History Main / BalanceBuff

** The UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 of ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsChainOfMemories'' remake increases the effect of leveling up Riku's Attack Points, making him stronger than the original.

** Barmaid inexplicably had a largely physical skill set for a job that focuses on Magic and MP as its primary stats, making it basically useless as the only magic it had access to were skills it could inherit from the Night Queen and Hostess jobs (and only ''one'' skill from each). In ''Infinite Wealth'', it inherited many skills from the Hostess job, which also did not make a return, giving her access to both fire and ice magic as soon as she properly joins the party.

** Several overly-specific abilities are buffed in latter generations, allowing them to deal with broader situations. For example, Inner Focus, Own Tempo and Oblivious specifically stop only flinching, confusion and infatuation respectively, but eventually all three of them are buffed to negate the more common Intimidate as well (with Oblivious receiving additional buffs such as preventing Taunt owing to how rare infatuation is).

** The Pyro was widely derided by competitive players for being a SkillGateCharacter, until he gained the compression blast. This allowed the Pyro to push enemies away and reflect every non-bullet projectile in the game, giving the Pyro a huge advantage against Soldiers, Demomen, and Medics, since the compression blast allowed him to do things like reflect their rockets and grenades back at them or separate an ÜberCharging Medic from his patient.
** The Medic was considered one of the worst classes in Mann Vs. Machine, since his focus on healing wasn't very useful in a mode where inflicting damage is extremely important and everyone can earn upgrades to heal from getting kills. He later got several buffs, including a forcefield that damages enemies, and the ability to instantly revive his allies, making the Medic an invaluable ally in this mode.

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* In ''VideoGame/DiceyDungeons'', the Robot's Dragon's Tooth item used to do triple damage until the v1.5 update, which increased its multiplier to quad damage.
* The Big Buffs Update (v1.1) of ''VideoGame/LuckBeALandlord'' buffs many symbols and items:
** The Card Shark gives out 3 coins instead of 2.
** The Dog gives out 2 coins when its effect is triggered instead of 1.
** General Zaroff gives out 25 coins for every symbol he destroys instead of 20. Zaroff's Contract extends this to Bounty Hunters.
** The Hex of Tedium makes it 1.3x less likely for Uncommon, Rare, and Very Rare symbols to appear in the symbol selection screen instead of 1.2x less.
** The Mouse gives 20 coins for each symbol it destroys instead of 15.
** The Ancient Lizard Blade gives out 9 coins instead of 8.
** The Black Cat gives out 9 coins when its effect is triggered instead of 6.
** The Black Suits are now a Common item, get destroyed after 7 spins, and add Clubs and Spades to the slot machine when destroyed. The Red Suits are also the same, but for Hearts and Diamonds.
** Chili Powder gives out 2 coins per Pepper instead of 1.
** The Cyan Pepper gives out 3 coins when its effect is triggered instead of 2. Its Essence counterpart likewise gives out 30 coins when its effect is triggered instead of 20.
** The Dwarven Anvil is a Common item instead of an Uncommon one.
** Fertilizer makes Seeds 50% more likely to grow instead of 25%.
** The Flush item makes Suits Common instead of Uncommon, removes all of them before each spin, and gives out 12 coins for each Suit removed. Its Essence counterpart gives out 20 coins for each Suit removed, and then destroys itself after removing 5 Suits.
** The Lint Roller gives out 12 coins for each Rabbit Fluff removed instead of 10.
** The Mining Pick gives out 10 coins for each Ore and Big Ore destroyed instead of 5.
** The Ninja and Mouse item provides a 6x coin multiplier instead of 5x.
** The Quantum Symbol Bomb gives out 9 symbol choices instead of 6.
** Ricky the Banana makes Bananas and Banana Peels give out 2 more coins instead of 1.
** The Ritual Candle and its Essence counterpart buff Cultists and Witches besides Hexes.
** Shedding Season gives Rabbits a 15% chance to produce Rabbit Fluff instead of 10%.
** Sunglasses give you 1 Removal Token if you have 3 or more of those tokens instead of 4.
** The Wanted Poster makes Thieves give out 3.5x more coins when they're destroyed instead of 3x.
** The Watering Can makes Seeds give out 12 more coins instead of 10.

