Fan Nickname / Final Fantasy XIV

Characters

• Blue Alisae/Red Alphinaud — Intentional misnaming of the twins as each other.
• Crystal Mom — Hydaelyn and by extension Venat, with several other variants, due to her motherly demeanor.
  • Crystal Jesus — Minfilia especially once she becomes the Word of the Mother.
• Emet — Emet-Selch, which persists even on this very wiki, despite him always being addressed with the full title in the game and his actual name being Hades.
• Dadcred — An affectionate nickname for Thancred, stemming from his father-daughter dynamic with Mini-filia.
  • Tankcred — A nickname for him specifically after he becomes a Gunbreaker.
  • Shankred — Because he was a Rogue before that.
• (Damn) Daniel — Shorthand for Fandaniel, with "Damn Daniel" derived from the memetic video of a guy getting excited over his friend Daniel's shoes.
  • Hermondaniel — A combination of Hermes, Amon, and Fandaniel, his previous and current lives.
• Derplander — The male midlander warrior used as a stand-in for the PC in trailers, promotional material, etc. Also sometimes called 'Meteor' (short for 'Meteor survivor')
• Greg — Hildibrand's Accidental Misnaming of Gilgamesh, which the XIV community has universally adopted, even spreading to other FF related games.
• Grumpyjumpy — And variants thereof, for Estinien Wyrmblood for his signature skill as a dragoon and his generally sour demeanor.
• Hash Browns — A pun on Hashmal from the Royal City of Rabanastre, and the fact that his skin tone is mostly brown.
• Luigi — Louhi from Eureka Pagos, due to the similar pronunciation.
• Maskhole — The unnamed Ascian who tries to kill you in the level 1-15 storyline.
• Math Blaster — Construct 7 from The Ridorana Lighthouse. This is due to a mechanic in the fight where the player's need to adjust their reduced HP to match Construct 7's instructions (divisible by 5, prime, etc), in order to gain a buff.
• Mini-filia — The young teen girl named Minfilia in Shadowbringers who is the sort of reincarnation of the original Minfilia. Also used as a spoiler-free nickname to refer to Ryne, prior to her Meaningful Rename.
• Pepsiman — Living Liquid, the boss in The Arm of the Father of the Alexander raid.
• Ser Charizard — Ser Charibert, due to it being a play off his name and the fact that he uses lots of fire magic during his boss fight.
• Sloppy/'Ol Sloppy — The Griffin, a.k.a. Ilberd, due to a particular taunt he uses frequently during his final boss fight.
• Uberdanger — Urianger, after Asmongold's nickname on his streams.

Races

• Slightly altering every FFXI race and giving them new names doesn't stop many fans from calling them Hume (Hyur), Elvaan (Elezen), Tarutaru (Lalafell), Mithra (Miqo'te) and Galka (Roegadyn). Though at this point, the game is so damn popular and has brought so many new players to the "Final Fantasy MMO scene" that a number of new players call the cat people in XI "Miqo'te" and the small folk "Lalas", which naturally drives XI veterans nutso. Hume is especially roundabout as it actually is the name of what we call Hyur in the First.
• Dragon girls/guys — The Au Ra, due to their scales, tails, and horns, even though they're technically not dragon people. Square was apparently expecting this one, since several Au Ra NPCs in Heavensward talk about how they've been mistaken for dragons and attacked by the Ishgardians.
• Giraffe — Elezen, because they have long necks.
• Mi'kitten — A Miqo'te child.
• Mooncat — A Keeper of the Moon Miqo'te.
• Ninja turtles — The Kojin, a race of humanoid turtles in the Stormblood expansion.
• Potatoes/Popotoes — A mostly-affectionate nickname for the Lalafell, due to their rotund shape.
• Suncat — A Seeker of the Sun Miqo'te.

