AL Glossary of Terms and Acronyms
The following is a glossary of terminology, phrases, acronyms and various language used in the game of AL among other games and social online places. This is always a work in progress, so feel free to reply to this thread if you have come across a term you’re unfamiliar with or if you feel as though I should be corrected with my current definition of a term that’s listed below.
This has been a fun, and organically growing project that many members of this community have contributed to and I am appreciative of everyone’s input and additional terms. If it’s not listed – ask and we (the community) will define it.
I hope everyone learns at least one new term from this glossary.
Adds - Adds are 'Additional' Mobs that have joined the fight and were not an intended pull. This happens often when mobs are not pulled far enough away from their places of origin and there are mobs nearby. Oftentimes a mage's AOE spells or a stray arrow from the rogue will end up pulling an ADD - ultimately the Warrior should try to peel the add off of the squishy, but in some instances a single mob doesn't have much of a chance... if it's a group of Adds - then there's cause for concern.
AFK – A Chat acronym indicating the user is away from his keyboard.
Aggro - is defined as the Mob's attention... who the Mob perceives as the highest threat 'has aggro' and will be attacked by the Mob, thus be the one absorbing damage
Alt or Alternate – An Alt is simply an Alternate toon played by the same player. Most gamers have more than one toon they play and refer to them as their ‘Main’ or the one they play primarily and their Alts.
AOE is an acronym for Area of Effect - in other words - something that has AOE, will affect more than one target - thus should be saved until there is a crowd
ATM – A Chat acronym meaning: At The Moment.
AP – An acronym meaning Achievement Points which are a measure of your character’s total achievements in her virtual life. Examples of achievements are completing the Hauntlet in less than 90 seconds, or collecting certain pets. A Leader Board exists for Total AP for each class and overall, in addition to the Guilds in this game being ranked based on total Achievement Points.
B> - Buying an item (Item and price usually listed after the B>)
Buff A Buff, is a spell or effect that increases your ability in something. For instance - Ribbit the pet frog has an arcane ability which provides all toons within range a +40% Critical Hit Buff for 3 seconds.
Build - How you distribute the stats points for your character, usually based on your play style and/or purpose (e.g. your build may vary based on whether your are primarily doing PvE or PvP, or whether you prefer playing solo or in groups).
CC or Crowd control – Crowd Control is a concept that dates as far back as the earliest of MMOs perhaps even table top RPG games and refers to the act of either reducing or removing a MOBs ability to attack or move or both. Ice, Timeshift, Stun effects, are all examples of Crowd Control in AL.
CD - An acronym meaning: Cooldown. This term refers to the length of time it requires for a skill, spell, or arcane ability to be used again after its use. For instance: Aimed shot has a 2 second cooldown after it's tapped.
CS - CS is an acronym for the Consignment Store - It's also known as the Auction House. This is a place where you can sell or buy items from other players in the game. There are players who make all of their gold from buying items low at the auction house, and reselling them for a higher rate - similar to a day trader on the stock market.
CON or Con - Con is an old shortened abbreviation for 'consider' - (although I could be mistaken). I remember this all the way back to the Everquest days in playing one of the original social MMO games. Before attacking a Mob - you could 'Con' them and thus consider their level prior to engaging. This would help you avoid getting the sh*t kicked out of you by attacking a mob that was way too powerful. In most games it followed a pretty standard set of rules: Green, Blue, White, Yellow, Red(sometimes purple) - Green being the weakest, red / purple being the strongest. In Arcane Legends - the creature you're fighting has a Con as indicated by a little circle next to their health meter while you're engaged. There's no way I know of to con an enemy prior to engaging them. So far the colors I've seen in AL are White (lowest and provides no XP for defeating), Blue (about your level), & Red (higher than your level). The interesting thing about the way AL works is that the Mobs scale to the highest level party member in timed dungeons (I'm not sure if this is true elsewhere) - so if you join a WT4 group that's got a leader lv 26 and you're level 19 - you're in for a world of hurt when you pull aggro since the skeletons will be Red cons. If you join a group of level 19s in Wt4 chances are they will all be blue mobs you're facing.