[[folder:Roguelikes]]
* ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'': While the balance changes of items are too many to list, many of the characters received significant buffs or revamps throughout the game's release:
** Eve has below average stats but starts with Whore of Babylon, which gives a huge stat boost [[CriticalStatusBuff while near death]]. However, it requires you to have 1/2 red heart or lower to activate, which is very tricky to maintain. Accidentally picking up any red hearts or healing cancelled it, and there are very limited ways to take away red hearts without sacrificing soul hearts. Maintaining Whore of Babylon was too much of a headache, so getting Eve too function properly was too difficult. In ''Rebirth'', Eve specifically can activate Whore of Babylon at 1 red heart or lower, meaning at 1 red heart container you didn't need to dodge red hearts. ''Afterbirth'' also lets you unlock Razor Blade as a starting item, which lets her deal damage directly to red hearts so that she can maintain it even while holding soul hearts before she can lower her max health.
** Samson is TheBerserker, and his item, Bloody Lust, gave him a damage boost for each enemy he killed per room. This made Samson highly dependent on enemy spawns to be functional, where he'd be good in rooms with many enemies, but terrible in less dense rooms and bosses. ''Rebirth'' reworked Bloody Lust to give a damage buff for the rest of the room whenever he took damage, so Samson can benefit from his gimmick much more effectively.
** The Lost is a JokeCharacter added to ''Rebirth'', whose gimmick is he's a OneHitPointWonder. He has flight and spectral tears and his unlocks are some of the best items in the game, but his lack of protection made him way too hard to play unless you had god luck and found an early Holy Mantle, which blocks one hit per room. ''Afterbirth'' added the Holy Mantle as an unlockable starting item for the Lost, which made him far less dependent on those god runs.
** Keeper is the new JokeCharacter added in ''Afterbirth'', and was made horrendously underpowered. He uses coins as hearts, which were capped at a maximum of two coin heart containers, meaning Devil Deals were incredibly risky or outright lethal for him, has below average speed and slow-firing triple tears, and required beating some of the hardest bosses in the game to unlock starting items to make him slightly more functional. In ''Repentance'', his max coin heart container was increased to 3 (which he starts with after defeating Hush), his speed was slightly buffed, and he now pays money for Devil Deals instead of heart containers.
** Magdeline is a MightyGlacier whose slowly lost favor among players because her gimmick of extra hearts for lower speed wasn't that advantageous due to the game's mechanics. In ''Afterbirth†'', she can unlock a Speed Up pill as a starting item, cancelling out her weakness. ''Repentance'' changed it to a Full Health pill, which greatly increases her health pool instead.
** [[spoiler:Tainted Jacob]] was deemed the hardest [[spoiler:tainted character]] to play as because his gimmick was downright brutal. He turns into The Lost minus Holy Mantle for the rest of the floor if he gets hit by [[spoiler:Dark Esau]], whether from his constant assault or his [[TakingYouWithMe on-death explosion]], the latter which is extremely common late game, and just to rub salt on the wound, health up items were worthless while you were in your Lost form. A patch changed [[spoiler:Dark Esau]] to be much less detrimental. He's now completely invincible, his attack pierces damage reduction, had his attack pattern cleaned up, and any health up you gain in your Lost form now carries over.
** Lazarus' gimmick he starts off as a below average character, but [[ExtraLife can revive once]] with one heart container and gains increased stats in his risen form. Lazarus was one of the playerbase's least favorite characters for a very long time because his gimmick wasn't that strong and was effectively a MasterOfNone without Isaac's versatility of the D6. A patch for ''Repentance'' gave him major buffs. His revive mechanic was reworked to reset on every floor instead of working once per game, made him lose just one heart container instead of setting it to 1 and gains a small permanent damage up on revival, and gave his risen form a higher damage multiplier.
** ???, the original JokeCharacter, fell behind many of the other characters, as his only gimmick was that he couldn't collect red hearts and he start with a very [[{{Pun}} crappy]] item with no real upsides in return. The same patch that buffed Lazarus gave ??? slightly cheaper Devil Deals and an innate Lil' Larva effect, spawning a blue fly for each poop destroyed, letting him catch up in power level a bit more.
* The Big Buffs Update (v1.1) of ''VideoGame/LuckBeALandlord'' buffs many symbols and items:
** The Card Shark gives out 3 coins instead of 2.
** The Dog gives out 2 coins when its effect is triggered instead of 1.
** General Zaroff gives out 25 coins for every symbol he destroys instead of 20. Zaroff's Contract extends this to Bounty Hunters.
** The Hex of Tedium makes it 1.3x less likely for Uncommon, Rare, and Very Rare symbols to appear in the symbol selection screen instead of 1.2x less.
** The Mouse gives 20 coins for each symbol it destroys instead of 15.
** The Ancient Lizard Blade gives out 9 coins instead of 8.
** The Black Cat gives out 9 coins when its effect is triggered instead of 6.
** The Black Suits are now a Common item, get destroyed after 7 spins, and add Clubs and Spades to the slot machine when destroyed. The Red Suits are also the same, but for Hearts and Diamonds.
** Chili Powder gives out 2 coins per Pepper instead of 1.
** The Cyan Pepper gives out 3 coins when its effect is triggered instead of 2. Its Essence counterpart likewise gives out 30 coins when its effect is triggered instead of 20.
** The Dwarven Anvil is a Common item instead of an Uncommon one.
** Fertilizer makes Seeds 50% more likely to grow instead of 25%.
** The Flush item makes Suits Common instead of Uncommon, removes all of them before each spin, and gives out 12 coins for each Suit removed. Its Essence counterpart gives out 20 coins for each Suit removed, and then destroys itself after removing 5 Suits.
** The Lint Roller gives out 12 coins for each Rabbit Fluff removed instead of 10.
** The Mining Pick gives out 10 coins for each Ore and Big Ore destroyed instead of 5.
** The Ninja and Mouse item provides a 6x coin multiplier instead of 5x.
** The Quantum Symbol Bomb gives out 9 symbol choices instead of 6.
** Ricky the Banana makes Bananas and Banana Peels give out 2 more coins instead of 1.
** The Ritual Candle and its Essence counterpart buff Cultists and Witches besides Hexes.
** Shedding Season gives Rabbits a 15% chance to produce Rabbit Fluff instead of 10%.
** Sunglasses give you 1 Removal Token if you have 3 or more of those tokens instead of 4.
** The Wanted Poster makes Thieves give out 3.5x more coins when they're destroyed instead of 3x.
** The Watering Can makes Seeds give out 12 more coins instead of 10.
[[/folder]]

