WoW Retail · Raid and Mythic+ glossary · Patch 12.1.5 · Midnight Season 2 · as of 23 Oct 2026
Raid and Mythic+ Glossary
These are the words you will hear in voice chat. Each class guide used to carry its own copy; this is the shared one, with the class-specific notes left to the guides.
Calls you will hear on a pull
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pull / pull timer | The countdown before combat starts. Usually 10 seconds. |
| Kick / interrupt | Stop an enemy's spell cast before it finishes. |
| Lust / Bloodlust / Hero / Time Warp | A raid-wide 30% haste buff from a Shaman, Mage, Hunter pet or Evoker. Once per fight. |
| Pot / pre-pot | Use your combat potion. Pre-pot means during the pull timer so a second one is ready later in the fight. |
| CDs / cooldowns / pop CDs | Use your big abilities now. |
| Hold CDs | Do not press your big abilities yet, usually because adds or Lust are coming. |
| Stack / spread | Everyone moves on top of each other, or everyone moves apart. |
| Soak | Stand in a circle so it hits you instead of the raid. |
| Bait | Deliberately draw an ability to a chosen spot. |
| Dispel | Remove a harmful debuff from an ally. |
| Taunt / swap | The tank forces the boss onto themselves. Swap means tanks trading the boss. |
| Threat / aggro | How much the boss wants to hit you. Damage builds it. |
| Battle res / brez / combat res | Resurrecting a dead player mid-fight. Limited charges per fight. |
| Wipe | Everyone dies. Reset and try again. |
| Release / don't release | Whether to accept death and return to the graveyard. |
| Gateway / gate | A warlock's Demonic Gateway, a two-way portal across the room. |
| Roar | Your Stampeding Roar. |
| Ready check | A popup asking if you are ready. |
Terms about the fight
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Mechanic | Any boss ability the raid has to react to. |
| Phase / P1, P2, P3 | Distinct stages of a boss fight, often at a health percentage. |
| Intermission | A short transition between phases, often with no boss to hit. |
| Add | Any extra enemy that spawns during a boss fight. |
| Cleave | Hitting two or more targets at once with one ability. |
| AoE | Area of effect. Hitting many targets, or ground damage you should move out of. |
| Priority target / prio | The add that must die first. |
| Execute | The last 20% or so of a boss's health, when some abilities get stronger. |
| Enrage / berserk | A timer after which the boss kills everyone. Your damage decides whether you beat it. |
| DoT | Damage over time. |
| Pandemic | Refreshing a DoT in its last 30% without losing time. |
| Uptime | Percentage of the fight an effect was active. |
| Proc | A random effect that lights up a spell. |
| Filler | The spell you cast when nothing better is available. |
| Spender / builder | Abilities that cost or generate your resource. |
| GCD | Global cooldown. The roughly 1.5-second gap after most casts before you can start another. |
| Snapshot | A DoT keeps the stats it had when applied. Less common now, but you will hear the word. |
| Overcap / capping | Reaching the maximum of a resource so new gains are wasted. |
Mythic+ terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Key / keystone | The item that sets a dungeon's difficulty level and starts the timer. |
| Timer / timing the key | Finishing within the time limit. Timing it upgrades the key. |
| Depleting / bricking | Failing the timer. The key drops a level. |
| Affix | A weekly modifier that changes how trash or bosses behave. |
| Pull / pack | A group of trash enemies the tank gathers. |
| Skip | Avoiding a pack entirely, often with invisibility potions or clever pathing. |
| Count / enemy forces | The percentage of trash that must be killed. Shown on the objectives frame. |
| Lust pack | A large pull where the group uses Bloodlust for faster clearing. |
| Stop / CC | Interrupt, stun, or disable an enemy's cast. |
| Kiting | Running an enemy around so it cannot hit anyone. |
| Line of sight / LoS | Breaking the enemy's view so they walk to you and group up. |
| Pot check / Rune check | Reminder to use consumables before the pull. |
| Brez | Battle resurrection. Shared pool of charges in a key. |
Log and performance terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Parse | Your DPS or HPS ranked against every other player of your spec on the same boss, 0 to 100. |
| Grey / green / blue / purple / orange | Parse color bands. Grey is below 25, green 25 to 49, blue 50 to 74, purple 75 to 94, orange 95 and up. |
| ilvl | Item level. The average quality of your gear. |
| Sim / Raidbots | A simulation of your character to compare gear and talents. |
| Active time | How much of the fight you were casting or auto-attacking. |
| Overheal / overkill | Healing or damage beyond what was needed. |