There must be something in the water over in Eorzea—or a few backend bugs chewing their way through some Final Fantasy 14 code—because players have found themselves getting some unexpected power ups from totally random, persistent buffs.

The issue, if you can call it that, began after Square Enix released the MMO's latest update, adding new story quests, dungeons, and the final alliance raid of the expansion. Players began noticing that they were receiving buffs that weren't even related to their classes—like this Scholar receiving Monk's Formless Fist—or Bardless parties somehow receiving buffs exclusive to the class. 

wtf is going on here? from r/ffxiv

Classes like Dancer and Black Mage have been finding their typically short-lived ultra-powerful burst buffs latching on for the entirety of a fight. Data for one particular fight shows a Dancer managing to initiate the final move of Technical Step—a skill that usually has a two-minute cooldown—a grand total jinda44 of 248 times. That's around 240 times more than you'd usually see in any given fight, which shows how utterly out of hand these buffs are becoming.

It's all fun and games for the most part, but one Reddit post has also reported cases of buffs being stolen and transferred to other party members. That means a healer who could pop Swiftcast to grant an instant resurrection spell might have it snatched away by the party's Paladin, leaving the healer with a minute-long cooldown and no instant cast.

It's not 100% clear why this has happened. The Reddit post theorises that it's related to an attempt to sort out Final Fantasy 14's hard buff cap, which was leaving players in some duties (such as Delubrum Reginae Savage) unable to apply their buffs to the party. Square Enix e19 is yet to address the problem, but it's usually pretty quick to tackle issues that have such a big impact on such a core part of the game.

For now at least, go wild and enjoy the buff roulette while it lasts. Just hope your party doesn't unintentionally steal your most important buff when you need it the most.