Crit - Critical
CTF - Capture the Flag (Pvp game where you capture flags to win)
Damage - Your toon's Damage for use with skills, charged and normal attacks, and a variable in how critical damage is calculated. Also referred to by its acronym DMG or Dmg.
DC – An MMO Acronym meaning Disconnected. Also, Disco or LD (LinkDead) has been used in the past.
Debuff - A Debuff is the opposite of a buff, and provides a penalty to a certain ability.
Dex - Dexerity
DPS - Your toon's output of Damage Per Second, the formula that defines DPS is as follows: Damage / weapon speed (attacks per second) = DPS. DPS refers only to that 'AutoAttack' function of your toon - it assumes you're not charging your attacks, and not using skills.
DOT - DOT is an acronym for Damage Over Time and describes the effect a spell or skill has to cause damage over a set period of time. Such as a Mage's Fireball, or Ice spell, a Rogue's Razor Shield could be considered a DOT if used offensively.
Drops - Items dropped by mobs when killed. Also referred to as loot.
EXP / XP - Experience or Experience Points. Experience points are how a toon gains levels and has been around for longer than I have been alive since the old pencil and paper role playing games. When you or your group kill a mob, you gain xp, as you gain more and more experience, it adds up and your character gains levels.
Farmer - One who farms an item for profit or for personal use. Typically end game players
FF - An acronym meaning: Focus Fire. The meaning of Focus Fire is essentially to focus attacks or focus the damage output of everyone in the group on the more important target(s) in the battle. For instance, focusing on the mages or rogues (in pvp) since they hit harder and can cause more damage to your group. In PVE this would indicate for the heavy hitters to attack the mages and archers of the enemy since they hit harder than the melee NPCs.
Freeze - A Frozen mob cannot move, use abilities, or cast spells - effectively the same as a stun.
GB - Ganging or Gangbang - this term refers to people ganging up on others in PVP - essentially providing a single toon little or no chance to win the battle due to being outnumbered. This term does not refer to an even match in which for instance, there is only one toon left on the red team and the blue team has three left and finish off that last player. It is specific to an unfair battle from the beginning to the end.
GG - Good Game (Typically said after a pvp match to thank opponent for the great match) Synonymous with GF (Good Fight)
Grinding - Killing mobs for reasons other than fulfilling a quest, usually to gain XP or farming. Grinding is a term that dates way back to old old games and refers most often to level grinding where you don't care about loot, you're only fighting for xp. This is often why people will run maps without killing bosses - bosses are a costly investment both in time and in pots and take away precious resources from someone who is grinding through levels.
HoT HoT is an acronym – the opposite of DoT. It refers to a spell or ability’s affect to heal or increase one’s health over a set duration of time. Skills that provide HoT effects are upgrades to HoR, LifeGiver, or Heal Packs.
IGN – A Chat acronym meaning: In Game Name.
IMHO – An acronym having a multiple but essentially the same meaning: In My Humble Opinion, In My Honest Opinion
IMO – An acronym meaning: In my opinion
Int - Intelligence
IRL – An acronym meaning: In Real Life (Also see RL – Real Life)
Kdr - Kill : Death Ratio (Amount of kills you have and the number of deaths)
Kiting - A strategy with the specific intent to avoid being hit by a mob while your toon continues to deal damage. This is done by gaining aggro on a mob, and running away a bit, attacking with a ranged attack, running away again, etc... The strategy works well when combined with movement affecting skills (timeshift, traps, etc...).
Lag – Lag is a generic term used to indicate that a player is experiencing a high ping and thus is ‘lagging’ behind with regards to the data their device is receiving and what is actually taking place on the STS server. Often causing toons to behave strangely and attack thin air :)
LD an acronym meaning LinkDead (or disconnected) – also referenced in the definition of DC (Disconnected)
LF> - Looking for an item (Item and price usually listed after the LF>)
LFG - is an Acronym: Looking for group – also LFP (Looking for Party) is used in AL.
