Glossary
While a lot of the time I’ll be writing under the assumption that, as a tank, you know the vocabulary already, the fact of the matter is that the people looking for tanking advice are most likely not familiar with the lingo. I’ll be updating this glossary as I think of new terms to explain. Feel free to request new terms.
For the most part these will be class-agnostic tanking terms; I’ll likely add glossaries for class-specific abilities and for raid buffs at a later time.
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Absorb/Absorption Effect – Also called a bubble, an absorb is a short-duration buff which will protect the target from a certain amount of damage. When the damage limit is exceeded or the duration expires, the target takes damage again normally. Damage taken is reduced by all damage reduction effects before it is absorbed, and absorption effects do not interfere with avoidance. An absorb counts as a hit for the purposes of defensive procs (i.e. the person being hit) including rage generation, but does not count as a hit for offensive procs (i.e. the person doing the hitting) including rage generation.
Add – Short for “additional,” this term can refer either to mobs which are accidentally aggroed while in combat, or to non-boss enemies which must be dealt with in the normal course of a boss fight.
Aggro – A person has aggro on a mob when that mob is focusing attacks on him/her. Usually the person with aggro is at the top of the threat table.
It is also common to speak of a face pull by saying the player in question aggroed the mobs. This is distinguished from pulling aggro, which means that the player has established aggro on a mob which the tank had previously been tanking.
Aggro Reset – When a mob completely wipes its threat table and starts over.
Air Phase – A phase in which a boss flies up into the air, making itself invulnerable to melee attack.
AP Debuff – See Physical Damage Debuff.
Armor – A mitigation stat present on all gear except amulets, weapons, rings and trinkets. The amount of armor on an item is determined by its slot, armor type, and item level. (Some items have more armor on them than their item level and gear type would indicate; this is bonus armor). Armor reduces all physical attacks except bleeds by a certain percentage. Damage reduction from armor is subject to diminishing returns, but time to live from armor is not.
Attack Speed Debuff – One of the two tanking debuffs. Attack Speed debuffs increase the time between a player or mob’s auto-attacks by 20%. This does not affect special attacks unless the attack is on the swing timer.
Attack Table – When a player or mob is attacked, the game determines the result of the attack by rolling on the attack table. The table is split into ranges for miss, hit, dodge, parry, block, crit, and glancing blow. The size of these ranges is based on the relative levels of the attacker and the defender; the attacker’s hit chance, crit chance, expertise, single/dual wield and whether the attack is white or yellow; the defender’s dodge, parry, and block chances, chance to be missed, and physical orientation towards the attacker; and whether the attacker or defender or both are players.
Aura – If cast by an enemy, a pulsing AoE damage effect which cannot be interrupted. If an aura has a visual component it can usually be avoided by breaking line of sight with the source; if an aura has no visual component, it must be healed through.
If cast by a friend, a raidwide buff with no duration – it will fall off only when removed.
Auto-attack – The regularly-spaced melee attacks made by any character or mob. Also called white attacks.
Avoidance – The sum of chance to dodge, chance to parry, and chance to be missed. An avoided attack does 0 damage. Only physical attacks can be avoided through dodge and parry, and often special attacks cannot be avoided even though they are physical. Some spells can be avoided through chance to be missed.
Players can only dodge and parry attacks coming from the front, though attacks from any direction can miss. NPCs can also dodge attacks coming from the back.
Bleed – A DoT of a physical damage type. Cannot be cleansed except by immunity effects and the Dwarf racial. Bleed damage is not mitigated by armor.
Block – A blocked attack hits for 70% of its original damage (or less if the tank is using the Eternal meta, scores a Critical Block, or is under the effect of Holy Shield). Only physical attacks and auto-attacks can be blocked, and often special attacks cannot be blocked even though they are physical or auto-attacks.
Of the character classes, only warriors and paladins can block. Some mobs, including most bosses, are able to block without a shield. Only attacks from the front can be blocked.
Block cap – See unhittable.
Bonus Armor – Bonus armor is armor on an item beyond what an item of that item level and slot would usually hold. On equipment for slots which usually have armor (all equipment except shirts, tabards, rings, trinkets, weapons, and ranged items), the armor stat is colored green if bonus armor is included; if a ring or trinket has armor, the armor stat is colored white, but is still bonus armor. All armor from enchantments is bonus armor.
Bonus armor is not counted in talents and effects which increase armor multiplicatively, including Blood Presence, Toughness, and Bear/Dire Bear Form. It is counted for talents which increase AP based on armor, i.e. Bladed Armor.
Bonus Threat – Bonus threat is threat created by an ability on top of that caused by its damage or healing done, just for using the ability. Often bonus threat is static, but sometimes it is multiplicative. Bonus threat may no longer exist in Cataclysm.
Boss – An enemy usually of a higher level than, and always with significantly more health and damage than, the trash surrounding him. Bosses usually have scripted mechanics or unusual attacks to differentiate encounters against them from trash pulls. In all raids except Upper Blackrock Spire, bosses are 3 levels higher than each raid member for the purposes of their attack tables. In heroic 5-mans, bosses are 2 levels higher than the cap for the relevant expansion.
