Here are some of the terms which may cause some confusion. This is
not a complete list of words that you may hear. There are many other common
terms used on the internet which do not directly relate to the game.
AC - Armor
Class or Defense.
Add - An extra monster has joined an
existing battle.
Alt - A character on your account other than
your main character.
AOE - Area of Effect Damage. This is a spell
that hurts a group of monsters in an area like Blizzard in Warcraft III.
AE - Area Effect
AFK - Away from Keyboard. This means the
player is away from his computer.
Aggro - This means the monsters are mad at you
and you've "activated" them to attack you. They are now in the motion
of trying to reach and attack you. "The Murloc aggroed on me!" or
"The Murlocs will aggro if you get too close"
Aggro
Radius - The radius
around the monsters where they will "wake up" and attack you.
AGI - Agility
Avatar - Your character
Bind - Determines where you will respawn when
you have died. "To Bind" means to set your bind point.
Buff - A beneficial spell cast on a monster
or player. An example of a "buff" is the Priest's Inner Fire or
Shaman's Bloodlust.
Carebear - Player that prefers to help other
players attack monsters rather than attack other players in player vs. player
combat.
Caster - A character that stays on the back row
to heal or cast spells on the enemy, such as a Mage.
Cheese - To exploit an imbalance in the game.
Creep - Monster
Critters - Monsters that don't attack back, like
a bunny or deer.
DD - Direct Damage. This is a spell that
does all of its damage in one hit rather than spreading its damage over time.
DMG - Damage
DOT - Damage over time
DPS - Damage per second
De-Buff - A negative spell cast on a unit that
makes it less powerful. An example of a "de-buff" is Slow.
FH - Full Health
FM - Full Mana
GM - Game Master. Someone employed by
Blizzard Entertainment to assist and help players.
Griefer - A person who purposely tries to annoy
or anger other players.
GS - Goldshire
HP - Hit points or Health
IF - Ironforge
Incoming
(INC) - This means an
attack is coming.
Instancing - This is a dungeon where you will load
into your OWN copy of the dungeon with your group. Only you and your group will
be in your copy of the dungeon. Another group that enters the same area will
enter their own copy of the dungeon.
INT - Intelligence
Kiting - A style of combat in which a player
continually stays out of combat range of an enemy usually by running from it,
while simultaneously causing damage to it.
KOS - Killed on Sight. If an Orc approaches
a Human Guard, the Guard would try to kill on sight (aggro).
KS - Kill Steal. Try to steal another
person's kill.
LFG - Looking for a group.
Log - When you log off; disconnect from the
game.
LOL - Lots of Laugh or Laughing Out Loud.
This abbreviation indicates something is really funny. Unfortunately although
very common, that term became uncool a long long long time ago. Other
alternatives that you can use instead are "hehehehe" or
"hahahaha" which aren't the best but are more hip. ROFL should also
be avoided to appear cool.
LOM - Low on Mana.
LOS - Line of Sight
LOOT - To take the treasure from a monster
that has been killed or from a chest.
LVL - Level
Mez - Short for Mesmerize. Refers to spells,
such as Sleep, that temporarily incapacitate a target.
MMO Massively Multiplayer Online.
MMOG - Massively Multiplayer Online Game
MMORPG - Massive Multiplayer Online Role
Playing Game
MOB - Abbreviation of the word
"Mobile". Mobs are all computer controlled characters in the game.
You should likely use some other term such as monster, creep, bad guy.
Newbie - A term that sometimes means new player
but also is used to mean a player is not very good.
Newb - Short for Newbie. See above.
N00b - An incredibly uncool way to say newb.
Don't use it.
NPC - This is a non player-controlled
character. The characters are controlled by the server or realm. A
"computer" character.
OOM - Out of Mana. People say this to let
their party know they are out of mana and can't cast any spells, especially
healing.
PC - Player controlled character
Pet - A NPC controlled by a player such as a
Wolf, Infernal, and so on.
PK - Player Kill or Player Killer.
POP - Often used shorted term for re-spawn
of monsters.
PST - Please Send Tell. Indicates that the
person speaking wants to receive communication via a /t(ell) or /w(hisper)
command.
Puller - Person who pulls monsters for the
party.
Pulling - One of the players in a party heads
out and leads one or more of the monsters back to the party so that they can
attack them. The idea is to prevent too many monsters from attacking at once.
PvE - Player Vs. Environment. Combat between
players and computer controlled opponents.
PvP - Player vs. Player. This means for one
player to attack another player.
Raid - A raid is a large-scale attack on an
area by a group of players.
Res - Short for resurrect
Re-Spawn - A monster that has been killed has
spawned (been created) again.
Rest
(state) - An indicator
of how tired a character is, which affects how much experience is gained from
killing monsters.
RR - Redridge Mountains
Spawns - The location or process of monsters
appearing when they are created in the world.
SPI - Spirit
STA - Stamina
Stack - The amount of identical items which
stack into one inventory slot.
STR - Strength
SW - Stormwind
Tank - A melee character that can take a lot of
damage like a Warrior.
Taunt - Related to Aggro. An ability that
allows a player to pull the attention of a monster off of another player and
onto him- or herself.
Threat - Related to Aggro. This is what a
character "gives off" to generate or draw monster aggro.
Train - To lead monsters into another player.
This is not a desired behavior.
Twink - A low level character who has been
made more powerful by higher level characters, usually by getting stronger
armor and weapons than the character would normally have at such a low level.
Uber - German slang for 'super', originally
meaning 'above' ; exceptionally powerful
WF - Westfall
Vendor
Trash - An item that
only a vendor/merchant would buy
WoW - World of Warcraft
WTB - Wanting to buy
WTS - Wanting to sell
XP or
Exp - Experience Points