Buffs are spells that increase a player's statistics for a limited amount of time. If you look at your power cards, buffs are most easily recognized by the green arrow icon in the bottom left hand corner of the card's picture. An example buff would be Crow's Song, which gives players +2 movement and bonus attacks for 10 turns. The Purge Magic power removes all these beneficial spells in a large radius around the player who cast the spell, but be wary of your positioning as it removes buffs from all units within the spell's range, including the caster.

Old Pirate on Jun 3, 2013 wrote:

How does the Purge Magic spell work and what exactly are buffs? I tried searching for "buffs", but I was not able to find a solid definition - just a few mentions of them

great addition to the game, needed to wipe off valors witch us heavily spammed in pvp

Personally I don't like this spell being a privateer. This is a direct attack on my favorite class. Its a little over powered being that as a privateer 8 out of 10 of our skills are buffs. It takes away the essence of what a privateer is, a buff class with very low damage. I've tried testing this in pvp and it seems that it removes buffs in a 7 by 7 square. This might be fair in 1v1 pvp since you can just add another buff the next turn to even the odds but in group pvp that's not the case. Player 1 removes buffs and every companion or player after adds there buffs to attack a defenseless privateer companion. This kills the buccaneer companions again pigeon holes people to use swashbucklers or musketeers only in pvp. Swashbucklers have super high natural dodge and can be hit by buccaneers very rarely and musketeers never miss so buccaneer and privateer companions are for naught again. I loved pvp with my buccaneers but without the dodge buffs they don't stand a chance against the El Toro's and Kobes. Without the shields they cant handle a barrage from an all musketeer line. Its one spell that changes the whole aspect of a fight, no spell should have that huge of an impact. Its like casting silence on a witchdoctor or disarming a swashbuckler. The spell isn't bad and I'm not saying to remove it but limit the impact a little. The card shows it effects a 3 by 3 square and that seems fair enough, if you want to be dumb enough to surround somebody with your whole team but 7 by 7 is too much. Again that goes back to musketeers since their the only class that can stay far enough away not to be effected. Please look into the imbalance this spell can cause because as it is it takes all the fun out of being a privateer and it limits the companions you can use in the spar chamber and still be effective.

John Silver, if 8 of your skills are buffs, but only 1 of the Witchdoctor powers removes buffs, it would seem that you just need to adjust your strategy a bit and you'll once again have the upper hand.

John Silver on Jun 6, 2013 wrote:

Personally I don't like this spell being a privateer. This is a direct attack on my favorite class. Its a little over powered being that as a privateer 8 out of 10 of our skills are buffs. It takes away the essence of what a privateer is, a buff class with very low damage. I've tried testing this in pvp and it seems that it removes buffs in a 7 by 7 square. This might be fair in 1v1 pvp since you can just add another buff the next turn to even the odds but in group pvp that's not the case. Player 1 removes buffs and every companion or player after adds there buffs to attack a defenseless privateer companion. This kills the buccaneer companions again pigeon holes people to use swashbucklers or musketeers only in pvp. Swashbucklers have super high natural dodge and can be hit by buccaneers very rarely and musketeers never miss so buccaneer and privateer companions are for naught again. I loved pvp with my buccaneers but without the dodge buffs they don't stand a chance against the El Toro's and Kobes. Without the shields they cant handle a barrage from an all musketeer line. Its one spell that changes the whole aspect of a fight, no spell should have that huge of an impact. Its like casting silence on a witchdoctor or disarming a swashbuckler. The spell isn't bad and I'm not saying to remove it but limit the impact a little. The card shows it effects a 3 by 3 square and that seems fair enough, if you want to be dumb enough to surround somebody with your whole team but 7 by 7 is too much. Again that goes back to musketeers since their the only class that can stay far enough away not to be effected. Please look into the imbalance this spell can cause because as it is it takes all the fun out of being a privateer and it limits the companions you can use in the spar chamber and still be effective.

I strongly disagree with your arguments and think that no nerf needs to be applied to Purge Magic. Prior to the addition of this spell, there was no direct counter to privateer buffs. This meant that in PvP a privateer's companions were mostly immune to melee companions hits regardless of class. The only semi-useful counter to this was the usage of musketeer companions which were able to hit somewhat reliably even through a privateer's stacked buffs. Thankfully, it seems that PvP concerns were considered in the design of these new spells as there are several new spells that seem to directly counter some of the aspects of privateers: Purge Magic as a countermeasure to buffs, Assassin's Shroud as a countermeasure to heals, Davy Jones Reach as a countermeasure to critical boosts etc. I think this is the perfect way to rebalance the classes rather than nerfing buffs directly and I say Kudos to the developers for coming up with such a great idea. That being said purge magic is easily countered by privateers. It is one spell(Maximum of 2 on a witchdoctor with Bishop's Sprocket Key thrown into the mix) so if you play well you could limit it's effect to 2 buffs. Purge magic is also self limiting as it removes the opponent's buffs at well. In other words, Purge Magic simply evens the playing field for at least one round. In a team scenario as you described, a non-privateer team would only gain 1 round of buff advantage before a privateer team could once again establish buff dominance on the very next round. This is hardly the game breaker you seem to think it is. Making the spell 3x3 would be virtually useless, limiting it's effects to the witchdoctor and the companions directly adjacent to him or her. How often do opponent's companions come directly adjacent to a witchdoctor?(particularly since it is common knowledge that witchdoctor's have access to mojo reaver). I do not support any nerf to Purge Magic and would be very disappointed if your suggestion was applied.