Breath – A frontal AoE cone of magic, usually from a dragon.
Bubble – This can mean a few things. In the context of priests and on-use item effects, especially discipline priests, it usually refers to an absorption effect. In the context of paladins, it most often means Divine Shield, an ability which provides 100% damage immunity, removes most debuffs, and also drops threat for the duration. It can also mean Divine Protection or Blessing of Protection.
Buff – An effect that helps or strengthens the character or mob it is applied to.
Cast – An ability which is not instant, i.e. it has a cast time. A cast prevents the player or mob casting from using other abilities for the duration of the cast, resets their swing timer, and reduces their chance to dodge, parry, or block to 0%. Because of this, a tank should never cast while they are being attacked.
Casts are often interruptable.
Used as a verb, “cast” can also refer to instant abilities.
Caster – A mob which attacks exclusively by casting spells until prevented from doing so. They will stand where they were at the time of the pull until they are unable to cast. Note that not all mobs capable of casting are casters by this definition; mobs that will run up to you before or between casts are generally considered melee.
Chain (Attack) – An attack which “jumps” from one target to another based on proximity. Most chain attacks are limited to three targets (two jumps) and decrease in damage done with every jump, though there are exceptions.
Chain Pull – The fine art of staying in combat while moving through an area by making the next pull before the previous pack is completely dead.
Charm – See Mind Control.
Cleanse – The removal of a debuff from a friendly character, usually by a hybrid class. Sometimes called a dispel. Healers can cleanse magical effects; shaman, mages, and druids can cleanse curses; paladins and priests can cleanse diseases; and druids and paladins can cleanse poisons.
Cleave – A multitarget melee range ability which strikes only enemies in front of the cleaver. Player cleaves are usually capped at 2-4 targets; boss cleaves usually have no target limit. Sometimes, saber lashes are erroneously referred to as cleaves. Unlike a saber lash, the damage a cleave does to any one target is independent of the damage it does to any other target.
Crowd Control/CC – Any ability used to control a target’s ability to attack. These include stuns, snares, silences, charms, roots, and a wide variety of hard to categorize abilities which take targets out of combat. For a nearly complete list of player crowd control effects, see this wowwiki article.
Crush/Crushing Blow – A category on the attack table which is only available for mob attacks on players more than 3 levels below them. In The Burning Crusade, crushing blows were also available for raid bosses and were an important part of gearing for raids; now they are only relevant for content which the tank significantly under-levels. A crushing blow does 150% of the damage of a regular attack (contrast a critical strike’s 200% damage). Spells cannot crush.
CTC/Combat Table Coverage – The percentage of the combat table which is a miss, dodge, parry, or block (not a hit or crit). When a tank cannot be hit from the front they are said to have full CTC or to be unhittable.
Damage Reduction/DR – Reduction in the damage each non-avoided attack does to the tank, not in the total damage the tank takes. Damage reduction comes in three forms: damage reduction from talents and abilities, including Defensive Stance and the druid and DK four piece tier 10 bonuses; armor; and spell resistance. Block is not considered damage reduction unless you are unhittable.
Can also be used to mean any reduction in DTPS.
Damage Taken/DTPS – Overall/average damage taken by a player over the course of a fight. Can be reduced with avoidance, damage reduction, and mitigation.
Dance – A type of encounter in which a ground AoE makes much of the room unsafe, so that the group must stay on the move while fighting.
Daze – A subtype of snare. Mobs have a chance to daze players when they hit them in the back. With the removal of the defense stat, only talents which make players uncrittable make them immune to NPC daze. They are still susceptible to player dazes in PVP, however.
Deep breath – A strong, ground-targeted AoE magic blast from a dragon during an air phase. Depending on the nature of the deep breath, you must either get some protection between yourself and the point of impact, or get out of the way of a larger ground AoE with no pulse.
Defense – A stat that determines a character’s base chance to dodge, parry, be missed, and be crit. As of Cataclysm it scales only with character level and cannot be changed by the player. Some mobs, notably certain Wrath of the Lich King bosses, apply short debuffs which reduce a character’s defense; if a character is uncrittable and receives a critical hit anyway, it is most likely due to a -defense debuff.
Diminishing Returns/DR – A part of the game mechanics which causes certain traits to receive less benefit per rating as the amount of that trait the player has increases. Chance to dodge, chance to parry, chance to crit, and damage reduction from armor are all subject to diminishing returns.
Dispel – To remove a buff or debuff. Can refer to a cleanse on a friend, or a purge or tranq on an enemy.
Dragon – A dragon is a special type of mob, in that most dragons have the same basic abilities with a few variations. Every dragon has a frontal breath attack and a non-target-capped cleave. Most dragons also have a tail swipe, which is a sideways knockback on players near the dragon’s tail. Other common dragon abilities are an air phase (usually with Deep Breath abilities which require players to line of sight or otherwise avoid a targeted AoE), fears, and wing buffets (frontal knockbacks).
DTPH – Damage Taken Per Hit. Usually used in contrast to DTPS, this is a measure of the size of the hits that land on the tank, regardless of what percentage of attacks successfully hit (unless the tank is unhittable). DTPH can be reduced with armor and spell resistance.
