Guild Wars 2

Since I haven’t seen a page devoted to this yet, and still see some players confused by abbreviations, I thought I’d make this thread. Feel free to correct me if you see something missing/wrong.

-Other lists:
For those new to MMOs: General MMO Abbreviations and Terms

-General GW2 Abbreviations:
AC: Ascalonian Catacombs. Level 30 dungeon (35 for explorable) located in the Plains of Ashford, the Charr starting area.

Arah: The Ruined City of Arah. Level 80 dungeon for both story and explorable. Located in the Cursed Shore, a level 80 area in Orr.

Champ: Champion, the third (arguably fourth) tier of enemy, usually distinguished by the prefix “Champion” and a large golden border with crossed swords around their portrait. These are even tougher than veteran mobs and have a boon that makes them resistant or immune to control effects.

CM: Caudecus’s Manor. Level 40 dungeon (45 for explorable), located in Queensdale, the Human starting area.

CoE: Crucible of Eternity. Level 78 dungeon (80 for explorable), located in Mount Maelstrom, a level 60-70 area.

CoF: Citadel of Flame. Level 70 dungeon (75 for explorable), located in Fireheart Rise, a level 60-70 area.

DE: Dynamic Event, one sort of quest in GW2. This occur randomly and require you to fight off invading enemies, protect NPCs, and so on, and are marked by large orange circles on your map.

Explorable/explore/exp: Explorable mode of a dungeon. These take place after story mode and can be accessed at a higher level. They are typically harder than story mode, have different paths that can be taken, and award tokens upon completion that can be traded in for gear.

FotM/FM/Fractals: Fractals of the Mists. A new dungeon located in the hub city of Lion’s Arch that is available to any level (recommended level: 80). This dungeon is composed of nine mini-dungeons that the group encounters in sets of three- after completing a set, the dungeon becomes harder. Teamwork and coordination are extremely important.

Heart: Renown Heart, another variant of questing in GW2. You do a variety of tasks, such as killing monsters, talking to NPCs, and fetching items, to fill a meter that appears when you enter an area.

HotW: Honor of the Waves. Level 76 dungeon (80 for explorable), located in Frostgorge Sound, a level 70-80 area.

Jormag: Breaking the Claw of Jormag. An event chain in Frostgorge Sound (level 70-80 area) that has a chance of dropping precursor weapons.

Plinx: An event chain in Cursed Shore (level 80 area in Orr) that was once widely farmed for gold and karma. Now occurs less frequently as of a recent update.

Penitent/Shelter: An event chain in Cursed Shore (level 80 area in Orr) that is often farmed and best done in parties.

POI: Point of Interest, special places discovered in exploration and required for map completion.

SE: Sorrow’s Embrace. Level 60 dungeon (65 for explorable), located in the Dredgehaunt Cliffs, a level 40-50 area.

SM/story: Story mode of a dungeon. These introduce the story behind a dungeon while progressing the Destiny’s Edge plotline, and can be repeated. Finishing story mode awards a significant amount of experience and karma, and allows your character to lead an explorable mode party for that dungeon- however, you can still enter explorable mode without completing story mode, as long as someone else leads your group.

TA: Twilight Arbor. Level 50 dungeon (55 for explorable), located in Caledon Forest, the Sylvari starting area.

(Temple of) Balthazar/Lyssa/Dwayna/Grenth/Melandru: Large event chains in the Orr region that unlock exotic karma gear vendors, uncontest waypoints, and disable statues of the respective god in the region, which inflict negative effects on nearby players when active.

TP: Trading Post

Vet: Veteran, the second (arguably third) tier of enemy, distinguished by the prefix “Veteran” and a golden border around their portraits. They are tougher than normal mobs, but still soloable.

(test edit)

Funny, I was just thinking earlier today that someone ought to do something like this. Very well done!

You might consider including a section on WvW terms and some of the major DEs (like Jormag and Plinx, for example).

Everything you just said is a simple /wiki away, except Champ and Vet, which are obvious to anyone. Still a good post though.

How about BiS? I just saw that in another post.

lfg should be in there too.

still see the abbreviation WTB sometimes, and if the TP (another that might should be included) goes down again then it and WTS might escape some people’s knowledge. Took me a few days to come to the realization tbh…

Thank you for this

This should be stickied, acronyms and abbreviations are the main reason I avoid map chat. I don’t understand most of what’s said there. Thanks for posting this.