Classes

• Angry Botanist — The Reaper, a Melee DPS introduced in Endwalker with a Sinister Scythe for a weapon, dubbed by the community for using the gathering class' secondary tool as a weapon. Humorously, the Job's lore revealed that the first Reapers were Botanists and farmers who used their farming tools and made pacts with Voidsent out of desperation to protect themselves from invaders.
• Blue DPS — A nickname for Tank classes that are known for cranking out damage comparable to DPS classes. Also sometimes refers to the offtank in a raid, whenever their tanking abilities aren't necessary.
• Glare Mage — The White Mage, who are particularly known for being the original Combat Medic. Could also pejoratively refer to WHM players that are neglectful of their healing duties.
• Green DPS — A nickname for Healers due to the game's emphasis on all classes dealing DPS regardless of their nominal role. Can also refer to specific jobs that are notorious for cranking out big damage in spite of their role.
• LOLDragoon, loldrg — Dragoons, who are infamous for constantly dying to avoidable damage, whether it's from the (since-patched out) animation lock from "Jump", or just the player being clumsy in general. Even Square Enix has embraced the LOLDRG meme: they created a 16-bit version of the Titan EX fight, in which the Dragoon dies almost immediately, and the Heavensward Dragoon job questline revolves around a Dragoon who gets herself in trouble by an ill-timed Jump letting her target drag her away to parts unknown.
• Rez Mage — The Red Mage, due to being one of the few non-healer classes that gets a resurrection ability (Summoner being the other one) and the Dualcast ability which allows them to cast said resurrection instantly. Unlike the commonly-used "Swift-Raise" combo, Dualcast isn't bound to a 60-second cooldown, allowing them to pick everyone back up at the drop of a hat (if their MP allows).
• Selfish DPS — DPS jobs that focus on personal damage rather than team support, like Black Mages and Samurai. Despite the name, it's a neutral description rather than a pejorative one - they pull their weight just as well as more support-oriented jobs, but you need to buff them for maximum performance (or just bring along another selfish DPS and compensate for the lack of party damage buffs with raw individual firepower) rather than expecting them to buff you.
• Support DPS — A DPS that has significant buffs or other utility abilities to help out the team, such as Dancer or Red Mage, at the expense of lower personal damage. As you might guess, they make excellent partners for selfish DPS jobs - a Black Mage with a Dancer cheerleading them is a force of nature.
• Unga bunga — The Warrior, due to having an easy to learn play style, and so many self-healing abilities that they almost don't need a healer while tanking. This led to the popular perception that a caveman can play as one with little issue.

Abilities

• Due to the amount of ability names with similar roles/effects/etc., players who play multiple jobs likely don't learn the name of the ability if the name itself is something more complicated than say "Fire II." They usually refer it to either the number in the sequence of their combo or by the ability's effect.
• BeneBolide — The dreaded situation where a White Mage may perform "Benediction"^note Heals target ally to 100% at the same time a Gunbreaker does their Superbolide, both a measure to keep the Gunbreaker from dying. However, due to lag and/or server ticks, sometimes the Benediction goes off first, leaving the Gunbreaker down to 1HP while the White Mage does a mad dash to heal them.
• Butt Wings — The Paladin's "Passage of Arms" skill, which from a certain point of view, makes it look like glowing wings have sprouted from their butt.
• Eat(ing) the fairy — The Scholar's "Dissipation" skill, due to temporarily banishing their fairy in exchange for Aetherflow stacks and boosted healing strength.
• Eno-chan — The Black Mage's Enochian trait.
• Flashbang — The White Mage spell Holy, which produces a bright flash and a distinct "bang" sound. The upgraded version, Holy III, is more subdued.
• Lilybell — Shorthand for the White Mage's "Liturgy of the Bell", taken from its shorter Media Tour name.
• Pepsi — The Sage's "Pepsis", due to its spelling being one letter off from the soda name.
• Stickers — Another name for the Samurai's Sen Gauge, which requires obtaining the "Sen" items via specific combos. Though this may apply to any DPS job that requires doing a specific combo to add a "point" to their gauge.
• Superbol — Shorthand for the Gunbreaker's "Superbolide" skill. Sometimes said short version is instead twisted into "Superbowl".
• SwiftRaise — The "Swiftcast" to "Raise" Combo, widely used to circumvent the long 8-second cast time of the game's reviving spells.

