6th ed's addition of overwatch and changes to assault made them one of the best armies in the game. Not only was their shooting ungodly powerful, nullifying cover or making shots crazy accurate, armies trying to assault them had to roll for their charge ranges, and eat several unit's overwatch just for trying to assault them.

• After being one of the best armies around for most of 6th edition, Eldar got buffed even more with the nex Codex:Craftworld Eldar, which made every warrior aspect good, every single unit in the codex very seable, and let them spam scatterbikes (the best troops in the game), and gave them one of the game's most cost-effective Lords of War choices (the Wraithlord), fantastic new decurion-style detachments, along with ranged S:D weapons everywhere! Even without a competitive list or any allies, they can beat any other army, often without tailoring too much.

• After spending waaay too many editions with their old codex, Necrons finally got a new codex with 7th edition. Boy, was it Awesome! It made every single unit good, often tremendously buffing them either directly like the Flayed Ones, or through their new Decurion detachments (like wraiths). It also insanely buffed the already excellent Necron durability with the changes to Reanimation Protocols - making Necrons the hardest to kill army in the game.

See Also

• Nerf, the exact opposite of this subject.