BiS is Best in Slot. Not quite as applicable to GW2 but used in many MMO’s.

Thanks, guys!

@Dietere: I think I’ll be lumping the DEs in with the general GW2 terms, but good call on those, and on WvW as well. Unfortunately, I don’t WvW that often at all, so it’ll be a while before I can get those up.

@Nels: Very true. I wrote this up so everything would be in one place, where new players could easily see it (assuming they come to the forums, that is…). I should probably make a wiki page for these, for those who do know about the /wiki trick.

@Culwenimos, Lexy, Bvhjdbvkjf: I’ll be including those in a separate post, seeing how the GW2 forums are allergic to long posts. Thanks for the reminder!

-General MMO abbreviations:
AoE: Area of effect- either a spell that heals multiple friendlies or damages multiple enemies.

Aggro: Refers to the likelihood that an enemy will attack a given target. To “get aggro” is to become the focus of enemy attacks; to aggro an enemy is to induce them to start attacking. Mechanics of GW2 aggro can be found here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro

BiS: Best in Slot

BRB: Be right back

BRT: Be right there

C/O: Current offer (for an auction)

DC: Disconnect

DoT: Damage over time

DPS: Damage per second- also refers to any class whose main purpose is dealing damage.

ETA: Estimated time of arrival

Gank: To get overwhelmed and killed by a large group of enemies

G2G: Good to go/Got to go

HoT: Heal over time

LFG/LFP: Looking for group/party

LFM: Looking for more- sometimes with the specific number needed, i.e. LF1M, LF2M, etc

Mobs: Random monsters

Nerf: When the game developer makes a given aspect of a game weaker in power with the intent to balance gameplay.

PvE: Player vs. Environment. Refers to game activities that don’t involve fighting other players- e.g. killing monsters, running dungeons, general questing, etc.

PvP: Player vs. Player. Refers to activities which involve fighting other players- e.g. sPvP, WvWvW.

PUG: Pick-up group- refers to random parties formed with players you don’t know, often assembled through map chat.

QQ: Crying/complaining/whining

SMH: Shake my head/So much hate

Tank: The party member who absorbs the attacks of enemies, leaving other, squishier members free to attack without harm. Part of the “Trinity” of healer/tank/DPS used in most other MMOs, but not in GW2- though there are “tanky” classes and builds, there is no true tank. Can also be seen as a verb, in which “to tank” refers to catching enemy aggro and enduring it while the rest of the group gets a breather.

WC: Wrong chat

WTB: Want to buy- also can be phrased as B>

WTS: Want to sell- sometimes S>

WTT: Want to trade

another generic term that came to mind when you posted ETA was ToD… though most people ask “When will ____ spawn” nowadays, I still prefer to ask for the last time of death << >>

Bump.

I want more people to see this and add to it because I believe that this is a very useful guide. Well done!

Could also add slang terms like “zerg”.

A lot of people are getting confused by the abbreviation of JP for Jump Puzzles… would be nice to add to the list.

Muchly thanks for this.

Search forums this am but used the search term ‘acronym’ and came up with zilch. Started a thread myself as I was in sore need of some explanations and help as a lot of acronyms/abbreviations are used in chat which I didn’t understand and which have been preventing me joining groups. So thanks again Falunel. Also thanks to Manoa for the link to this thread.

Bah, it’s been a while, has it? Thanks for bumping this- I’ll get to updating it right away.

Also, I’ve considered making a WvW section, but it will likely be delayed/skimpy as heck given the fact that so much as stepping foot in any sort of PvP makes me a very sad quaggan.

Haha, glad to see I wasn’t going crazy thinking this thread existed somewhere. Glad to see this bumped.

Well, the forums are being foo at the moment and not letting me edit my initial post… I’ll have to try later.

Few more suggestions:

PST: please send tell. Asking for a whisper

PDT: pacific time with daylight saving. Conversion to GMT impossible to calculate without a masters degree in geophysics.

GLF: group looking for. Opposite of LFG

LA: Lion’s Arch, most important city in the game. Joking about Los Angeles not funny anymore.

Proph: prophecies, the original campaign for GW1.

GvG: guild vs guild. PVP mode in GW1.

IGM: in game mail.

