Glossary

A - E

 * AA : Acronym of Ancient Apparition.
 * AC : Acronym of Assault Cuirass.
 * AM : Acronym of Anti-Mage.
 * Aggro : Abbreviation for aggression. The programmed aggression of AI controlled towers and creeps. Refers to getting the attention of a particular hostile unit, e.g. "I have aggro" means a hostile unit is focusing on attacking you.
 * AoE : Acronym for area of effect. It refers to a spell, attack, or effect that affects an area around a point (for example, Dragon Slave is an "AoE spell"). Also used to refer to the range or size of one such spell/attack/effect, for example Reverse Polarity affects enemies in a 410 radius, therefore it has an AoE of 410, or it has "410 AoE".


 * B : Abbreviation for "Back" or "Get Back". Used to call for a retreat. A player saying "b" is usually suggesting that everyone back up or run away.
 * BAT : Abbreviation for Base Attack Time, which determines how long an unbuffed unit with 0 agility and 0% bonus attack speed has to wait to attack again. Lower BAT units are able to attack more frequently. Most heroes have a BAT of 1.70. It is considered better to have a lower BAT and worse to have a higher BAT.
 * Barracks: Structures found in each lane that when destroyed permanently grant mega creeps to the team that destroyed it.
 * BB : Acronym of Bristleback or Buy Back status. If a teammate asks "do you have bb" they are asking "do you have buyback".
 * BD : Abbreviation for Backdooring. This is the act of teleporting or sneaking into the enemy base whilst the outer towers are down in order to take down the remaining buildings. See also Backdoor protection.
 * BKB : Acronym for Black King Bar, an item that grants magic immunity.
 * Bot or Bottom(Btm) : Refers to the bottom lane of the map. Bot can also mean a hero controlled by the AI.
 * BoT, BoTs: Abbreviations for Boots of Travel.
 * Bottle Crow : Giving the bottle to the courier, then sending it on a round trip back to base to refill the bottle and give it back to the owner. This keeps the player's HP/MP healthy, and they do not have to miss any exp/gold from lane refilling it themselves. Note that empty bottles will slow the courier by 30%, and the act of bottle crowing may hamper player's allies as they will find it harder to deliver their own items while the courier is making trips.
 * BRB : acronym of be right back
 * Buff : A beneficial spell or effect placed on a unit.
 * Burst or Burst Damage : Refers to a high amount of damage dealt over a short period of time. Usually involves Nukes


 * Cancer : Nickname for Phantom Lancer as he multiplies like cancer. Also known as Cancer Lancer.
 * Carry : A type of hero which can overpower the enemy team in the late game. These Heroes tend to scale very well with gold and experience, and thus require large sums of gold and exp in order to be successful.
 * Caster : Refers to a person who commentates on an on-going game. Like a sportscaster.
 * CC : Crowd Control. See Disable.
 * CD : Cooldown, or Captain's Draft.
 * Chicken or Chick : Refers to Animal Courier.
 * CK : Acronym of Chaos Knight.
 * CM : Acronym of Crystal Maiden or Captain's Mode.
 * Cooldown (CD) : A period of wait time before a spell, ability, or item power can be used again.
 * Crow : Refers to Flying Courier, which upgrades a walking courier. A player asking to "please crow it" is asking for someone to upgrade the courier.
 * CS : Abbreviation for Creep Score, the amount of last hits a player has, or the amount of last hits and denies a player has. In DotA 1, typing -cs would show the player' last hits and denies count.
 * CW : Abbreviation for Clockwerk.
 * DD : Rune of Double Damage.
 * Debuff : A detrimental spell of effect placed on a unit. Refers to the opposite of a Buff.
 * Deny : Killing your allied unit, hero or building, in order to prevent an enemy from gaining the gold and experience it gives. You can manually attack your own creeps if their health is below 50%, your own towers below if they are below 10%, and heroes affected by certain DoTs if they are below 25%. See Deny for more information.
 * Disable : A catch-all term referring to any spell, ability, or effect that otherwise prevents an enemy hero from moving, casting, and/or attacking, leaving them helpless for a short period of time or in general impeding their ability to act. See Disable for more information.
 * DoT : Damage over Time, generally abbreviated as DoT or "dot", refers to an applied effect that repeatedly inflicts damage at a regular interval for a specific duration. A classic example would be Venomancer's Poison Nova.
 * DP : Acronym for Death Prophet.
 * DPS : Acronym for damage per second, a measure of the damage dealt by a hero or unit over one second. Usually refers to heroes with consistent damage output over a period rather than heroes with high burst damage periodically.
 * Easy lane: See Safe Lane.
 * ES : Acronym of Earthshaker, Ember Spirit and Earth Spirit.
 * ET : Acronym for Elder Titan.
 * Exp : Experience, the resource used by heroes to gain levels, level skills, and otherwise increase in power over the course of a game.

