Speaking "World of Warcraft" Trivia Quiz

Answer: They're looking for a damage-dealing player to join their group.

Many of "World of Warcraft"'s objectives are best satisfied in groups, from five-person dungeons like the Nexus to ten- or twenty-five-person raids like Naxxramas or Icecrown Citadel, so you'll often find other players seeking help! A singleton searching for an entire group might type "LFG" (looking for group); the leader of a mostly-formed group might try "LFM" (looking for more) to fill out the team. Such ads became rarer with the introduction of an automatic cross-realm group finder in Patch 3.3, but are still seen around Azeroth.

"DPS" (damage per second) describes the role the group wants you to fill. A five-person group usually includes one "tank" (to hold the enemies' attention and take damage), one "healer" (who uses magic to keep the group alive), and three DPS to deal out death to the foe.

Answer: The leader has marked an enemy with a skull symbol above its head. Attack that one first.

When your group is facing more than one computer-generated enemy (or "mob"), kill order is important. It's much more efficient for all three damage-dealers to focus their fire on one mob than it is for them to split their attention: the faster any mob dies, the lighter the burden on the tank and healer. And it's easier for the tank to hold the mobs' attention if she can predict when they'll be taking damage! Party leaders have a selection of "raid icons," symbols with which they can mark enemies according to their special abilities or position in the kill order.

It's a common instruction to take out the one marked with a skull first, followed by the one marked with an X.

Answer: An attack that affects all enemies within a certain area

AOE stands for "Area of Effect", the region influenced by the attack. The type of effect varies according to the class of the player. For example, a mage might choose an AOE attack that rains down fire or ice on the affected region. Hunters can send in a volley of arrows. Even feral druids can get in on the action by filling the area with their sharp, fast-moving claws.

The goal here is to do a lot of damage to a lot of enemies -- simultaneously. Good luck!

Answer: Crowd Control: it temporarily removes an enemy from the fight

None of the other three abilities exist in "World of Warcraft", but crowd control can be critical in complex fights. CC refers to any player ability that temporarily takes an enemy away from the battle, allowing the group to ignore it until they're more ready for it (usually after they've killed its companions). Telestra's purple clone is a good choice: if she isn't dealt with, she'll CC random players in the group!

Several classes have CC abilities. For example, priests can shackle undead enemies, warlocks can banish demon enemies to another plane, mages can transform humanoid enemies into sheep, and hunters can stop just about anybody with an ice trap. Most of these methods are broken if somebody attacks the enemy who's been CCed, though, and CC has proven less necessary in the "Wrath of the Lich King" expansion than in earlier releases of the game.

By the way, Grand Magus Telestra is the first boss in this run, but not in all Nexus runs: when the instance is run in Heroic mode (a more difficult version), an extra boss appears before her.

Answer: It's on CoolDown: the druid can't use the ability again until a timer expires.

Many amazing abilities have cooldowns, so that they can't just be used over and over: a player is supposed to consider carefully just when they should be used. Unfortunately, the druid used the battle resurrection spell during a fight with some ordinary enemies, and its cooldown timer is ten minutes! Boss fights usually last less than half of that time; how will you survive without a healer?

Answer: A wipe

Your leader calls it as the tank goes down: "It's a wipe". Now you'll all reappear as ghosts in the graveyard outside the instance; you must run back to the dungeon as ghosts, but you'll resurrect just inside the instance portal. When you reach the boss who defeated you, you'll find him restored to full health, ready to face you again.

Luckily, a wipe doesn't wipe the slate completely clean: the enemies you've killed in the instance will remain dead. Mostly.

Answer: An enemy who comes back to life some amount of time after having been killed

The world of "Warcraft" would quickly become a very dull (but very safe) place if dead enemies stayed dead. Instead, the enemy ranks are replenished via respawns: the computer decides that enough time has passed since an enemy's death, and a new monster pops into existence to replace the fallen foe. Dead dungeon bosses don't respawn (although the dungeons do reset so that you can run them again), but their minions do -- and it can get very hairy if they respawn where you aren't expecting them.

Your leader needn't worry too much, though: respawns don't usually become an issue unless there have been several wipes to delay things, not just one.

Answer: The tank player holds the boss's attention while the group dishes out damage.

A tank is a toon whose gear and abilities are chosen for endurance (lots of armor and lots of health, mostly) and threat (which comes mainly from special abilities). The most "threat"ening character is the one who will bear the brunt of the boss's attacks.

A tank-and-spank is the simplest mechanic for a fight: each member of the team focuses on only one task. Make sure you do keep close in, though: Ormorok sends painful spikes shooting up out of the ground in the areas far from himself, and these can quickly make the fight more complicated!

Answer: Bind On Equip: it can be transferred to another player

Disenchanting an item means destroying it to extract its magical essence, which is sometimes more valuable than the item itself. If you're stuck with a BOP (Bind On Pick-up) item that you don't want, your options are limited: you can disenchant it (if your character has the enchanting ability) or sell it to a non-player vendor for some in-game gold.

But a BOE item can pass freely from character to character and player to player, until it "sticks" to the first character to equip it (put it on). That rare piece of gear might be worth lots of in-game gold: the lucky player who wins it will likely post it for sale on the AH (Auction House).

Answer: A player who takes loot he or she is not entitled to

Ideally, the goodies from an instance run should be distributed fairly among the players who participated. Many groups seek to achieve this via the "group loot" option, which automatically gives everybody a dice roll on rare items and even gives precedence to players who say they will use the item. (This is called "need before greed.") However, there are always ways to game the system and give yourself an unfair advantage, especially if you're the group leader or you're conspiring with other group members. Nobody likes a ninja; play fair and square, and remember that there will always be other chances at the loot.