Say what!? A Short WoW Lingo Primer

The culture of WoW is a unique one, where people from all cultures and nationalities bunch up together. Over the years players evolved their own slang, abbreviations and acronyms.

While there are hundreds more, here is a small list of those commonly seen while playing World of Warcraft.

Addon - A small module used to change or improve the playability of the game. QuestHelper is a very popular addon that will help players find out where to go to complete their quests.

Aggro - How much a creature focuses on a player. It is said that "A tank keeps good aggro" when that tank can keep all the monsters focused on him at all times.

AoE - Area of Effect. Usually used to denote an area that will be covered by a spell. AoE spells include Blizzard, Consecretion, Thunderclap, Volley, etc.

Buff/Debuff - A buff is a beneficial spell cast on someone, such as Blessing of Kings, Fortitude and various scrolls and potions. A debuff is a spell with a negative effect on a player, such as those reducing stats, movement speed, etc.

Cooldown - The amount of time between two casts of a spell or ability. For example, the base cooldown on Flash Heal is 1.5 second, meaning after casting Flash Heal, the player needs to wait 1.5 second to cast another.

Crit - Critical. Usually used to refer to one's chance to perform a critical hit (a hit inflicting twice the usual damage).

DPS - Damage Per Second. The amount of points of damage a player can inflict every second. The higher the number, the more damage a player can do.

Farming - Repeating an action over and over to acquire something. Killing the same type of monsters over and over to acquire items such as cloth is said to be "Farming for cloth".

Grinding - Repeating an action over and over. A player involved in repeatedly killing monsters or running an instance to gain experience is said to be "Grinding for experience".

Instance - An area where a group of people enter and play alone from the rest of the game. Also called a Dungeon. Instances are intended for group of 5 or more players.

Kiting - The action of having a monster follow a player while leading it around. Usually used to distract that monster from attacking other players until the group is ready to deal with it.

Lag - Refers to the slow response from the game. A player opening his mailbox or bank can sometimes see that action take place several seconds after initiating it. Such player is said to experience lag.

Mobs - Usually refers to monsters in a pack that players need to kill. Comes from the term "Mobile Objects" used by the game developers.

Nerf - Making something weaker. Reducing a player's ability to do DPS would be said to be "Nerfing a player's dps".

PvE - Player versus Environment. When players fight against computer controlled creatures, such as when questing or fighting in an instance.

PvP - Player versus Player. When players fight each other in various matches and encounters.

Pull - The action of starting a fight, usually done by the tank. A Face pull is the action of starting a fight by walking, usually inadvertently, too close to one or several creatures.

Raid - A group of 10 or more people playing together either in an outside encounter or in an instance.

Spawning - The birth or rebirth of a creature, usually occurring after a set event or time interval.

Tank - The player responsible for keeping all the monsters on himself while others kill those monsters.

Trash - Group of one or more creature players encounter on their way to a boss in an instance. These usually need to be killed to move forward.

Vendor trash - Items that have no value and should be sold to a vendor instead of being kept.

Vent - Ventrilo. A voice-chat application for Windows, MacOS and Linux used by players to talk during questing, instances and raids. Provides better quality and management than in-game voice-chat. Download from Ventrilo's website.

Zerg - To attack something with massive speed and force.