LOS or Line of Sight refers to a MOB or Toon’s ability to ‘see’ or more accurately target an enemy and attack them. MOBs cannot attack through walls, nor can toons, therefore they must have proper LOS prior to engaging. Players who know how to use LOS to their advantage will reap many benefits.
Lvl or lv - An abbreviation of Level – Refers to the Level of an item player or area
Mob -
1) - A Mob is defined as a Mobile NPC (Non Player Character). The shortened version of Mobile was adopted long long ago by MUD games and has thus made its way into the MMO community.
2) - A Mob is defined secondly via a corruption of language (ironically) to revert back to it's original meaning - that being a group of ______ in the case of this particular MMO one could correctly state: There was a mob of MOBS. Although that would probably be confusing...
Mule – An account or character specifically setup to do nothing other than hold gear and or gold.
Nerf - To reduce the effectiveness or potency of an object, character, weapon, or action. In some instances people incorrectly refer to a bug correction as a nerf.
Noob – A derogatory term used to describe someone who apparently hasn’t read my glossary ;) and doesn’t understand how best to play their class. I personally have never used the term to regard someone in a negative manner. I often refer to my tanks playfully as noob tanks when I pull aggro from them but… hey – I am a damage machine so… it’s hard not to pull aggro :)
NP – An acronym that means: No Problem
NPC - NPC is an acronym that dates once again back to original pencil and paper games and means: Non-player Character. An NPC is a character that players can interact with, however they are not played by players - although in some games NPC characters are controlled by developers or game masters, for the most part they are controlled by the Artificial Intelligence that's behind the game engine. Examples of NPCs in AL are monsters you kill, and people who give you quests or sell things. There is a distinction however between a Mobile NPC and a non-mobile NPC. Mobile NPCs are typically enemies and are often referred to as Mobs.
OP - A Forum term used to refer via shorthand to the original poster of a thread. Also an acronym used to refer to a skill, spell, ability, or item as being Over Powered
OT or Offtank An acronym not typically used in this game although it may become useful: The term is used to instruct the second tank in a party to gain aggro on the second most difficult MOB the group is fighting. The rest of the party would concentrate all damage on the primary tank’s target. I doubt this will become a common term unless more party members are added or multiple bosses are introduced.
PBAOE – PBAOE is an acronym which stands for Point Blank Area of Effect. A PBAOE is an AOE spell or skill that originates from the player's current position. Examples include a Rogue’s Razor Shield damage output, Juggernaut's taunting effect would technically be a PBAOE.
Ping – Ping is a computer network term used to describe the amount of time in milliseconds it takes for a 32 byte message to reach a destination host and return. With regards to AL - Ping is a good indication of how strong your connection is to the STS Server and thus how well you will play. Green is good, Yellow is not as good, and Red is BAD.
PK - An acronym standing for: Player Kill.
Plat - Platinum (Spacetimestudious currency used to buy items from Store among various elixers and or buffs)
PL – is an acronym which stands for Power Level. This term is used to describe the action of a higher level toon or group of toons running a lower level toon through a difficult map with high XP yields. The lower level toon does little or no work while the higher level toons gain little benefit from the act of PLing (perhaps other than PvE kill count)
PL – Another STS Game (Pocket Legends)
PM – A Chat / Forum acronym meaning: Private Message
PvE - Player vs. Enviroment also commonly known as PvM - Player vs Monster
PvP - Player vs. Player
POTS - Potions.
PROC or Proc – A PROC is a term that originated from MMOs and stands for Programmed Random Occurrence. What that actually means is as follows: Items in MMOs sometimes have a PROC associated with their use. In some instances the item need only be worn, in others the item must be used. In terms of AL thus far I have only seen Weapons with PROCs associated with them. Those PROCs are effects that the weapon ‘casts’ causing the effect of the PROC to be applied – either to MOBs or to the toon using the weapon depending on the the PROC. For example: The Flintlocks of ______ (A Rogue Weapon) has a PROC with an AOE effect causing damage to all MOBs within range. Thus, not only is the toon using those daggers damaging the MOB she is attacking, but also has a random chance with each swing of the daggers to damage additional MOBs.