*** The formerly situational Defog gained the ability to remove entry hazards, and it now shares a role with Rapid Spin. Unlike Rapid Spin, Defog doesn't get nullified against an enemy Ghost-Type, although it's vulnerable to being stopped by Taunt.
*** Rock Tomb had it's uses improve from 10 to 15, accuracy from 80 to 95, and damage from 50 to 60. The last greatly improved it's viability for Technician users.

* ''TabletopGame/LivingForest'': In the base game, the Sacred Flowers win condition has the unique issue of being all or nothing -- if you don't have enough of them to reach the win condition, they're worthless outside of tiebreaks. And they're underpowered as a win condition. The ''Kodama'' ExpansionPack helps out the Sacred Flowers by using them as currency you can spend on the new Kodama cards, which means it's often worthwhile to pick up a few. The fact that emptying a Kodama pile slows down its associated win condition also helps a Flower player fight back against someone going for Trees or Fires, as they have the easiest time emptying a pile.

* ''TabletopGame/LivingForest'': In the base game, the Sacred Flowers win condition has the unique issue of being all or nothing -- if you don't have enough of them to reach the win condition, they're worthless outside of tiebreaks. And they're underpowered as a win condition. The ''Kodama'' ExpansionPack helps out the Sacred Flowers by using them as currency you can spend on the new Kodama cards, which means it's often worthwhile to pick up a few. The fact that emptying a Kodama pile slows down win conditions also helps a Flower player fight back, as they have the easiest time emptying a pile.

