Words with Noobs

Today's post is targeted at noobs. If you know what a noob is, then you might want to excuse yourself from this lesson in gaming terminology. In this post, I'm going to be talking about the language of World of Warcraft, however some terms will be applicaable to MMORPGs in general. The definitions supplied are authored by me, and while not everyone will agree on exact wording, it should give the reader a sufficient understanding of the terms. These will be in no particular order...


Noob - A new player. Also a label commonly thrown on anyone who appears to have no idea what the hell they are doing.

Party - A group of 2-5 players.

Raid - This term can refer to either a group consisting of anywhere from 6-40 players, or a specific type of large dungeon designed for raid-sized groups. 

Loot - Items and/or currency dropped by creatures when they die.

Mob - The word "mob" is short for monster and is typically used to describe a single non-player hostile enemy creature. When there is more than one mob in close proximity so as to be impossible to pull by itself, it is called a "pack of mobs."

Boss - A mob, usually located within a dungeon or raid, which, at the appropriate level, will require multiple players working together in order to kill. 

Pull, Pulling - This is the act of doing something that will cause an aggressive enemy creature (see: mob) to attack you or your party members when it otherwise would not have done so. Common methods include attacking and being too close. When in groups, it is usually best to let the Tank (see below) do the pulling.
  
Tank - This is a person, or person(s) within your party or raid group who are meant to be attacked by mobs. They play a class and specialization that focuses on mitigating damage and generating threat (see: Threat). Furthermore, the act of playing a tank correctly is known as tanking.(Classes that can tank: Paladin, Druid, Warriors, Death Knights and the upcoming Monk)

Healer - This is pretty self-explanatory. This is the person that keeps your group alive. Don't piss them off. (Classes that can heal: Druid, Priest, Shaman, Paladin, and the upcoming Monk)

D.P.S. - (Sometimes pronounced "DEEPS") This term literally means "damage per second" and is a measure of damage done. This numerical value is often used as a means to determining the relative value of damage-dealing players. The amount of sustained damage a damage-dealing player produces over the course of a fight is so important that the term D.P.S. has become synonymous with "damage-dealing player".  (All classes can DPS, but Rogues, Mages, Warlocks, and Hunters are considered "pure DPS" classes.)

HoTs , DoTs - These two terms refer to Heal-over-Time spells and Damage-over-Time spells.

Aggro - From the word aggression.This can refer to either the act of pulling a mob unintentionally (Kaliph aggro'd the boss.) but is used more specifically to state who is being attacked in your party. The person who is being attacked has aggro. The tank should usually have aggro. If you are not the tank, and you have aggro, then either you or the tank is probably doing something wrong.

Threat - This is basically just a measure of aggro. Imagine a tank is in a dungeon and he dies while a mob is attacking him. The ammount of threat the remaining players have on the mob will determine who the mob will attack (and probably kill) next. Threat is generated by dealing damage as well as healing. Some abilites, such as those used by tanks, are designed to generate high amounts of threat, while other spells exist for for the purpose of reducing threat.

Buff - In the broadest sense means "to make better." In gameplay, it refers to any spell or ability that improves in any way you or your party members for a period of time. A buff that is restricted to the player who casts it is called a self-buff. Some self-buffs have unlimited durations. Buffs that extend to a party or raid are likewise considered party-buffs or raid-buffs. In general terms, this word can be used to describe changes made to everything from classes to encounter difficulty. (Ex. "Blizzard really needs to buff  Ret. Paladins.")

Nerf - In the broadest sense means "to make worse." This word is not commonly used in gameplay, but in general is used to describe changes made to everything from classes to encounter difficulty. (Ex. "Blizzard really needs to nerf Ret. Paladins.")

Debuff - This is the gameplay opposite of a buff. Typically caused by an enemy spell or ability, it is a condition applied to your character that hurts you or otherwise makes your character perform worse for a period of time.

Proc - The word proc actually has it's roots in the term procedural. I won't go into what a procedural is except to say that the word proc today includes many things that do not actually qualify as a procedural. A proc is an effect caused by an item, talent, glyph, and pretty much anything else that that happens based on having a % chance to occur. Most common procs are short-duration buffs to the player. Procs are hard to quantify and predict.

R.N.G. - This means "random number generator" and is referenced often when bad luck is observed in the game. Whether it is a poorly timed proc, two big hits in a row from a boss that killed your tank, or just shitty loot rolls, just blame R.N.G.

QQ , qq (pronounced "CUE CUE") - Originally just an emoticon to denote the act of crying, QQ-ing is a catch-all term for players who are complaining/upset about something that happened in-game.

Drop-rate - Refers to how often a mob will drop a specific item. If an item only drops, on average, once in every one hundred kills, that's a pretty shitty drop-rate (aka 1%).

Instance - The word instance refers all dungeons and raids in World of Warcraft. The term is based on the concept of instancing which allows mutiple groups access to the same dungeon at the same time. In practice, instances do not exist in the larger game world, but are created on demand by the server to allow many groups of players access to identical content without getting in each other's way. Instances can vary in difficulty as determined by the group leader. Most raid instances reset weekly, while 5-players dungeons reset within a short period of time after the group has left the dungeon. In World of Warcraft, there is currently a 5 instance-per-hour limit across a players' entire account. Exceeding this limit will prevent you from entering an instance until an hour has elapsed since the first instance was reset. However, most players will not reach this limit under normal game-play conditions.

Trash, Trash Pack - A mob or pack of mobs in a dungeon or raid instances. These mobs exist solely for the purpose of slowing your group down, and rarely drop any loot of high quality.

Spec, Spec'd (pronounced SPECK, SPECKED) - Short for specialization. As in, talent specialization. Denoted by the names of the talent trees. (Ex: "Death Knights can spec blood, frost, or unholy.")

SW, IF, BB, VC, SFK, RFK, SM, DM, MC, BWL, GL, SSC, BT, ICC, BOT, BWD, TOT4W, FL ...  -  Stormwind, Ironforge, VanCleef, Shadowfang Keep, ... etc... I'm not going through the entire list because it's not even definitive list! They key here is just don't get overwhelmed! Most of these are actually very intuitive and are just the initials of various places, dungeons, and raids. If you don't know what they mean, just ask the person using it, and then try real hard to remember it because you're probably going to see it again.

GLHF - Good luck, Have fun.

Tell me about all the confusing WoW/MMO terminology I missed in the comments!