Mechanics

As a preface, mechanics tend to take on nicknames, since often times they have no name or future iterations of the mechanic play out the same, regardless of that instance's name for it. If the same or similar mechanic appears in a later fight, it usually has the name of the first or most popular instance that uses it.

• Akh Morns — Stack AoEs that hit multiple times.
• Akh Rai — An attack that leaves a repeating pulsing AoE where the player was standing, forcing the player to rapidly move away or take continuous damage.
• Chains, Tethers — A mechanic where two linked players have to run away from each other to "break" the line they're tied to or face dire consequences. Ironically, Ifrit, the one that introduced tethers, does this in reverse; straying too far from your tethered partner will make you take damage.
• Chariot/Dynamo — Mechanics that involve close circle AoEs for the former and donut-shaped ones for the latter.
• Comets, meteors — Stationary beacons appear that need to be destroyed. So named because there's meteor that's about to crash into the arena and will either do lots of damage or wipe the party if allowed to land.
• Danger Bongos — Sound Effect No. 6 ("<se.6>"), which is is a short bongo drum riff. Often used to alert players of upcoming mechanics.
• Dices/Dice/Acceleration Bombs — A debuff that makes a dice-like marker appear on top of the player that quickly counts down, forcing players to stop doing any actions (including movement) untill it goes off, else they explode for massive damage.
• Doritos — A mechanic where there's a red triangle pointing down at your character requiring you to stay close to another player with the same marker. Players may call this out saying "share the Doritos."
• Earthshakers, Protean Waves/Proteans — Any mechanic that requires spreading into a clock position to avoid massive damage, usually when the attack is a cone AoE from the boss.
• Enrage — The very last attack a boss will perform that invariably causes a Total Party Kill. Often telegraphed by an abnormally long cast time to give the party one last stretch to finish the fight.
• Enumeration — Small, circular AoEs that require an additional party member to split the damage, not unlike a stack marker. Named after Eden-Garuda's attack due to usually being a wind gust that sends the target flying if done incorrectly.
• Exaflares — Repeating attacks that move in a certain pattern.
• Flares — Attacks targeted on players that do proximity-based damage, usually (but not always) symbolized by a pulsing triangle shaped marker on top of said player.
• Limit Cut — Mechanics that involve numbered dot markers appearing on top of player to signify the order in which the enemy will attack.
• Mario Kart — Mechanics that involve players running circles around the arenas, as if running a lap in Mario Kart.
• Playstation — Mechanics that involve symbol markers appearing on top of players - which just so happen to be X, a square, a triangle and a circle, the button layout of a Playstation controller.
• Pity Buff — The Power of the Echo, a buff only available in certain fights that increases some stats by a certain percentage, unlocked by wiping your first couple of attempts.
• Pizza Cutters — A cone-shaped attack that has gaps in it, with the animation typically showing blades going the dangerous parts of the AOE.
• PVP Lasers — An attack that targets 1-3 players, followed by a wide straight line attack (typically a laser) that will hurt anyone caught in its path. These are most often tank busters, which will outright kill any non-tank player. Because they target a specific player, they can be used by Griefers to deliberately hit other players — it's rare for this to actually happen, but the prospect alone is funny enough to make it into the common perception.
• Pyretic/Freeze: Two mechanics that often come in pairs, with the former being a fire-themed debuff that makes players take massive amounts of damage-over-time if they do any actions within the debuff's span, while the latter will do massive damage and freeze players who aren't moving when the debuff timer goes off - notable for being one of the few mechanics that can be resolved by jumping.
• RP Walking — The act of walking. There's very little reason for players to switch to walking mode outside of roleplaying purposes, since Run, Don't Walk is in full effect.
• Shiva Circles — Circle AOEs dropped in succession around and in the center of the arena, named as such because Shiva is the first instance to use it. Ironically though, every other instance that uses Shiva Circles does it in reverse.
• Soccer: A particular mechanic in P9S, named this way because it involves the boss kicking around magical spheres that have to be intercepted by players standing in towers else it kills the entire party.
• Snapshotting — How the game registers players who are going to get hit by AOEs, which takes a snapshot of players that are still in the markers by the time the mechanic finishes casting, not when the actual animation plays. Players that technically get hit by the system but visually aren't in the AOEs are "snapshotted".
• Sweep the Leg — A 270 degree attack, where the safe spot is behind the boss. While Byakko isn't the first case of this (Shiva's Glass Dance preceded it), his Sweep the Leg attack is more iconic.
• Table Flip — Mountain Buster, an attack used by Titan whose animation looks like he's flipping an invisible table.
• Team jump rope — used to describe how most end game content is done where everyone in the party has to follow every scripted step in the battle in harmony with one another and anyone who screws up a step will likely cause the party to wipe.
• Tide Pod — Famfrit's "Dark Ewer" attack, where he launches pots that float above the arena, spouting water towards the ground. "Tide Pod" is actually the name of a tankbuster used at the same time, but the community uses this name for the pot attack instead, due to the "Tide Pod Challenge" debacle happening at the same time making this name more memorable.
• Towers — A thin obelisk is summoned that requires at least 1 player to stand near it or the whole party takes massive damage
• Venn diagrammed — Getting caught in two or more overlapping area of effect attacks (especially if said AoEs are circle-shaped), which is usually fatal for non-tanks even if you have full HP and no vulnerability stacks.

