Longer, but less powerful buffs?

[Anderson]

A lot of really cool buffs last too short to be useful. Living Force is one of the coolest abilities in the game, by allowing you to coat your weapon in a badass flame. But....it lasts so short that it hardly seems worth the investment.

Same goes for sugars, which at 30 seconds just don't cut it. You can extend it to 45, which helps, but still a bit short. Let's not even mention the mibu balloons which, for what they do, have a laughable duration.

So i propose this:
5m duration for the balloons (only one can be active at a time).
1m base duration for sugars and Confetti. (1.5 minute with Devotion). Also one active at a time.
30 seconds Bestowal Ninjitsu and Living Force buffs. Living Force should not stack with Divine Confetti.

If any of these end up being too strong, the effect can be reduced. For example, 33% less vitality damage from Ungo Sugar is pretty strong, if it could last 90 seconds, so maybe reduce that to 20% instead.

[OCTDUMPUS]

Sekiro mods welcome you.

[Artek [General]]

Originally posted by OCTDUMPUS:

Sekiro mods welcome you.

This.

I doubt devs will change much (i don't even know if they read these forums).

Considering the past games of FromSoft - they never did buffs to be too long.
Baloons feel longer than coins were in dark souls 3. Like 2 times longer at least.
Same goes for combat buffs. How long resins lasted in Dark Souls again? 1 minute apparently. Huh, the sugars actually work shorter than your average resin... Interesting. I think it should've been 45>60 with passive, but i guess they had their reasons (maybe because the sugars are too good in their function?).

Bestowal certainly feels a tiny bit too short, that is until you consider how amasing it is: bonus damage AND bonus reach allowing to spam enemies from safe range. Even 30 seconds of it is amasing.

Living Force buffs...
In early gameplay videos the Flame Vent would cover the sword with fire for way longer than it does now. These days its hard to even use the buff properly against "real" enemies because then they will block too much. In either case, that's not what flame vent is for anyway. Its for setting things on fire, and the charged blast does the job just fine (AND you still can set the sword on fire after!)
The best solution here is to use firecrackers right after and use some strong combat art to utilize that flame buff while its still there. Something with a bunch of attacks, since the flame buff adds flat damage, so the more attacks you get it the more bonus damage you will deal.

[SmallGespenst]

it would almost certainly do something to the balance equivalent to turning it inside out and violating it. repeatedly.
one of the core elements of buffs in the whole Sekiro/Soulsbourne mess is that it takes time to apply them, it's an action cost as well as a resource cost to make activating buffs a deliberate choice, it's the factor that divides buffs and passive abilities.
having a limited duration is also a VERY important factor, the short duration encourages aggression to capitalise on the power boost, or risk having wasted the time used to activate it. in the case of living force this is doubly important because of just how powerful the buff is, all of your attacks deal damage through guard, AND they build up burn status (stupidly fast with oil) which: stuns the enemy, deals damage-over-time AND prevents posture regen. the skill is already strong enough to shatter the game balance like a pane of glass.
if it needed anymore help, the "buff application" is already a potent attack, removing the usual action cost of applying a buff.