F - J

 * Fade Time: The amount of time it takes for a unit to become completely invisible following the activating of an invisibility effect.
 * Farm or Farming : The process of steadily earning gold and experience by killing lane creeps and/or neutral creeps. This tactic is often slow and tedious, but is usually necessary for Carries to reach their full potential.
 * FB : Acronym for First Blood, the first kill of the game. The first blood kill grants 150g more than usual, which always comes out to be at least 359g.
 * Flash Farming : A style of farming when you farm your lane creeps until the enemy tower and then proceed to clear neutral creep camps in quick and efficient rotations. This is often the fastest method of farming, but it also allows the enemy to farm your creeps freely by their tower and can be risky, as being near the enemy tower is often an easy gank, or the enemy might know exactly where you are clearing the camp closest to the lane tanking creeps and losing health, etc.


 * Flash Farming Skill/Ability: An AoE ability that facilitates flash farming by allowing a hero to quickly clear lane creeps or groups of neutrals. The classic flash farming ability is Shadow Fiend's Shadowraze which allows him to mow down wave after wave of creeps with ease. It is common to hit lane creeps below threshold and then clear them all in one shot with the flash farming ability, and then go off to check rune, kill neutrals, etc.


 * FF : According to DotA history, "ff" appeared on DotA-League.com (at this time it was for DotA 1), and it means "forfeit". You had to type "-ff" in the game so it can detected and recorded by the dota-league plugin and save the data to your dota-league profile. Some new players get it wrong and think it means "Finish Fast", commonly mentioned when one team is being overwhelmed quickly, easily, and frequently by the enemy team, wanting the game to end as soon as possible.


 * Feeder : A player who "feeds" the enemy team gold and experience by getting killed frequently. Can be intentional, or can be unintentional.


 * Fog of War : Refers to the portion of the map that is dark and unseen. If you cannot see an area, then it is said to be "fogged". Most of the map is "fogged" by default, such as Roshan's lair, and the enemy base.


 * FoW : Acronym for Fog of War.


 * Fortification : The Glyph of Fortification is the button in the bottom right hand of the screen that renders all allied buildings invulnerable for 5 seconds on a 5 minute cooldown. If a player says "don't fort", they are telling the team to save the glyph for later. Towers are "fortified" for the 5 seconds that the glyph is active.


 * Gank : Abbreviation for Gang Kill, but over time the term has come to refer to any time a hero or group of heroes attempts to pick off an enemy hero (or enemy heroes) by surprise, but usually with superior forces (such as 2v1).
 * gg : "Good game". Said by either team when they are winning or losing and the match is close to ending, or when a team or a player gives up or claims victory. For example, both teams might say "gg" to congratulate each other after a hard fought match, or a team might call out "gg" after their ally abandons and they can no longer win.
 * ggwp : "Good game, well played". Used in similar fashion that "gg" is used, but also congratulates the enemy for skillfull play
 * glhf : "Good luck have fun". Usually said at the start of a game to encourage other players, or just to be courteous.
 * Hard Carry : A type of carry hero which scales incredibly well with items and requires a substantial amount of farm to be effective. Examples of this are Anti-Mage and Spectre. Hard carries are usually weaker than other semi-carry or non-carry heroes at the early-mid stages of the game, when they do not yet have their big items.
 * Hard Lane : The lane of either faction where the creep wave meets up furthest from the tower, making those who lane in it more susceptible to ganks (top lane for Radiant, bottom lane for Dire). See Lane.
 * HH : Initialism for the item Heaven's Halberd, which disarms enemies.