PT - PT or PTY is a shortened version of the word party and refers to the group structure of Arcane Legends. When someone indicates pt me - invite me to your party (group).
PUG - Pug is an acronym for Pick Up Group - it refers to a random group of people that you join up with simply by joining a map. Whoever else joins that map - ends up in your PUG. Some people I've met in pugs end up becoming good friends over time if you run into them often. I will always add a good player to my friend's list if I find them in a PUG and it's also a great way to recruit good people since you get to know their play style and they get to know yours as well.
Pull - Pulling is performed by grabbing a mob's attention and getting them where you want them - you 'pull' them to a designated area that you have chosen to host your combat. Typically it's far enough away from other mobs to avoid adds. To elaborate since this is a complex concept:
Pulling is an act that is typically done by a single toon or character. The idea of pulling began in old MMOs and refers to the process by which a puller (toon doing the pulling) gains aggro on a single mob usually via a ranged attack, and running back to the predetermined position. Once the MOB or group of MOBs is pulled to a specified, predetermined location and they are strategically positioned in a favorable geographic location: the fight commences. The best example of this I can think of is the advanced KM3 strategy of ‘Pulling’ all three bosses to the single location for purposes of completing the dungeon extremely fast.
PvP - An acronym meaning: Player vs Player.
Rez – A shortened and corrupted version of Res or Resurrect. In Arcane Legends resurrect is referred to as Revive.
RG - An acronym meaning Re-Group. Oftentimes I see people running back to a pull or running back to a battle in PVP without regrouping. Ultimately as a group everyone is stronger.
RM - Re-Match (When someone wants to redo a pvp match)
Root - Rooting a Mob holds it in place - it cannot move if it's been rooted. Handy for solo kiting mages and crowd control.
S> - Selling an item (Item and price usually listed after the S>)
Slow - An effect that increases the interval of time between attacks – possibly also the movement speed of the affected Toon or MOB.
Snare - Snaring a Mob makes it slower - slightly less effective than root, however still an effective means of kiting and crowd control.
Spec - This shortened version of the word Specialization refers to a character’s build or how their stats, and skill points are distributed. This could also be a shortened version of Specification. Ultimately the meaning would be the same – and refers to how a toon’s ability score and skill points are distributed.
Squishy - Refers to player classes who are typically weaker with regards to armor and health. Mages are most often referred to as squishy. However Rogues could also be considered squishy when compared to the armor and health of a warrior.
STG - An acronym meaning: Spacetime Games - I believe interchangeable and synonymous with STS
Str - Strength
STS - An acronym meaning: SpaceTime Studios - the awesome creators of Arcane Legends (among other games)
Stun - A Stunned Mob does not move, nor can they attack or cast spells - a highly effective method of crowd control, although typically effects don't last as long as Root or Snare.
Taunting - Taunting is defined as taking a mob's attention and focusing it on you. Thus causing it to attack you as opposed to your squishy friends. The idea here is that you have more armor and HP than your friends, so you want the mobs attacking you. When a mob or group of mobs turns away from you and starts hacking up your little rogue girlfriend - it's a bad thing. You have to somehow get their attention back. But how? By using Taunt skills. Check your skills - most of the attack skills taunt, and Horn of Renew taunts as well. Use them when the Mobs are going after the other players
TDM - Team Death Match (Team Vs. Team combat) First team to 20 kills wins.
Toon - I can't believe I forgot this one :) Your Character In game is oftentimes referred to as a Toon.
Twink – An MMO term that has been around since early MMO days and in most cases means: Toon (Character) that has extremely high level or good gear for their level – typically not affordable by another toon of the same level. Twinks are financed by higher level ‘Main’ characters and since they have the best gear for their level and are usually played by an experience player, are also typically very good players.
WB - An acronym meaning: Welcome Back
WTS/WTT/WTB: Want to sell, Want to trade, Want to buy Also: S> (Sell) B> (Buy)