** Several overly-specific abilities are buffed in latter generations, allowing them to deal with broader situations. For example, Own Tempo only prevents confusion until Gen IX where it also blocks Intimidate, while Oblivious started off blocking only infatuation but eventually is buffed to stave off Taunt and Intimidate as well.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Temtem}}'', both of Ganki's traits were detrimental; Botanophobia increased damage taken from Nature-type techniques, while and Cold-Natured caused it to be frozen straight away by techniques that would normally make it cold first. In the 0.8 update, these were changed to the far more beneficial Resistant[[note]]negative statuses last for one less turn[[/note]] and Inductor[[note]]heals the Temtem whenever it uses an Electric attack[[/note]].

* For a long time, [[GreenThumb Dendro]] in ''VideoGame/GenshinImpact'' was something of a joke among the seven elements. It had one elemental reaction--Burning, which is more a [[PlayingWithFire Pyro]] reaction than anything--and zero characters, likely due to the aforementioned lack of reactions. Then, [[ElementalNations Sumeru]] came out, and Dendro was given two new reactions--Quicken and Bloom--to be useful, as well as two new characters.

** The [[BigCreepyCrawlies Bug-type]] was, for the longest time, something of a [[JokeCharacter joke type]] despite [[FakeBalance supposedly]] being the weakness of the [[GameBreaker Psychic-type]]. This was largely due to a lack of powerful moves and Pokémon -- many Bug-types were {{crutch character}}s with low stats and a secondary Poison- or Flying-type. Later generations gave the type these missing attributes, as well as more Bug-type Pokémon with high stats and diverse types like Volcarona, Genesect and Araquanid, thus Bug-types aren't as much of a joke anymore.

*** War Magi in the second game were pretty much a MasterOfNone due to their SituationalSword attacks and their healing and support not quite matching up to those of the specialists. On top of that, their inability to inflict ailments themselves made them very team-dependent. ''The Fafnir Knight'' greatly revamped their skill set, making their War Edge skills trigger off any ailment and giving an ActionInitiative factor to their healing skills to set them apart from the Medic. Their new Force Boost also allowed them to maintain function in case ailments were unavailable or impractical.
*** Beasts were built around TakingTheBullet for the party, but there were a few pitfalls in the programming: First, their Loyalty made them tank hits automatically, and second, they would take the damage the defended member would have taken, without taking into account the Beast's own defense. This meant that sometimes they would take several amounts non-lethal damage that the rest of the party would take and die, and any instance of protecting a GlassCannon or SquishyWizard would be very dangerous to the Beast. ''The Fafnir Knight'' reworked the Loyalty skill tree, and now any tanking skills were player-controlled, and Loyalty Mastery now gives the Beast a chance to reduce any incoming damage, making tanking a lot more effective.

** Bow users, formerly seen as a LowTierLetdown for most of the series, got buffed in ''Fates'' by giving bows a huge increase in power along with some useful class skills. ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' would buff bow users even further by giving them the Close Counter skill (removing their biggest weakness: the inability to counter melee attacks) and the "Bowrange +" skills allowing them to attack enemies from beyond two ranges without the need for certain bow weapons.

