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

9 of 304 words for “Talent”

Talent
WoW
A point you spend in one of three class trees every level from 10. Rows unlock as you spend more; the 31-point talent at the bottom defines the spec.
“Put your first five talents in Cruelty.”
“He spent talents in all three trees, classic hybrid mess.”
See also: Spec, Build, Respec
Breakpoint
WoW
A stat threshold where something changes — the hit cap, enough haste for an extra tick, enough crit for a talent to matter.
“The breakpoint is 9% hit; past that it's worthless.”
See also: Hit cap, Theorycraft
Build
WoW
A complete plan for a character: talents, gear and how you play it. A shared build is a link.
“Send me your build.”
“This is the standard 31/8/12 Mortal Strike build.”
See also: Spec, Talent, BiS
Crit
WoW
A critical strike: a hit or heal for roughly double. Crit chance comes from agility, intellect, talents and gear.
“I'm at 28% crit unbuffed.”
“That Eviscerate crit for 2,400.”
See also: Hit cap, Attack power
Dual spec
WoW
Later feature that lets you keep two talent builds and swap between them. Not in vanilla; watch for it in Forever.
“No dual spec means you're a healer on raid nights, full stop.”
See also: Respec
Proc
WoW
A random effect that triggers off something else — a weapon's chance on hit, a trinket, a talent. Short for 'programmed random occurrence'.
“Wait for the trinket proc, then Mortal Strike.”
“Ironfoe procs extra swings.”
See also: RNG, Priority list
Respec
WoW
Paying the trainer to reset your talents. The price rises each time, up to 50 gold in vanilla.
“Respec cost is 50g now, I'm staying fury.”
“I respec'd to tank for the raid.”
See also: Talent, Spec, Dual spec
Spec
WoW
Also: Specialization
Your talent specialization: the tree you spent most points in, and the way the character plays because of it.
“What spec are you? Fury, mostly.”
“Frost spec for PvP, fire for raids.”
See also: Talent, Build, Hybrid
Datamine
Gaming slang
Reading a game's data files to find changes, items and spells before they're announced. Where this site's numbers come from.
“Datamined talents show a new tier for shamans.”
See also: Beta, Tooltip

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.