 * Jungling : The process of killing the neutral creeps in the woods between the lanes. Killing ancient creeps also counts as jungling, but is more often referred to as ancienting or "clearing ancients".


 * Jungler : A hero adept at clearing jungle camps from lvl 1, usually by some combination of: having some way to avoid or reduce damage to their hero, having some way to sustain their health, or having some AoE ability that clears the creeps faster than the creeps can clear them.

K - O

 * Kite or Kiting : See pulling. A technique where a hero gets the attention of a hostile unit to draw them away or force them to follow. Can also be used to refer to a period of repeated hit-and-run attacks where the target is kept out of range.
 * KotL : Ezalor, the Keeper of the Light.
 * KS : Either means "kill steal" or, usually jokingly, "kill secure". Firstly, it refers to the act of one Hero stealing the kill of another Hero who could have easily taken themselves. Secondly, it refers to when another Hero "secures" the kill if the carry or another Hero could not do so themselves. The latter meaning is also sometimes interchangeably used with the former meaning in a satirical or comedic way.
 * Long lane : See Hard Lane.
 * Lothars or Lothars Edge : Shadow Blade
 * Mid : The middle of the three lanes in the map.
 * Micro : Micromanagement. Refers to (effective) control and usage of multiple units, items, and abilities in quick succession. Bad micromanagement can result in the many units becoming a hindrance or a liability rather than an asset or ability combos being wasted and/or used in the wrong situations, while a good one can easily overpower an enemy in seconds. Meepo, Invoker, and Chen are good examples of Heroes who require good "micro".
 * Miss or MIA : Mentions that a particular Hero has gone missing and is probably setting up for a Gank, e.g. "Earthshaker mia" or "Earthshaker miss" means that Earthshaker isn't visible to the team. "MIA" is an acronym for "Missing In Action".
 * MKB : Initialism of Monkey King Bar.
 * Necro : May refer to Necrophos or the Necronomicon. Rarely used to refer to Visage, the Bound Form of Necro'lic.
 * Nuke : A spell whose purpose is to deal a large amount of damage immediately.
 * Offlane : See Hard Lane.
 * OOM : Out of mana, indication that you're unable to cast any more spells because you're out of mana.
 * Orb Walk : Using your Orb i.e. Frost Arrows, Searing Arrows, to harass the enemy while moving forward to gain distance on the target, also eliminating enemy creep aggro.

P - T

 * P : Abbreviation for Push or Pause. Players saying "p" means they are either suggesting the team to push an enemy lane or asking for a pause.
 * PP : Abbreviation for "Pause please".
 * PA : Initialism of Phantom Assassin.
 * Pet : A creature that a Hero can summon or convert to their side. For example, the Eidolons are an example of Enigma's pet.
 * PL : Initialism of Phantom Lancer.
 * PotM : Mirana, the Princess of the Moon.
 * Proc : Short for "Programmed Random Occurence". It refers to the triggering of effects, whether the occurence is random (such as Wraith King's critical strikes on  attack) or regular (such as Bristleback's quill spray every 250 damage he takes). When these effects trigger or "process", they are said to "proc". The rate of occurence for random effects is termed the "Proc rate".
 * Pull or Pulling: A technique where a hero gets the attention of a hostile unit to draw them away or force them to follow.


