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.
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). |