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Jargon, decoded

The glossary

304 words from World of Warcraft, MMOs, esports and every game chat you have ever been flamed in — what each one means, and how people actually say it. Every entry has its own link, so you can send it to the friend who just asked what a twink is.

Word of the day

AV

PvP

Also: Alterac Valley

Alterac Valley: 40 v 40 across a whole zone, ends when a faction boss dies. Can last hours or minutes depending on the era.

“AV weekend, honor is doubled, everyone's queueing.”

See also: Battleground, Honor

All words

3 of 304 words for “Burst”

  1. Burst

    PvP

    A lot of damage in a short window, usually with cooldowns. The opposite of sustained damage.

    “Rogue burst with Cold Blood and Eviscerate.”

    “Enough burst to kill a clothie in a stun.”

    See also: Cooldown, Sustained

  2. CC

    PvP

    Also: Crowd control

    Crowd control: anything that takes an enemy out of the fight for a while — sheep, sap, fear, stun, root.

    “CC the healer, then burst the mage.”

    “That pack needs two CCs.”

    See also: Diminishing returns, Sheep, Sap

  3. Sustained

    WoW

    Damage you can keep doing all fight, cooldowns aside. What raid DPS is measured on.

    “Fury has better sustained than Arms, Arms has the burst.”

    See also: Burst, DPS

WoW

World of Warcraft, especially vanilla, Classic and Forever.

79 words

Raiding & dungeons

Group PvE: pulls, loot rules, wipes and parses.

47 words

PvP

Battlegrounds, duels, twinks and world PvP.

31 words

MMO

Words shared by every online RPG.

47 words

Esports

Competitive play, broadcasts and the meta.

21 words

Gaming slang

What people say in every chat, every game.

79 words

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