A tank with low DTPS and high DTPH is said to have spiky damage intake.
Effective Health/EH – A measure of a tank’s worst-case-scenario survivability; specifically, how much damage they can take, without healing or avoiding, before they die. You can find a good EH calculator here.
Expertise – A threat stat which reduces the chance for your attacks to be dodged or parried. It is generally the most effective stat to stack for threat, until you reach the soft cap. The expertise soft cap is the point at which you have a 0% chance to be dodged, at which point expertise only reduces your chance to be parried. At level 85 the expertise soft cap is at 26 expertise skill; the hard cap is in the high forties, and not realistically reachable.
Face Pull – Aggroing a mob or group of mobs without using any abilities – just by standing too close to them.
Fear – An effect which causes its target to lose control of itself and run in a random direction until the effect expires. A mob affected by a player fear will usually come out of the fear if damaged; a player affected by an NPC fear will not. In some content enemies will not attack a feared player – which equates to a temporary aggro drop if the tank is feared – but this is extremely rare outside of classic raids.
Fixate – An effect which causes the targeted enemy(s) to temporarily aggro on the caster without changing the threat table. Some fixates, including Death Grip, Distracting Shot, and Unleash: Rockbiter, have static bonus threat added in, but unless the caster is already close to gaining aggro on the target a fixate will not permanently aggro it. Fixate effects are often erroneously labeled as taunts. While taunts do include a fixate component, they also place the caster at the top of the target’s threat table.
Gauntlet – A hall full of trash on a very short respawn timer. The group must move as quickly as they can manage without being overwhelmed to the other end of the gauntlet, or else risk being swamped by respawns.
Hardmode/Heroic Mode – A raid boss encounter with its difficulty increased, and its loot rewards also increased accordingly.
Healability – The ease with which the healer(s) handles damage taken by a tank. Generally, predictable damage is more healable than random damage; smaller hits are more healable than large hits; and a larger health pool is more healable than a smaller health pool.
Healer Aggro – When the threat from a healer’s heals against a mob outstrips the threat that the mob has taken from damage. This is most common when the mob has not yet been attacked, but can also occur with high-threat healers if the tank is for some reason unable to reach the mob with his major threat builders.
Healing Debuff – A debuff which reduces the tank’s healing taken by some percentage. This is often a stacking debuff.
Healing debuffs cast by players are capped at 10%, or 25% in 4.3, and do not stack.
Hit – A stat which reduces your chance to miss (not chance to be blocked, dodged or parried) with both physical attacks and spells. The physical hit cap (the point at which you cannot miss) is 8% for raid bosses, 7% for heroic 5-man bosses; the spell hit cap is 17% for raid bosses. Each point of hit rating gives both physical hit and spell hit, and gives slightly more spell hit. Most tanking abilities operate off of physical hit.
Hit Table – see Attack Table.
HoT (Heal Over Time) – A buff or effect which heals its target(s) every x seconds until it expires.
Immunity – An ability or buff which makes the target immune to all damage, and often dispels any debuffs on the target. Most mobs will not attack an immune target unless it is fixated or there are no other enemies on its threat table.
Interrupt – An interrupt is an ability the purpose of which is to stop an enemy’s cast. Crowd control can also interrupt casts, but they are not usually referred to as interrupts. Some interrupts also silence.
Some spells are not interruptable, but if the mob can be stunned or otherwise cc’d, the cast will stop.
Item Budget – The item budget is a number of “points” an item has, based on its item level. When Blizzard creates an item, it takes those points and “spends” them to give the item its stats. Different stats cost different numbers of points, and the higher any one stat on the item, the more that stat costs per point.
Item Level – A “hidden” equipment stat (though it can be shown on tooltips via Blizzard’s interface options). The higher an item’s level is, the more stats it has. Item level is based on the difficulty of the content from which the item is obtained.
Jump (Threat) – When a mob wipes its threat table or suddenly loses aggro on the tank through no fault of the tank’s (or the new target’s), it is said to jump, jump threat, jump aggro, or jump the table.
Legion Flames – A short-duration debuff which causes the player to drop fire wherever he’s standing for a few seconds. The player needs to run away from the raid, so as to drop the fire in the least inconvenient place. This leaves behind a trail of fire that needs to be maneuvered around. Usually, tanks will not receive Legion Flames.
Mob – A single non-player enemy.
Mortal Strike – See Healing Debuff
Pack – A cluster of mobs. Can indicate either the group of mobs currently aggroed, or supposed to be aggroed, on the tank; or can indicate a group of mobs not yet engaged which cannot be pulled separately from each other.
Resilience - In Cataclysm, Resilience no longer has any application in tanking.
Resist – See Spell Resist.
Runner – A social humanoid mob that stops attacking and runs away when it reaches a certain threshold of low health. The thresholds and run speeds vary by the type of the mob. If a runner reaches any affiliated mobs, it will aggro them.
Tanking Stance – See Threat Modifier.
Taunt Glyph – No longer applicable in Cataclysm.
Taunt Switch – See Tank Switch.
Unhittable/Unhittability – See CTC.
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