Ecto: ectoplasm

Ekke: German for ectoplasm

Obby: obsidian shard

VK: verkaufe: German trying to sell something (useful for striking a good deal across the language barrier)

GWAMM: god walking amongst mere mortals, GW1 title that carries over to GW2

HOM: hall of monuments, where you get your GW1 stuff.

PVT: power vitality toughness gear

MF: magic find gear

WoW: not GW2

Lexy.3912:

Haha, glad to see I wasn’t going crazy thinking this thread existed somewhere. Glad to see this bumped.

How remiss of me.

And…a special thanks to Lexy for giving Manoa the inspiration to give me the link to this thread.

While SM can be story mode, i actually see it way more often used as “stonemist castle” the big fort in the middle of EB (eternal battlegrounds)

Your first link is a little confusing. Maybe you could just say “listed below” as I just thought the link wasn’t working since it was taking me to the bottom of the page. Good initiative though to help people out.

MF= Magic Find/Mystic Forge (confusing when there’s no context)
SP/SC = SkillPoint, Skill Challenge
BLTC = Black Lion Trading Company
BLSK = Black Lion Salvage Kit
FOTM = Feature of the Month. Not to be confused with FoTM
WvWvW/WvW/W3= World vs World vs World
sPvP = strategy player vs player (I think it’s strategy/strategical)
tPvP = tournament player vs player
HoTM = Heart of the Mists

GummiBear.2756:

While SM can be story mode, i actually see it way more often used as “stonemist castle” the big fort in the middle of EB (eternal battlegrounds)

I’ve always heard/seen that as SMC. But that would be a good addition

WvW (World vs World, aka wvwvw/Wv3)shorthand
AC = Arrow Carts
Bal/ball(s) = Ballista(e)
CC = Commander’s Compendium—often synonymous with the Blue Dorito
Cat(s) = Catapult
Treb = Trebuchet
Zerg = group of invaders/players massed up to destroy.
Train = activity in which a zerg seeks to capture towers/keeps in cycles to gain/farm karma/gold/exp—used as: karma train.
Gar® = Garrison of interest—
SM = Stonemist Castle found in EBG, Eternal Battle Grounds
BL = Borderland, 3 of which are: 1x your server, 2x opposing servers
OL = Overlook or your server’s keep in EBG
Yak = refers to Dolyaks, the supply transporter in WvW
Bessie = the yak that travels on the eastern map of your server’s BL (usually referring to the north-eastern camp)
Dollie = the yak on the opposite side of Bessie
JP = jumping puzzle
sweep = scanning a captured tower/keep for hidden enemies

; open to changes/edits.

Ethics.4519:

Your first link is a little confusing. Maybe you could just say “listed below” as I just thought the link wasn’t working since it was taking me to the bottom of the page. Good initiative though to help people out.

MF= Magic Find/Mystic Forge (confusing when there’s no context)
SP/SC = SkillPoint, Skill Challenge
BLTC = Black Lion Trading Company
BLSK = Black Lion Salvage Kit
FOTM = Feature of the Month. Not to be confused with FoTM
WvWvW/WvW/W3= World vs World vs World
sPvP = strategy player vs player (I think it’s strategy/strategical)
tPvP = tournament player vs player
HoTM = Heart of the Mists

Sorry about that, was finally able to edit the post. Let me know if the link is still redirecting you to the wrong post.

Thanks for all the responses! I’ll get cracking; hopefully the forum won’t freeze again.

MT – Mis-tell (wrong window… just as you typed “I plunge deeper…” in to /map)
WTT/WTB – Want To Trade / Want To Buy
WP – WayPoint
SP – SkillPoint

Side note:

Some of the ones mentioned above really aren’t necessary or globally used, e.g. “GLF” is pretty redundant and in years of MMOs, I’ve never seen it. I wouldn’t bother listing those that are pretty niche… just my opinion of course, and if it is ubiquitous and I have somehow managed to avoid it, then so be it.

Fiennes.9568:

MT – Mis-tell (wrong window… just as you typed “I plunge deeper…” in to /map)

*considers adding ERP to the list

Yeah, I’ve been picking the ones that are used most, to save on space and reading. Forums still freeze when I try to add anything, though. =/

Some of these have been said.

PS: Personal Story
RH: Renown Heart.
Vis: Vista
WP : Waypoint
LFG: Looking for group

I’ve seen people in WvW using the acronyms SMI and SoS. What do these mean?