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As a massively multiplayer game featuring lots of mechanics and content, Final Fantasy 14 has developed its own language for discussing the game’s intricacies, with plenty of terms and slang that you may have never heard before playing the game. If you’re new to MMORPGs, this can be especially overwhelming, as many of the terms are derived from previous games in the genre.

Related: Final Fantasy 14: Novice Network Guide

To assist with your journey to FF14 mastery, we’ve created a mini dictionary for the most commonly appearing terms that you might be unfamiliar with. These have been organised into three categories for your convenience: firstly, the game’s many class and job abbreviations, secondly a selection of commonly used game-specific terms and slang, and finally, some acronyms used to refer to specific content within the game itself.

Job & Class Abbreviations

If you're brand new to Final Fantasy 14, the abundance of three capital letters in various combinations throughout the chats, party finder, and elsewhere may perplex you. These are simple ways of shortening the jobs and classes that you can play into an easily digestible (and easy-to-type) format.

Abbreviation Meaning
ACN Arcanist, the base class that evolves into Scholar and Summoner.
ARC Archer, the base class that evolves into Bard.
AST Astrologian, the card-based healer job.
BLM Black Mage, the high-damage offensive magic job.
BLU Blue Mage, the special 'limited job' that absorbs enemy skills.
BRD Bard, the archery & performance-focused ranged physical DPS job.
DNC Dancer, the fast-paced melee DPS job.
DRG Dragoon, the acrobatic lance-using melee DPS job.
DRK Dark Knight, the edgy, heavy sword-wielding tank job.
GLD Gladiator, the base class that evolves into Paladin.
GNB Gunbreaker, the gunblade-wielding tank job.
LNC Lancer, the base class that evolves into Dragoon.
MCH Machinist, the firearm-wielding ranged DPS job.
MNK Monk, the fist-wielding melee DPS job.
MRD Marauder, the base class that evolves into Warrior.
NIN Ninja, the stealthy dagger-wielding melee DPS job.
PLD Paladin, the sword-and-board holy tank job.
PUG Pugilist, the base class that evolves into Monk.
RDM Red Mage, the multi-magic wielding melee DPS job.
ROG Rogue, the base class that evolves into Ninja.
RPR Reaper, the scythe-wielding melee DPS job.
SAM Samurai, the katana-wielding melee DPS job.
SCH Scholar, the fairy-based healer job.
SGE Sage, the shield-based healer job.
SMN Summoner, the pet-based magical DPS job.
THM Thaumaturge, the base class that evolves into Black Mage.
WAR Warrior, the axe-wielding tank job.
WHM White Mage, the white magic-based healer job.
MIN Miner, the gathering class.
BTN Botanist, the gathering class.
FSH Fisher, the gathering class.
ARM Armorer, the crafting class.
BSM Blacksmith, the crafting class.
GSM Goldsmith, the crafting class.
LTW Leatherworker, the crafting class.
WVR Weaver, the crafting class.
ALC Alchemist, the crafting class.
CUL Culinarian, the crafting class.
CRP Carpenter, the crafting class.

In-Game Terms & Slang

In addition to remembering some pretty simple three-letter abbreviations for classes, you'll gradually learn a wider vocabulary of terms specific to Final Fantasy 14 in addition to some that have been inherited from other MMOs that you'll encounter regularly. See below our table of quick definitions for all the words you'll be hearing a lot during gameplay, organised alphabetically

