Guild Wars 2

Would it be possible for a glossary of the abbreviations, terms and jargon used in the forums to be ‘stickied’ somewhere? I don’t think I’m particularly dense but sometimes reading through the various posts I find myself stumped by the meaning of certain terms that everyone else obviously recognizes. I can always look some stuff up on Google but certain things are specific to GW2. An example would be ‘Holy Trinity’ that’s in the title of the one the posts below. The term ‘CDI’ is another example, QoL, HotW and so on. I always enjoy reading through the forums and finding out what people’s views are on various subjects, so for me a glossary would help my understanding of what is being said.
I found HotW on the GW2 Wiki, but not QoL. Now I know that QoL stands for Quality of Life, but what does Quality of Life mean in relation to GW2?
If such a glossary could be regularly updated by posters I’m sure it would prove helpful to those new to the forums and Guild Wars 2 as well as older players.

The issue with this kind of thing is that some of the terms are in game terms, e.g. HoTW = Honour of the Waves, while some of them are MMO terms, generic abreviations, or forum specific abbreviations e.g. CDI = Collaborative Development Initiative.

Quality of Life: In relation to GW2 means any sort of improvement that is not strictly necessary but greatly enhances the quality of the experience. Changing dungeon tokens from physical items to wallet currency was a QoL improvement. It just makes life easier on/happier for the players.

Holy Trinity: The standard MMO setup has three traditional roles. Tanks, who have high hit points and take a LOT of damage. DPS: (Stands for damage-per-second) These people do lots of damage and are protected by the tank(s), and healers. The healers generally don’t do or take damage, but cure conditions, heal and otherwise keep the rest of the group alive.

CDI: Forum abbreviation for a project initiated by ANET, the Collaborative Development Initiative. The devs take a topic and discuss it for several weeks with the forum community, and then implement ideas based on those interactions.

kitten: I frequently use this in-game, but only recently realized that there were people who’ve never been to the forum and don’t realize it’s the profanity filter here. So I’ll say “What the actual kitten, dude!” figuring it gets my point across, when it’s probably just mostly baffling.

LFG: Looking for group.
LFM: Looking for more.
WTB: Wanting to buy.

Honestly, it might be more beneficial to just ask people what an abbreviation is. And if you don’t want to ask publicly, I’m totally willing to help out via private message. I can’t say I know them all, but I recognize a lot of ’em.

I think the best bet might to be make sure all abbreviations are on the wiki as redirects to the relevant page. (Or have a page created where appropriate.) That way it’s accessible to everyone, not just those who read the forum and anyone can update it.

It might also be possible to create a page with a list of abbreviations with their full name written out and links to the relevant pages, but I’m not sure of the wikis rule on lists.

To address the two you asked about however:

Holy Trinity
This isn’t actually specific to GW2 (although I first heard it in relation to this game). It refers to a system which is fairly common in RPGs where no matter how many different classes, sub classes etc. you have each person in the party will be performing one of 3 roles: Tank (defense and drawing aggro), Healer (healing) and DPS (dealing damage).

For example in the various DnD computer games many of the martial classes will have high defense and skills that draw enemies attention and keeps them focused on attacking that one person, they would be tanks. Others (usually wizards, clerics and sorcerers) have healing and defensive abilities so they’re healers and then classes like wizards and rogues have very little defense so they can’t take much damage but can deal a lot of it out, so they’re the DPS.

GW2 tried to get rid of this system, and therefore get rid of the need to stand outside a dungeon spamming ‘4/5 LF Heal’ for ages by making it possible for all professions to perform all the roles (which they refer to as DPS, support and one I can never remember…maybe crowd control).

(This didn’t quite work because they also tried to make it so you could do anything with any combination of professions and roles, which made everyone going pure DPS aka zerker, the most efficient approach. But they’re apparently working on that.)

Quality of Life
This means the same in GW2 as anywhere else. It’s things which aren’t essential but are nice to have.

A real life example would be air conditioning in the UK. It almost never gets hot enough that you actually need air conditioning, opening windows to create a draft is usually enough to keep the temperature within a safe range. But the precise control given be air conditioning is nicer.

A GW2 example would be things like the ‘deposit all collectables’ button or waypoints. They game wouldn’t be unplayable without them but they make playing a lot more enjoyable by removing some common inconveniences.

This sort of thing could be compiled as a page on the wiki

Danikat.8537:

A GW2 example would be things like the ‘deposit all collectables’ button or waypoints. They game wouldn’t be unplayable without them but they make playing a lot more enjoyable by removing some common inconveniences.

LLLAAAAAAZZZZZZZYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Dungeons
HotW: Honor of the Waves
AC: Ascalonian Catacombs
CoF: Citadel of Flame
CoE: Crucible of Eternity
TA: Twilight Arbor
CM: Caudecus’s Manor
SE: Sorrows Embrace
Px: Dungeon path “X” (AC P3 would be Ascalonian Catacombs path 3, or the third option)
General
AoE: Area of Effect
DPS: Damage per Second
CC: Crowd Control
Zerg: A group of players in a group moving quickly from event to event, or objective. (Taken from Star Craft)
LFG: Looking for group
QQ: A term used for whining, or complaining.
L2P: Learn to play
Ping: shift-clicking gear to display to party/group

GW2 specific
JP: Jumping Puzzle
WP: Waypoint
Build: Term used to define specific gear/trait allocation for a specific play style.
PHIW: Play how I want. Used by people wishing to divert from the widely accepted way to play.
Meta: The current most effective build(s)/style of play.
Zerk(er): Beserker gear, often associated with DPS builds.
Elitist: Term used by those who disagree with the Meta.
Noob: Those who disagree with a build/style that differs from the meta.

Thats all I can think of for now. Some of these you may already know, but I thought having a more comprehensive list might be a bit more helpful.

pdavis.8031:

Dungeons
HotW: Honor of the Waves
AC: Ascalonian Catacombs
CoF: Citadel of Flame
CoE: Crucible of Eternity
TA: Twilight Arbor
CM: Caudecus’s Manor
SE: Sorrows Embrace
Px: Dungeon path “X” (AC P3 would be Ascalonian Catacombs path 3, or the third option)
General
AoE: Area of Effect
DPS: Damage per Second
CC: Crowd Control
Zerg: A group of players in a group moving quickly from event to event, or objective. (Taken from Star Craft)
LFG: Looking for group
QQ: A term used for whining, or complaining.
L2P: Learn to play
Ping: shift-clicking gear to display to party/group

GW2 specific
JP: Jumping Puzzle
WP: Waypoint
Build: Term used to define specific gear/trait allocation for a specific play style.
PHIW: Play how I want. Used by people wishing to divert from the widely accepted way to play.
Meta: The current most effective build(s)/style of play.
Zerk(er): Beserker gear, often associated with DPS builds.
Elitist: Term used by those who disagree with the Meta.
Noob: Those who disagree with a build/style that differs from the meta.

Thats all I can think of for now. Some of these you may already know, but I thought having a more comprehensive list might be a bit more helpful.

Thank you, this was just the sort of thing I was looking for – if you can add anything else going forward I would greatly appreciate it.

Most certainly, it would help if you were to list some terms/jargon that you are not familiar with.

Also:

Proc: an effect gained upon landing a critical hit.

Faceroll: Standing face to face with an enemy and attacking with minimum defensive movement.

Stack: A game play mechanic that invloves players standing in close proximity to better gain the group boons cast by members of the party.

Nerf: To reduce the effectiveness of. (i.e. Warrior is OP! Needs nerf!!)

OP: Overpowered. (i.e. Warrior is OP plz nerf!) or in the forums, Original Post(er).

Buff: To increase the effectiveness of. (i.e. Necro sucks, needs buff)

Tag: To inflict just enough damage to get credit for the kill.

Min/max: To minimize one trait in order to maximize another. (i.e. Berserker is min/max as it minimizes defensive traits in order to maximize offensive traits.)

RNG: Random Number Generation.

Drop: Loot gained from killing enemies.

T"X" mats: The various tiers of crafting materials. kitten. T6 being the highest. (i.e Vials of powerful blood, Ancient bone, etc.)

PuG: Pick up group. A group formed primarily through the LFG system to run dungeons/fractals/events/etc.

MH/OH: Main hand/Off hand

CD: Cool down. The amount of time it takes for a skill to be usable again.

pdavis.8031:

Faceroll: Standing face to face with an enemy and attacking with minimum defensive movement.

I’d always heard that faceroll was a dramatic and PC specific version of button mashing – basically saying that the way someone is playing is so uncoordinated they may as well be just rolling their face across the keyboard pushing buttons at random instead of using their hands.

It’s also used to imply something is too easy “faceroll content” is something you could play by mashing your head against the keyboard because it’s so easy that as long as you do something you’ll succeed.

Danikat.8537:

pdavis.8031:

Faceroll: Standing face to face with an enemy and attacking with minimum defensive movement.

I’d always heard that faceroll was a dramatic and PC specific version of button mashing – basically saying that the way someone is playing is so uncoordinated they may as well be just rolling their face across the keyboard pushing buttons at random instead of using their hands.

It’s also used to imply something is too easy “faceroll content” is something you could play by mashing your head against the keyboard because it’s so easy that as long as you do something you’ll succeed.

I’ve seen it used both ways. Also facetank. But yes the idea is basically the same. You can stand and not do much and still win.

LoS: Line of sight

Profession Specific:

SoR: Signet of Rage
HS: Healing Signet
FGJ: “For Great Justice!”
SR: Shadow Refuge
WoR: Wall of Reflect
BS: Back Stab