** The Ronin's Stance System alternates between buffs and {{nerf}}s a lot between games. From the first to the second, the stances became pure passive effects and let them not waste turns setting up. This had GoneHorriblyRight and made the Ronin the strongest physical DPS, so ''The Millennium Girl'' reverted the Stance mechanic but also gave them an attack skill that temporary enables all stance-specific ones for the next turn. ''The Fafnir Knight'' spliced the above two features and had the Ronin assume stances using damage skills so they don't lose out on damage output, on top of allowing a Ronin to occasionally begin the fight in a Stance. ''Nexus'' refines the system even further, letting the Ronin always begin the fight in their best Stance on top of improving the less-used Stances, along with a CriticalHit factor for their Stance-related skills.
** War Magi in the second game were pretty much a MasterOfNone due to their SituationalSword attacks and their healing and support not quite matching up to those of the specialists. On top of that, their inability to inflict ailments themselves made them very team-dependent. ''The Fafnir Knight'' greatly revamped their skill set, making their War Edge skills trigger off any ailment and giving an ActionInitiative factor to their healing skills to set them apart from the Medic. Their new Force Boost also allowed them to maintain function in case ailments were unavailable or impractical.
** Beasts in the second game were built around TakingTheBullet for the party, but there were a few pitfalls in the programming: First, their Loyalty made them tank hits automatically, and second, they would take the damage the defended member would have taken, without taking into account the Beast's own defense. This meant that sometimes they would take several amounts non-lethal damage that the rest of the party would take and die, and any instance of protecting a GlassCannon or SquishyWizard would be very dangerous to the Beast. ''The Fafnir Knight'' reworked the Loyalty skill tree, and now any tanking skills were player-controlled, and Loyalty Mastery now gives the Beast a chance to reduce any incoming damage, making tanking a lot more effective.
** The elemental imbue skills have been recurring throughout the games, and they get tweaked each time. The first two games had them only affect a single ally's weapon, but this made them only useful when you're using normal attacks and they petered off in effectiveness at a point where you'd be using the characters' attack skills more often. The third game added an elemental resistance factor to them. The remakes of the first two games took a page off this, and made the imbue skills a unique damage buff that contributed to Troubadours being a GameBreaker. ''Nexus'' quells the skills' strength but expands their utility: First it introduces several skills that utilize the equipped weapon and thus will be affected by the imbues, next it makes the Sovereign's elemental Arms skill affect an entire line, and finally the Arms skill also provides a damage boost to other skills that attack with the matching element.

** Eve has below average stats but starts with Whore of Babylon, which gives a huge stat boost [[CriticalStatusBuff while you're near death]]. However, it requires you to have 1/2 red heart or lower to activate, which is very tricky to maintain. Gaining any health pickup or item cancels it, and there are very limited ways to take away red hearts without touching soul hearts. Maintaining Whore of Babylon was too much of a headache, so getting Eve too function properly was too difficult. In ''Rebirth'', Eve specifically can activate Whore of Babylon at 1 red heart or lower, making it significantly easier to maintain. ''Afterbirth'' also lets you unlock Razor Blade as a starting item, which lets her deal damage directly to red hearts so that she can maintain it even while holding soul hearts.

** The Lost is a JokeCharacter added to ''Rebirth'', whose gimmick is he's a OneHitPointWonder. He has flight and spectral tears and his unlocks are some of the best items in the game, but his lack of protection made him way too hard to play unless you had lucky runs and found something like a Holy Mantle, which blocks one hit per room. ''Afterbirth'' added the Holy Mantle as an unlockable starting item for the Lost, which made him far less dependent on those god luck runs.

** [[spoiler:Tainted Jacob]] was deemed the hardest [[spoiler:tainted character]] to play as because his gimmick was downright brutal. He turns into The Lost with no protection if he gets hit by [[spoiler:Dark Esau]], whether from his constant assault or his [[TakingYouWithMe on-death explosion]], the latter which is extremely common late game, and just to rub salt on the wound, health up items were worthless while you were in your Lost form. A patch changed [[spoiler:Dark Esau]] to be much less detrimental. He's now completely invincible, his attack pierces damage reduction, had his attack pattern cleaned up, and any health up you gain in your Lost form now carries over.
** Lazarus' gimmick he starts off as a below average character, but can revive once with one heart container and gains increased stats in his revived form. Lazarus was one of the playerbase's least favorite characters for a very long time because his gimmick wasn't that strong and was effectively a MasterOfNone without Isaac's versatility of the D6. A patch for ''Repentance'' gave him major buffs. His revive mechanic was reworked to reset on every floor instead of once per game, made him lose just one heart container instead of setting it to 1 and a small permanent damage up on revival, and gave his risen form a higher damage multiplier.
** ???, the original JokeCharacter, fell behind on potential compared to every other character in the game, and his gimmick of only being able to pick up soul hearts and a very [[{{Pun}} crappy]] starting item gave him no real upsides in return. The same patch that buffed Lazarus gave ??? slightly cheaper Devil Deals and an innate Lil' Larva effect, spawning a blue fly for each poop destroyed, letting him catch up in power level a bit more.

Balance Buff, in its simplest terms, describes improving mechanics within a game by improving how effective they are. This is most commonly seen with characters or weapons, but it can be any number of things from maps to animations. An example would be a weapon getting improved stats or a spell getting its casting time reduced. This is seen a lot in online competitive games and is often done to balance the game to keep characters from becoming the lower end of TierInducedScrappy.