 * QoP : Initialism of Queen of Pain.
 * Rat : A strategy in which heroes avoid 5-man teamfights, and focus on pushing other lanes instead.
 * Rax : Abbreviation for Barracks.
 * Recrow : To reuse the courier after it has finished performing one of its deliveries/tasks. Since the courier can only perform one task for one player at a time, this is mentioned to remind/alert other players that the courier is now free to use.
 * Reuse : See Recrow, usually mentioned by Southeast Asian players.
 * Ricer : Hardcore farmer whose main goal is to be extremely strengthened by the time they come out of their farming.
 * Ro3 : See Roshan, usually mentioned by Chinese players.
 * Roamer : A hero who jumps between lanes, especially in the early game, in order to Gank enemy Heroes or defend allies.
 * Roshan or Rosh : Roshan is a difficult-to-kill neutral creep that drops the Aegis of the Immortal when killed. Spawns at the beginning of the game, respawns 8-11 minutes after it is killed.
 * RP : Reverse Polarity, Magnus' ultimate.
 * Safe lane : The lane of either faction, where the creep wave meets closest to the tower, making farming easier and less risky for those in the lane (bottom lane for Radiant, top lane for Dire). See Lane.
 * SB : Initialism of Spirit Breaker or Shadow Blade.
 * Silence : An ability that prevents the target from casting spells, but can still allows item usage.
 * Short lane: See Safe Lane.
 * SK : Abbreviation for Sand King, Skeleton King and/or Soul Keeper (the last two now called Wraith King and simply Terrorblade in Dota 2).
 * Skill shot : An ability that requires proper aim and timing to hit an enemy. Some examples would be Sacred Arrow and Powershot.
 * SnY : Initialism of Sange and Yasha.
 * Solo : Being the only hero on the lane. A player may call for "solo" to prevent other players from interrupting or farming in their lane.
 * SS : See miss. Mentions that a particular Hero has gone missing and is probably setting up for a Gank, e.g. "Earthshaker ss" means that Earthshaker isn't visible to the team. Also refers to the ultimate of a Hero ("special/super skill"), usually mentioned by Southeast Asian players. May also refer to Storm Spirit and shadow shaman
 * Stacking : A technique which allows several groups of neutral creeps to spawn at once.
 * Static Farming : A sub-type of farming where you aim to only kill enemy lane creeps when they have low hitpoints and deny the allied lane creeps whenever possible, with the goal of maintaining an equilibrium of the lane creeps in a safe position. This is often a slower method of farming, but allows you to farm safely with little risk of dying to a gank.
 * Suicide lane : See Hard Lane.
 * Summoner : A Hero whose primary function is summoning or controlling Pets.
 * Support : A Hero whose primary function is to help their own team through heals, buffs, and detection, or sabotaging the enemy team through disables, slows, or debuffs.


 * TA : Initialism of Templar Assassin.
 * Tank : A Hero that can take a lot of damage and abuse before dying. See also Durable.
 * TB : Initialism of Terrorblade.
 * Throw : Losing a match despite the losing team having a substantial lead at one point.
 * Throne : See Ancient. Remnant of WC3 DOTA in which the scourge's (dire) ancient is using The Frozen Throne model.
 * Top : Refers to the top lane of the map. For the Radiant, this is the lane to the North. For the Dire, this is the lane to the West.
 * TP : Teleport, can also be used as an initialism for Scroll of Town Portal.
 * True Sight: Anything invisible caught in the radius of True Sight will be revealed. Towers, a Gem of True Sight, Sentry Wards, Dust of Appearance, and some abilities of certain Heroes (like Slardar's Amplify Damage and Zeus' Lightning Bolt) all provide True Sight.

U - Z

 * Ulti: Abbreviation for Ultimate.
 * Wards: Items that can be placed almost anywhere on the map and provide vision around the location for 7 minutes.
 * Wipe : The act of an entire team dying at once. Also known as a teamwipe.
 * WD : Initialism for Witch Doctor.
 * wp : "Well Played". Usually said by either teams when they are winning or losing and the match is either about to end. Usually paired up with "gg".
 * WR : Initialism of Windranger.
 * WW : Initialism for Wind Walk (From DotA), which are abilities that grant mobile invisibility, and is sometimes generalized for enemies who gained invisibility overall (through runes, items, or buffs).