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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

5 of 304 words for “Tick”

  1. Tick

    WoW

    One pulse of a damage- or heal-over-time effect, or of mana regeneration.

    “Corruption ticks for 140 every three seconds.”

    See also: DoT, HoT

  2. Tick rate

    Esports

    How many times per second the server updates. Higher is fairer.

    “Low tick rate is why your interrupt didn't land.”

    See also: Ping

  3. 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

  4. DoT

    WoW

    Damage over time: Rend, Corruption, Shadow Word: Pain. Cheap damage that keeps ticking while you do other things.

    “Keep the DoTs rolling.”

    “Dotted three targets and went to drink.”

    See also: HoT, Tick

  5. Five-second rule

    WoW

    Also: FSR

    Vanilla's mana rule: no spirit-based regeneration for five seconds after any spell. Healers cancel-cast and skip heals to get regen ticks.

    “Stop casting for five seconds and let the regen tick.”

    See also: Mana, OOM

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

Missing a word, or got one wrong? Tell us. Then go build something and use it in a sentence.