It's important to remember that, as a trope, it should only be mentioned when it has significantly changed the gaming experience in one way or another. If it's from one game to the sequel then it should be something that caused mechanics to suddenly stand out from previous games or [[AntiFrustrationFeatures removed major annoyances from the previous game relating to that mechanic]]. If it's still the same game but got upgraded with patches then it should only be mentioned if it significantly changed the way the game is played, such as a whole bunch of buffs got handed out that caused the meta game to shift significantly without those buffs being undone or fixed later or if characters or mechanics suddenly rise to prominence in such a way that it almost changes how the game is played. Please make sure to not list a bunch of small changes that didn't change the landscape of the game in some or buffs that later got reverted and thus the game lost the changes to the game in the first place. We don't need TheLongList of technical information about what changed or how a character got buffed too far but later got changed. There are other tropes, like TierInducedScrappy, that can cover those kinds of changes and their impacts on the playerbase, this is just for listing buffs that have had lasting and notable impacts on their games or sequels.

** Bow users, formerly seen as a TierInducedScrappy for most of the series, got buffed in ''Fates'' by giving bows a huge increase in power along with some useful class skills. ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' would buff bow users even further by giving them the Close Counter skill (removing their biggest weakness: the inability to counter melee attacks) and the "Bowrange +" skills allowing them to attack enemies from beyond two ranges without the need for certain bow weapons.

*** The Indians have an excellent boom, and they are capable of producing a good deathball with beefy Elephant Archers, long-ranged Hand Cannoneers and access to Bombard Cannons. On release, the severe crutch had come in two forms: their archers were squishy without Ring Archer Armor, and more importantly there's no knight line, instead opting for an Imperial Camel upgrade to Heavy Camels. So what made the latter a problem? The game gave Camels a ship armor class, and with buildings having a bonus against ships (which only gets worse with Heated Shot), an all-out attack with an army of camels is impractical. A few changes for ''African Kingdoms'' gave Camels a unique armor class, where while they are still affected by building fire it is not as much, and Indians got Ring Archer. It worked to the extent that developers had to nerf Indian Arbalests to Crossbowmen [[NotTheIntendedUse since the archer rush proved to work too well]].

Balance Buff, in its simplest terms, describes improving mechanics within a game by improving how effective they are. This is most commonly seen with characters or weapons, but it can be any number of things from maps to animations. An example would a weapon getting improved stats or a spell getting its casting time reduced. This is seen a lot in online competitive games and is often done to balance the game to keep characters from becoming the lower end of TierInducedScrappy.

It's important to remember that, as a trope, it should only be mentioned when it has significantly changed the gaming experience in one way or another. If its from one game to the sequel then it should be something that caused mechanics to suddenly stand out from previous games or [[AntiFrustrationFeatures removed major annoyances from the previous game relating to that mechanic]]. If it's still the same game but got upgraded with patches then it should only be mentioned if it significantly changed the way the game is played, such as a whole bunch of buffs got handed out that caused the meta game to shift significantly without those buffs being undone or fixed later or if characters or mechanics suddenly rise to prominence in such a way that it almost changes how the game is played. Please make sure to not list a bunch of small changes that didn't change the landscape of the game in some or buffs that later got reverted and thus the game lost the changes to the game in the first place. We don't need TheLongList of technical information about what changed or how a character got buffed too far but later got changed. There are other tropes, like TierInducedScrappy, that can cover those kinds of changes and their impacts on the playerbase, this is just for listing buffs that have had lasting and notable impacts on their games or sequels.

** The General class got a significant buff in ''Fates'' by way of the Wary Fighter skill, which prevents both the user and their enemies from double-attacking. Since Generals [[MightyGlacier don't often double anyway]] this ability greatly boosts their intended role as a StoneWall without significant drawbacks.
** Bow-users, formerly seen as a TierInducedScrappy for most of the series, got buffed in Fates by giving bows a huge increase in power along with some useful class skills. ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'' would buff bow users even more by giving them the Close Counter skill (removing their biggest weakness: the inability to counter melee attacks) and the Bowrange+ skills allowing them to attack enemies from beyond 2 range.