Common terms

This is a list of unofficial Common terms used by the GW2 community and often referred to in chat. The following article aims to document some of the more frequently-seen terms. Note that none of these terms are case sensitive in practice, and their appearance in-game will vary accordingly.

The page does not aim to be all-encompassing, but rather to cover:

• Terms that are likely to be encountered (i.e. if you haven't seen it used commonly in chat, it's probably not well known enough and thus not likely encountered).
• Terms that are relevant to gameplay (e.g. no need to explain meanings of general gamer jargon such as "noob")

Other terms may be found at the following links:

• Abbreviations may be found here.
• Other unofficial terms may be found in the Unofficial terms category.
• Official terms can be found in the Glossary category.
• Terms relating specifically to World versus world may be found in the page's Common Terms and Abbreviations section.

When adding new terms:

• If there are two variants of the same common term that are similar, list both on the same line.

You can reach this page from in-game at any time by typing /wiki common terms into the chat box.

List of terms

Term	Meaning
AFK Kick Timer / Kick Timer	Amount of time a player can be inactive before the game kicks them to the character selection screen
Apple / Apple tag	The Mentoring Badge
Bag opener	A low-level character used to open loot bags to obtain lower-level materials
Ban	Account access prevention as a sanction for a violation of the End-User License Agreement. The term may also include temporary access restriction (suspension).
Blob / Zerg	A large group of players
Bouncy chest	The bonus chest obtained after certain events that is seen bouncing around on the right side of the screen
Break Bar	The Defiance bar, as crowd control skills are said to "break" it.
Bubbles / Selbbub	The Deep sea dragon, with "Selbbub" being "Bubbles" in reverse. Following the release of Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons, not often used.
Build	An arrangement of Equipment, Traits and Skills for a particular task
Cerebro	An unfinished jumping puzzle found near the  Town of Cathal Waypoint —
Cloud / Clouding	A loose formation of players spread out from one-another, as opposed to players in a tighter formation where they stack close together.
Dorito(s)	a) The Commander tag icon b) A nickname for Durios Gulch
Ecto gambling	The various methods players may gamble Globs of Ectoplasm for gold, usually through playing Sandstorm or by purchasing Destabilized Ectoplasm.
False pre	Dynamic events that normally would be the set-up for a world boss, but the world boss does not spawn due to the boss's timer not being up
Farming	Dedicated process of earning gold and crafting materials, often in optimized and efficient way.
Gear	Equipment
IP	A particular instance of a map; can be determined by typing /ip
Key farmer	A character used by a player to farm for Black Lion Chest Keys via Key farming
Lab farm	Farming the Mad King's Labyrinth for Trick-or-Treat Bags
Leather farm	Farming the centaurs found in Watchtower Cliffs, the northeastern corner of Lake Doric, for leather
Loot stick	Ranged AoE weapon used for tagging mobs while farming alongside a large group of players. Typically a guardian staff or engineer flamethrower.
Pre	Precursor weapon
Pre / Pre-event	Events that must be completed for a world boss or a meta event to spawn
Precast	Refers to the act of casting/using some skills in advance to get Boons or Buffs before starting combat
Stack	Several players standing on the same spot; a tactic often used in WvW and PvE content
Sustain	Refers to an individual's or squad's ability to survive under the preassure of incoming damage, and is the result of various factors including but not limited to healing output, various boons, various damage negation or reflection methods and health points (tankiness)
Sweep	Checking a recently-captured tower or keep in World versus World for hidden enemy players, especially mesmers
Tag	a) Dealing damage to an enemy, or killing enemies during an event, to obtain sufficient credit for that kill/event to earn rewards b) The Commander icon or Mentoring Badge c) Guild tag
Taxi	A method of bringing players into a specific instance of a map. Players join the party or squad of a player already in the IP they wish to join, then right-click that player's icon in the party/squad UI and select "Join in <map name>".
Toilet / Mystic toilet	Mystic Forge
Toon	A player's character
Train	A large group of players moving together, collecting loot or completing events, usually in a squad lead by a commander. Notable types include: bounty trains, which go around a Crystal Desert zone completing bounties chest trains, which search The Silverwastes for Lost Bandit Chests HP trains, which complete hero challenges of an expansion pack to allow players to quickly unlock elite specializations karma trains, which capture objectives in WvW for event rewards meta trains / farmtrains, which move between the events of one or multiple meta event chains in a set order to maximise rewards