PvP Glossary (Work in Progress)

Raddy's PvP and Arena Glossary:

2345 - Describes a 5v5 team that contains Holy Priest/Paladin/MS War/Mage/Elemental Shaman. The names comes from Noktyn (Pandemic War) and describes the ease at which this team puts out burst. "2345" represents simply hitting these keys and quickly putting out huge burst with mage and elemental shaman cooldowns. BG9 coined the term and it has been the prevalent matrix on BG9 since the end of season one. The term was initially derogatory, but is now simply a tongue-in-cheek way of talking about this team setup.

5-8 kite - Describes kiting a warrior within his "dead zone" which is outside of melee range (5 yards) but inside of intercept range. (8 yards) Originator of this technique is debatable but it was a common feature in pre-TBC rogue vs warrior duels that has since become somewhat less of a factor. There are some variants where this is done by mages or against druids, but typically the term is reserved for rogue vs. warrior kiting. Origin unknown.

AE - Area of Effect. Can refer to Arcane Explosion, but infrequently. Simple abbreviation.

AoE - Area of Effect. Originally used to disambiguate Area of Effect with Arcane Explosion, but the term is now deprecated in favor of the shorter "AE." Simple abbreviation.

AM - Arcane Missiles. Simple abbreviation.

AP - Arcane Power. Simple abbreviation.

BG - Originally exclusively was an abbreviation for battleground. Frequently now is an abbreviation for battlegroup. Simple abbreviation.

BG5 - Stormstrike battlegroup. Raddy's home. ^^

BG9 - Bloodlust battlegroup. The most competitive battlegroup in WoW.

BoP - Blessing of Protection. Simple abbreviation.

BoF - Blessing of Freedom Simple abbreviation.

BoS - Blessing of Sacrifice. Simple abbreviation.

CC - Crowd Control. Typically describes "hard" crowd control abilities that totally remove control of the character such as Polymorph, Blind, Cyclone, and Fear. Other forms of crowd control such as stuns, snares and roots occasionally are referred to by "CC" depending on the context. Simple Abbreviation.

classic - Describes a 5v5 team that contains Holy Priest/Paladin/MS War/Mage and one additional DPS class. Sometimes called "2 Healer" teams. Generally, this term is appended with a '+' and the class name of the additional DPS class, for example "classic+hunter." Term comes from Radikal Noise as a quick way of discuss different arena team compositions.

CDs - Cooldowns. Most frequently used to reference Rogue cooldowns or offensive cooldowns such as Elemental Mastery, Arcane Power, or Presence of Mind. Simple abbreviation.

CL - Chain Lightning. Simple abbreviation.

CS - Counterspell or Spell Lock. Typically, CS is used as an abbreviation even for the Felhunter's Spell Lock. Also can refer to Cheap Shot depending on context. Simple abbreviation

DB - Dragon's Breath. Simple abbreviation.

death - Shadow Word Death. Generally describes the process by which a priest can avoid polymorph by casting Shadow Word Death right as the Polymorph spell lands on him. Simple abbreviation.

DP - Desperate prayer. Simple abbreviation.

DoT - Damage over Time. Simple abbreviation.

DR - Diminishing returns. Diminishing returns describe the reduced duration of crowd control effects on a single target with repeated applications. The reduction in duration is as follows: 100%, 50%, 25%, and then total immunity. The window for diminishing returns is 15 seconds from the end of the crowd control effect.

EB - Earthbind. (Totem) Simple abbreviation.

EM - Elemental Mastery. Simple abbreviation.

fball - Fireball. Sometimes abbreviated with "FB" which can be confusing. Simple abbreviation.

fblast - Fireblast. Sometimes abbreviated with "FB" which can be confusing. Simple abbreviation.

fbolt - Frostbolt. Sometimes abbreviated with "FB" which can be confusing. Simple abbreviation.

FG - Felguard. The 41 point demonology warlock pet. In arena context, describes the spec or pet choice of the warlock. Simple abbreviation.

FD - Feign Death. Simple abbreviation.

FH - Felhunter. Describes the pet choice of a warlock. Simple abbreviation.

fn - Frost Nova. Simple abbreviation.

focus - Ambiguous and depends on context. Can refer to the verb that indicates target selection inside arena or can describe the UI feature by which can set up a focus window and bind abilities to automatically target that focus. Also, this can refer to the metagem that has a chance on spell hit to reduce the next spell's cast time by 50%.

FW - Fear Ward. Simple abbreviation.

Golden Child - Zecks. Zecks is a rogue that plays for MoB who has received massive attention from Ming on his blog, World of Ming. He is considered a "star" player by many though the term "Golden Child" is perhaps derogatory depending on the context. One of many players to receive a strange nickname from Ming, but certainly the most recognized.