Term Meaning
Ability As opposed to a weaponskill, Ability refers to skills that are not part of the global cooldown. These skills can usually be instantly cast.
Adds Adds are 'additional' enemies that arrive during a boss encounter in a dungeon or raid.
Aggro Aggro is the term for an enemy wanting to attack you. To get aggro, you need to increase emnity using various abilities. Emnity-increasing skills are standard to tank classes.
Alt An Alt is an alternate character.
AoE AoE refers to Area of Effect: attacks or abilities that affect multiple targets in a specific area, usually a circular or cone radius.
BiS BiS stands for Best In Slot, or the best gear that you can currently equip.
Boosted Boosted refers to a character using one of the paid 'job skip' potions. This is a paid item that instantly advances your character to level 80.
Buff A buff is any trait that affects your characters' performance in a positive way. These are gained from spells, abilities., food items and potions.
CC/Crowd Control Crowd Control is the act of using attacks and abilities to thin the ranks of an overwhelming number of surrounding enemies.
D/C D/C refers to disconnection from the game due to an internet failure.
DC DC (without the slash) can sometimes refer to Data Center, the servers each region of the world.
Debuff Debuff refers to any negative trait your character can gain. These are usually applied by enemy abilities.
DoH/DoL DoH and DoL refers to Disciples of Hand and Disciples of Land the crafting and gathering classes, respectively
DoM DoM refers to Disciples of Magic, the magic-based classes.
DoT/DoTS DoT refers to Damage over Time: any effect that applies damage over a period of time. DoTS refers to a Damage over Time spell.
DoW Disciples of War refers to any combat class/job.
DPS Damage Per Second.
Drop A Drop is any item 'dropped' by an enemy after defeat. Can include both cool and boring items.
Emnity Emnity is something you want to increase as a Tank: the amount that enemies are likely to attack you.
Farming Farming is the art of repeating content to get certain items (usually mounts or armour).
GC Grand Companies, the guilds of Final Fantasy 14.
GCD Global Cooldown - the rate at which your basic weaponskills must 'cooldown' before using your next weaponskill.
Hardcast Harcasting is the act of casting a spell for its full amount of cast time, as opposed to using a buff to reduce the cast time.
HPS Heals Per Second.
HQ High Quality. This is a state that crafted items can achieve when crafted skillfully.
iLvL Item Level: the number assigned to all items of gear that generate an 'average item level' cumulatively when equipped. Item level determines what content you can participate in.
Kite To Kite an enemy is to drag them to a specific location as a Tank.
LB Limit Break - the special ability that you can use in party-based content. A number is sometimes added to the end of LB to indicate which type of Limit Break should be used based on the three parts of the gauge: LB1, LB2, LB3 etc.
Leve Short for levequest, a type of repeatable quest that you can do in each region.
LS LS stands for Linkshell, which serves as a private group chat between players across servers.
Meld To meld is to attach a piece of stat-enhancing materia to your gear. You'll want to do this to get the most out of your gear.
MSQ Main Scenario Quest.
Main Tank The Main Tank refers to the tank that takes on the primary duty of emnity and aggro for content that requires two tanks.
NQ Normal Quality - as opposed to High Quality materials or items obtained from crafting or gathering.
o/ An emoticon depicting someone raising their hand to wave hello. A friendly gesture.
oGCD off-global cooldown skills are skills that can be activated at anytime including during the cooldown period of skills on the global cooldown.
OT/Off Tanking The Off-Tank is as opposed to the Main Tank (see above). This tank will usually leave their tank stance off unless a tank switch needs to occur.
Pop To 'pop' a skill is to use it.
Potency Potency is the official in-game terminology for the amount of damage or healing done by a particular weaponskill or ability.
Pots Short for 'potions'.
Pre-Pull Pre-pull means before you engage the enemy (see 'pulls' below).
Prog To prog is to progress through content.
Pull To pull is to draw enemies towards you by engaging them in combat and increasing emnity.
PvE Player Versus Environment.
PvP Player Versus Player.
Relic Referring to Relic Weapons, which are frequently the best weapons possible to obtain.
Rotation Rotation refers to the set of skills you 'rotate' through when dealing damage (or healing).
RP Role Play.
Slidecast To Slidecast is to move slightly during the last moments of a cast timer.
Sprout A Sprout is a new or inexperienced player.
Stack This can refer to the act of stacking on a player when they have a stack marker.
Tooltip A Tooltip is a description of a skill that can be read in the 'actions & traits' menus or by hovering over the skill.
ToS Terms of Service.
Wall To Wall/w2w Wall To Wall refers to a style of tanking where as many enemies as possible are aggro'd in order to advance through the content faster.
Weaponskill As opposed to an ability, a Weaponskill is any skill on the global cooldown that requires a weapon to use, usually as part of the basic rotation.

Common Content Abbreviations

The following terms are abbreviations you might see to refer to various types of repeatable, party-based content such as dungeons and raids in the game. There is of course some variation in how different players will refer to these as there isn't an exact consensus, but the following are the most common that you can look out for if you're looking to form a party and challenge a specific type of content.

Abbreviation Meaning
UwU Ultima Weapon (Ultimate) or The Weapon’s Refrain, the hardest difficulty of the ultimate weapon battle. Also, an emoticon expressing a cute face.
BCoB Binding Coil of Bahamut, the A Realm Reborn raid series.
SCoB Second Coil of Bahamut, the A Realm Reborn raid series.
FCoB Final Coil of Bahamut, the A Realm Reborn raid series.
UCoB Unending Coil of Bahamut, A Stormblood raid series.
HoH Heaven on High, the level 60+ Deep Dungeon.
PotD Palace of The Dead, the level 17+ Deep Dungeon
BSF/Bozja Bozja Southern Front, the level 70-80 levelling content.
A(number)(letter) The letter A followed by a number then S or N refers to one of the raids in the Alexander series from Heavensward. The number after A is used to indicate which turn of the raid, and the final letter is used to indicate the difficulty (such as N for normal, S for savage).
O(number)(letter) The letter O followed by a number then S or N refers to one of the raids in the Omega series from Stormblood. The number after O is used to indicate which turn of the raid, and the final letter is used to indicate the difficulty (such as N for normal, S for savage).
E(number)(letter) The letter E followed by a number then an S or N refers to one of the raids in the Eden's Gate series from Shadowbringers. The number after E is used to indicate which turn of the raid, and the final letter is used to indicate the difficulty (such as N for normal, S for savage).
P(number)(letter) The letter P followed by a number then an S or N refers to one of the raids in the Pandaemonium series from Endwalker. The number after P is used to indicate which turn of the raid, and the final letter is used to indicate the difficulty (such as N for normal, S for savage).

Next: Final Fantasy 14: Complete Guide