buff

To buff something in a game is to make it stronger. A buff is the boost itself, and it’s the opposite of a nerf. “They buffed my main” is good news. “They nerfed my main” is not.

Two kinds of buff

• In-game buffs are temporary boosts during play: a spell that raises your armor, a potion that speeds you up, a support character healing the team. The opposite is a debuff, which weakens you or an enemy.
• Patch buffs are permanent changes developers make in an update to strengthen a weapon, ability or character that wasn’t pulling its weight.

People borrow it for real life too: coffee is a morning buff, and a good night’s sleep is a stat buff.

Examples

• “They finally buffed the shotgun. It’s actually usable now.”
• “Stay in the healer’s range, she’s giving everyone buffs.”
• “New patch: two buffs, five nerfs, and my character got both.”

Where it came from

Nobody knows for certain. Inverse traces it to tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons and calls it a likely pun on “buff” meaning muscular; Merriam-Webster suggests it draws on both senses: muscular, and polished up. Players remember it from online role-playing games like EverQuest and Anarchy Online in the late 1990s and early 2000s, first for temporary spells and then for patch changes. Wikipedia notes there’s no hard evidence for any one origin story.

Its partner word has a clearer story: “nerf” came from Ultima Online in 1997, when players compared weakened swords to Nerf foam toys.

Buff vs. nerf vs. debuff

• Buff: makes something stronger.
• Nerf: a patch that makes something weaker.
• Debuff: a temporary weakening effect during play.

Related terms

• nerf: to make something weaker
• OP: overpowered, usually about to be nerfed
• meta: the strategies that currently work best
• cracked: unbelievably good at a game

See more terms like this in our gaming slang dictionary.