HoT - Healing over Time. Simple abbreviation.

hpriest - Holy Priest. This abbreviation can be misleading and generally "hpriest" or "Holy Priest" includes priests who are Discipline as well. Some read "hpriest" as Healing Priest but while this perhaps is more logical, it is not common. Origin unknown.

hypo - Hypothermia. Simple abbreviation.

IB - Ice Block. Simple abbreviation.

ICS - Improved Counterspell. Generally describes being afflicted by just the silence part of the mage Counterspell ability. "It's just ICS, heals inc." Simple abbreviation.

LoS - Line of Sight. Often used as a verb to describe avoiding cast time spells by moving behind an obstruction. Simple abbreviation.

matrix - The classes composing a team. For example, a 3s team that includes a mage, rogue, and a priest would be called rogue/mage/priest matrix. Ming coined this term early into season one and its use in describing class composition of teams is ubiquitous.

MB- Generally Mana Burn. Can refer to Mind Blast depending on context.

MD - Mass Dispel. Simple abbreviation.

MS - Mortal Strike. Typically describes either the warrior ability or the spec of the warrior. Simple abbreviation.

NS - Nature's Swiftness. Simple abbreviation.

oom - Out of Mana. Simple abbreviation.

overextend - The arena strategy by which a target is drawn out of healing or dispelling range and is either killed or crowd controlled beyond the aid of the team. It refers to baiting an opponent into a dangerous/precarious situation. Origin Nurfed.

poly - Polymoprh. Simple abbreviation.

poly->detect - Casting Detect Magic on a sheep to make dispelling the polymorph more difficult. The technique was created by Gegon in WoW 1.0. It was not frequently used until mid season one, but it is now a universal part of arena mage gameplay.

PoM - Prayer of Mending or Presence of Mind. Context determines meaning. Simple abbreviation.

pyro - Pyroblast. Simple abbreviation.

rock/paper/scissors - A term that describes the fact that certain class combinations are hard counters to others. This element of the game leads to teams fielding 5 man teams to WSVG's 3 man tournament. Origin unknown.

rushdown - A dueling technique by which you play extremely aggressively to the point where your opponent has very limited options. The inherent risk is that you fail to lock in the win while you had momentum and have, failing killed your opponent, ran out of tools. Ming uses this term frequently, but origin unknown.

sac - Blessing of Sacrifice. Simple abbreviation.

SG - Shadow Gaming. A PvP blog that is now discontinued; writers included HappyMinti, Dahis, and briefly Reft. Articles covered all elements of WoW PvP and associated topics. Simple abbreviation.

shatter combo - Using the Water Elemental's Freeze ability as the controlling mage finishes casting a frostbolt and then quickly icelancing while the frostbolt is in the air. This causes both spells to crit the target and is the source of Frost Mage burst DPS. Origin unknown.

shock - Generally Earthshock, but can refer to other Shaman shocks. Typically, used as a verb. "Have the shaman shock mana burns while your mage controls their DPS with polymorph" Simple abbreviation.

skillherald - Derogatory slang for the Blacksmith crafted Tier 3 mace, Stormherald. The combination of the warrior mace stun talent along with the mace's inherent stun proc allow for occasional strings of "lucky" stun procs that can shift the outcome of a game dramatically. Origin unknown.

SL/SL - Soul Link/Syphon Life. Describes warlocks who have both Syphon Life and Soul Link -- a PvP talent spec with incredible survivability that makes heavy use of drain life and drain mana to outlast opponents. Origin unknown.

SP - Shadowpriest. Simple abbreviation.

spriest - Shadow Priest. Origin unknown.

SS - Silencing shot or Scatter shot. Ambiguous abbreviation that still find a lot of use. Simple abbreviation.

swd - Shadow Word Death. Simple abbreviation.

TT - Tremor Totem. Simple abbreviation.

ward - Can describe any of the mage wards or the warlock shadow ward ability, but typically is used as an abbreviation for the Priest racial, Fear Ward. Simple abbreviation.

WC - Winter's Chill. This talent was not part of mage PvP play until TBC beta. Corrz was the first mage to make extensive use of this talent's dispel mechanics. (afaik) Due to the stacking nature of the debuff, it can make dispelling the target take much longer than normal and many mages abuse this to make polymorph or their teammates damage over time effects more difficult to dispel. Simple abbreviation.

WE - Water Elemental. Describes either the pet itself or the talent spec of the mage. (implying he has 41+ in frost) Simple abbreviation.

WoM - World of Ming. World of Ming has since moved to GameRiot, but this PvP blog with a focus on the rogue class, has been the epicenter of WoW PvP since TBC beta. Articles range from news, strategy discussions, to all forms of eDrama. Simple Abbreviation.

YWL - Yea We Lift. A BG5 (Stormstrike) 5v5 team that has been a major contender in the battlegroup since season one. They became a well known name after controversy surrounding their 3v3 team at WSVG led to their elimination from the Toronto event. The team runs a still ongoing PvP blog, www.yeawelift.com.