Warcraft III - Basics -> Glossary

Here are some of the terms which may cause some confusion. This is not a complete list of words that you may hear. There are many other common terms but we do not list them because they are uncool and shouldn't be encouraged.

See also tB_Viper's English-Polish Glossary here* Please be aware this page was created by companies and individuals that are neither affiliated with nor supported by Blizzard Entertainment, and the views and opinions expressed in these guides do not necessarily reflect our own.

Buff
A Buff is a beneficial spell cast on a unit. An example of a "buff" is the Priest's Inner Fire or Shaman's Bloodlust.

Campers
People who purposely do not expand or head out around the map, but instead, try to defend their town and get other players to attack it.

Creeping
The process of clearing out Creeps for experience, gold, and items.

Creep Jacking
Sneaking up on your enemy while they are fighting Creeps and attacking them from behind.

Dancing
A term from StarCraft meaning to pull injured troops out of harm and quickly put them back, or to move the target of focus fire away to make the enemy chase.

De-Buff
A De-Buff is a negative spell cast on a unit that makes it less powerful. An example of a "de-buff" is the Banshee's Curse, Druid of the Talon's Faerie Fire, or Sorceress' Slow.

Expansion
An Expansion is a new town built at a location other than the player's main starting town.

Focused Fire
This simply means all units attacking a single target which is typcially a unit. An example would be selecting all of your Archers and attacking an Abomination.

GG
Good Game. If players say GG too early it is a sarcastic way of saying you have lost and the game is over. It can also mean that the player who said it is admiting that they have lost.

Grunt Rush
A slang term coined by Tou to originally refer to building a Barracks first before Town Hall which was an exploit in the tech tree fixed in Warcraft II Battle.net Edition. Later Grunt Rush has evolved into meaning attacking early with Grunts or Footmen or other early units.

Hero Arena
A popular custom map type where the map is just heroes that fight it out for number of kills. It can be extremely fun and teaches new players how to use Heroes and more about each Hero.

Hero Trap Town (Trap Town)
A Hero Trap Town is a town built in such a way that Heroes and units become trapped when they teleport to it. Usually this means players have built buildings next to their Town Hall. In the worst examples players become stuck between buildings and can't even move. Avoid building Hero Trap Towns. Leave plenty of space around your Town Hall.

Inc
Incoming. This means an attack is coming. It can mean an army or a Hero. Usage: "inc (then ping area where attack is coming from)" or "inc UP" (attack coming from north)

LOL
Lots of Laugh or Laughing Out Loud. This abbreviation indicates something is really funny. Unfortunately although very common, that term became uncool a long long long time ago. Other alternatives that you can use instead are "hehehehe" or "hahahaha" which aren't the best but are more hip. ROFL should also be avoided to appear cool.

ot or o/tower
To offensive tower someone. Towers are built inside or outside an enemy town, and more Towers are built until they can attack the whole town. Rather than use towers for defense, players use towers for offense.

Macromanagement (Macro)
To focus time on creating new buildings, researching upgrades, expanding, and training units. To focus on Macro typically means to let battles fight themselves or to ignore units in combat while focusing on building, training, and expanding.

Marn
A Tauren Chieftain, named after Marn Thunderhorn the Tauren Chieftain. Some players call all Tauren Chieftain's Marns.

Meat
This means units that stand in the front of a battle and soak up damage such as Grunts, Footmen, Mountain Giants, and so on.

Micromanagement (Micro)
To focus time on controlling individual units in battle. When someone "has good micro" they are good at controlling their troops.

Newbie
A term that sometimes means new player but also is used to mean a player is not very good.

Peon
Some use this to refer to all workers which developed during Warcraft II.

Perfect Play (PP)
Perfect Play is the philosophy of playing the game perfectly which will allow you to beat an opponent who is not playing perfectly. Often if you play perfectly you will win everytime. Areas to focus on are unit control and management of resources. Common usage: Perfect Play ok?, PP ok?, or GL HF PP OK?

Port
This means to use your Teleport Scroll to teleport to a location now! Common usage: "PORT"

Rush
A Rush originally meant a very early attack. Over the years its meaning has been twisted to an attack at any point of the game or an attack with a lot of units. Some players have different definitions of 'Rush'.

Smurfing
A slang term coined by GFraizer (Nebu) and Warp! to mean good or famous players using fake names to hide from people and then attempting to beat other players. It is only a "Smurf" if those players win. Common phrases: "You've been Smurfed by ____"

Spotting
Using a unit up ahead of some Siege Units to reveal the fog of war so the Siege Units can fire from long distances.

Tier
Tier is the level of the techtree. Some units are considered Tier 1 such as Grunts, Footmen, and Archers while later units are Tier 2, and Tier 3.

Tower Crazy
A player that builds too many towers that end up just being easily killed by Siege Units.

Town Hall
Often used to refer to all versions of starting buildings such as Town Halls, Great Halls, Trees of Life, or the Necropolis.

Turtle
A player who is afraid to leave their base and instead produces an excessive amount of towers to defend it. This would apply to any player who has a very weak army and way too many towers. "Go siege, this person's a turtle."

Worker
A worker is any of the starting working units such as Peasants, Peons, Acolytes, and Wisps.