PvE Glossary

List of commonly used terms in our PvE guides as well as in-game.

Term	Description
Add	An additional enemy that appears as you are fighting the main boss.
Aggro	To gain the attention of an enemy (or group of enemies), causing it to enter a combat state and attack players.
AoE	Area of Effect; refers to the area in which an effect occurs – typically a circle.
Attrition	The act of out-living your enemy. Typically refers to playstyles or builds that have high sustain and low to moderate DPS.
Block	Certain skills and the boon Aegis can negate the effect of an incoming attack.
Buffer	A measure of your raw defense. This typically refers to your EHP (See EHP).
Burst	The amount of damage dealt within a short window of time, usually between 5 and 30 seconds.
CC	Crowd Control; referring to skills or the use of those skills in order to break Defiance Bars or control enemies without a Defiance Bar. CC effects are divided into two kinds - "soft" and "hard". Soft CC refers to control effects inflicted via conditions, which reduce the effectiveness of the target but do not completely disable it. Hard CC refers to control effects that completely disable the target. The Fear and Taunt conditions are the only conditions that are considered hard CCs.
Ceiling	The level of skill required to play something at its highest level.
Cleave	The ability for skills to hit enemies other than their primary target. Typical usage refers to the incidental killing of enemies close to the boss without having to focus on them specifically.
Condi	Condition damage, or builds which focus on dealing condition damage, are often abbreviated as condi.
Cooldown / CD	The amount of time a skill takes to recharge.
Core	Refers to the "Core" game, i.e. not-expansion related. In the context of builds, refers to builds which do not require an Elite Specialization (though they may still reference Expac equipment)
Defiance Bar	A blue bar that appears underneath the health bar of certain enemies. This bar has a value, and CC effects will reduce this value. Once it is depleted, the enemy will be “broken” which will interrupt its current action and may additionally make it vulnerable.
DPS	Damage Per Second; refers to the action of damaging an enemy, or classes that are taken to fulfil a damage-dealing role in the group (contrasting with supports). DPS builds divide into "power" or "condition" (condi) types, determined by the stats on their equipment.
Effective Hit Points / EHP	A measure of your "effective" hit points, which is calculated by taking your raw hit points and factoring them into an equation that takes into account modifiers which reduce damage, such as your Armor or other mitigating factors like Protection.
Evade	Certain skills allow you to temporarily evade attacks, ignoring their effect. The act of dodging makes you evade for 0.75 seconds.
Expac	Short for Expansion Pack. Refers to the current expansions: Heart of Thorns and/or Path of Fire.
Flanking	Some skills or traits will do only activate or deal more damage while you are flanking a target. Effectively this means being positioned anywhere other than in front of the target.
Floor	The level of skill required to play something at a base level.
Glass Cannon / Glass	Glass builds are designed only with DPS in mind and forego almost all defensive options in favor of more DPS.
Hitbox	The area in which a target "exists", used for determining whether skills hit the target or not. The circle underneath a selected target gives some indication of the hitbox size as well as indicating where the center of their hitbox is.
ICD	Internal Cooldown. Many traits or effects will not trigger all the time, but instead have a hidden cooldown that has to pass before the effect will trigger again.
Kite	An action similar to tanking where a player stands at a distance from a boss in order to keep certain attacks away from other players.
Split Phase	A phase of an encounter where the boss ceases to be attackable. Players will generally need to perform some other task before they can re-engage with the boss.
Support	A class whose role is generally to provide boons or healing to the group (contrasting with DPS).
Tag / Tagging	The act of striking an enemy just enough to get the shared credit for its kill. Can also refer to the very niche "Tagging" builds created for Mad King's Labyrinth and Lake Doric Leather Farm.
Tank	A specific player who has the attention of an enemy is considered to be “tanking” it. There are various methods by which this attention is decided, but a common one is that the player with the highest toughness stat will be the tank. If at any point the condition for tanking is superseded by anther player (e.g. another player gains more toughness than the current tank), then that player will become the tank instead. Typically, tanks are expected to move bosses to specific locations and keep them still whilst surviving the bosses attacks.
Wipe	The act of killing all players and failing an encounter, usually in response to a failed mechanic.
Zerg	A large group of players.