I’ve been told in several posts in the past that I have a nasty habit of letting the acronyms fly without properly introducing or defining them first. This is unfortunate, because in my day job (as an editor) it’s a hard-and-fast, iron-clad, golden rule that if you use an acronym it absolutely must be defined at first mention. Clearly, I have betrayed my craft. To atone, I offer up the following glossary.

969

Refers to our 969 threat rotation, weaving abilities with 6-second cooldowns in with abilities that have 9/12/15-second cooldowns. I give a brief description of the rotation in this post.

AD

Ardent Defender. One of our two cooldowns, though passive. According to the Tanking Forums, it’s as overpowered as the day is long.

AS

Avenger’s Shield. It is considered good taste to macro “/yell CAPTAIN AMERICA HOOOO” to this ability.

Bubblewall

Divine Protection. Our main cooldown.

BV

Block Value. This stat (while being axed in Cataclysm) governs two things: (1) how much damage Shield of Righteousness does, and (2) how much damage a successful block ignores. Thanks to a Paladin’s ability to be unhittable, BV can be considered effective health for us.

DivSac

Divine Sacrifice. Great tool for raids, and it’s especially fun to watch Blizzard flail around and attempt to balance this.

DP

Divine Plea. It is considered a form of art to keep this ability refreshing as much as possible, leading to successive chain pulls that would any healer weep.

DR

Diminishing Returns. Our avoidance stats suffer a diminishing, er, return, on their ratings as ratings increase. For example, 1 point of dodge or parry rating provides more actual dodge or parry percentage when those stats are low, but once you can more and more of them, the ratings to percents return plummets. Block Rating, however, does not suffer from DR.

DS

Divine Shield. Do not use while tanking, it will make you drop aggro.

DUH

A term coined by Theck of Maintankadin to encapsulate the classification of Demon, Undead, Humanoid, and Elemental mobs that we gain 6% extra damage against when specced into Crusade.

EH

Effective Health. Unfortunately, the be-all and end-all of tanking. Your effective health is how much damage you must take before you finally die. This is usually understood to be your total HP, mitigated by your armor, and for Pallies we also calculate an additional 20% damage reduction into the last 35% of our HP thanks to Ardent Defender.

Ex

Exorcism. For one brief moment in time this spell was usable on all mobs and was instant. It was glorious.

HotR

Hammer of the Righteous. Our 51-point talent, a holy cleave. Will only chain to hit targets in front of you.

HoW

Hammer of Wrath. Go ahead, run away from us at 20%, I dare ya.

hp5

Health per 5 seconds. Not a tanking stat. Reportedly, nothing can be done about this.

HS

Holy Shield. Thanks to this little gem of a spell, we can easily hit unhittability and stay there as long as this doesn’t drop off.

HW

Holy Wrath. Had its time in the spotlight back in Naxx thanks to all the piles of undead trash. Very useful for interrupting Nerubian Burrower adds during the Anub’arak raid encounter.

LoH

Lay on Hands. Used to have a 1-hour cooldown, now it’s 15 minutes glyphed, or 11 minutes glyphed and talented. Also known as our 1-up.

PoJ

Pursuit of Justice. One of the must-have Ret talents.

Reck

Hand of Reckoning. A great pulling tool or threat ability that’s off the GCD. Use it whenever a boss turns away from you to do some raid attack.

Sanc

Blessing of Sanctuary. How long until the damage reduction effect is just talented on to Blessing of Kings? In the meantime, enjoy the rollercoaster ride as Blizzard continues to retool this buff.

ShoR

Shield of Righteousness. Our best single-target attack. Damage is increased by 100% of our BV (up to 34.5 times our level). Use this spell to reliably rip aggro off another tank.

Stam (or, STA)

Stamina. Our most important stat. Hoard as much of this as you can and never let go.

STR

Strength. Gives us Block Value. Makes us big and strong.