Understanding Basic MMO acronyms and lingo
Well, I suppose the day would come when I had to finally do this post. I thank a new player I met in FFXIV ARR for giving me the suggestion. There are a lot of terms and phrases in MMORPGs that many may or may not be accustomed to that looking on an official site will probably put in the bluntest of terms without using many of the more common player terms. This list is NOT FINITE. There will always be new terms that sprout up, or old terms no one uses any more that just may resurface. So, for the time being, let's go with this:
Aggro/ Enmity / Threat: This is how monsters choose who they're going to attack. The player with the highest amount of this is who it targets. Every ability innately generates (for the sake of keeping this simple, I'm going to call it aggro) aggro. Tanks are the ones who should normally have and maintain the most aggro on a monster.
DPS: Damage Per Second. This is normally used to describe a player who is in a damage dealing role, but it also stands for what you do within that role. DPS is a measure of your damage over a set amount of time generally measured by addon parsers. Determining the amount happening and players studying it, it is also a big dick competition to do the most. Mostly it's douchebags who gloat about this and put others down for doing little.
DoT: Damage over Time. Spells or abilities that do damage over a given period of time. Such as a Warlock's Corruption in World of Warcraft, or a Black Mage's Thunder. These spells do X number of damage over Y number of seconds and generally must be recast/ reapplied when they expire. (note: this is simply a definition for new players. For experienced players...why are you reading this?)
CD: Cool down. This has two definitions. First, The time between usage of certain abilities. Say you have an ability that does a lot of damage up front, but cannot be used again for 2 minutes. that 2 minute period is called a cool down, and that ability is now considered "On CD." The second definition is the ability itself. Abilities with long cool downs with important effects are generally referred to as "CDs." So when a big hit is coming from a boss onto a tank, you will often be told while learning to "Use a CD now."
GCD: Global Cool Down. Similar to the CD definition, this is a term for the time between all your attacks. When you use a basic ability in most MMOs, all your abilities will get a small cool down. This is your GCD. You will also notice how some abilities are not on this. These are generally important situational spells and cooldown abilities and are considered "Off the GCD," which means they can generally be used quickly in succession with other abilities.
HoT: Healing over time. Much like DoTs, these are spells designed to heal for a set amount over time. Not much else I can add to its description.
Tank: A player up front holding aggro on a monster. These classes are generally listed when you are creating a character. Most mmos will have a selection of tanks you can choose from, their playstyle is up to you to decide which you want to go with.
Mobs: Monsters or a monster itself. Often used just so you don't hear someone say "monster" every third word.
Adds: Additional mobs in an encounter. Usually part of boss encounters, though there are times when they can appear otherwise.
Pats: Patrolling mobs. Simple enough, these are generally high priority or need to be avoided. Your group will decide on how to handle these.
Trash mobs: Non boss mobs in a dungeon or raid. Not very important, but a mmo constant.
Burst: This refers to times when a lot of damage needs to go out on a boss or mob. Usually this comes in phases called "Burst phases." This can also mean that you just did a lot of damage in a small amount of time. Some classes just have good burst, while others need to build up to it.
Healer: A player specifically there to heal wounds. I figured I'd throw this in as well since I basically had both the other roles in here.
Support: A fourth class role usually unused in most mmos. When this role IS in a game, though, its strength is generally visible when in a group setting. They can do damage, heal, sometimes pseudo tank, but their strength comes from spells they cast that can bring helpful status effects to their party or negative effects to their foes.
Buff: A helpful spell that grants some sort of boost to a player.
Debuff: a negative spell applied to a player that can mean bad things if not removed, or it could be on a mob and mean bad things for them. Debuffs include DoT spells, spells that weaken attributes, and anything that just sounds nasty in general.
Res/ Rez/ REZ PLZ: A resurrection. A spell that brings a player back to life. Generally asked in the manner of the third part.
Bres: Battle resurrection. Like a normal resurrection, only able to be cast in battle. Most mmos will not allow this with some res spells, and games like WoW limit their usage in fights to make them more of a decision.
Enrage: A mechanic generally used in raids where a boss switches things up and either kills everyone at once, or gets a buff that makes their attacks too strong to do anything about.
At this time, I'm unable to think up much else basic mmo lingo I can impart on my own. I literally had two days to think this up, and I couldn't think of anything else a new player could learn. Certain fights have special mechanics that have names that can be explained to you if you ask. Until next time, I'm Aust the noob, and what's your game?