Locations

• Empy — The Empyreum, Ishgard's residential district.
• More Donuts — Mor Dhona, possibly due to how the original zone in 1.0 somewhat resembled a donut.
• Lisa Lomasa — Asmongold's mispronounciation of Limsa Lominsa, used as a joke name for the city.
• Weeb Housing — Shirogane, the only far eastern themed housing zone.

Instances

In general

• Raids follow a coded shorthand using a single letter and a number, owing to their long titles. They're usually defined by the first letter of the raid name, with the number referring to the instance as they appear in the series, with the -S suffix added to refer to the Savage version of the encounter, and sometimes -N for the Normal version. (e.g. Deltascape 1.0 to 4.0, from the Omega raid series, is O1-O4. Sigmascape 1.0 is O5, being the fifth instance of the series.) The sole exception to this naming convention is the Coils of Bahamut series, which uses T(Num) for Turn 1-13. Occasionally (mostly as a joke) players will refer to later raids as though they were all continuations of the Coils of Bahamut, resulting in, for example, Anabaseios: The Fourth Circle being called T61.
• Trials, typically formally named for where they take place, are more often referred to by the players by the boss fought there and the difficulty — e.g, "Ifrit Hard" instead of "The Bowl of Embers (Hard)".
• The three four-player primal trials from A Realm Reborn^note The Porta Decumana is excluded from this, despite also being a four-player trial played during A Realm Reborn, as it was designed and released during Endwalker and is part of the Main Scenario roulette rather than Leveling roulette, so it generally feels completely different from the other three. are occasionally referred to as "baby mode", since they appear only in the earliest parts of the game and are very easy.
• Ultimates utilize acronyms to shorthand the otherwise lengthy raid names, sometimes read as it is written.
  • UCoB — The Unending Coil of Bahamut.
  • UWU — Ultima Weapon Ultimate, better known as The Weapon's Refrain.
  • TEA — The Epic of Alexander.
  • DSR — Dragonsong's Reprise.
  • TOP — The Omega Protocol.
• Bard Mode — The Minstrel's Ballad trials, a play on "hard mode." The Wandering Minstrel unlocks the "Extreme" mode of Trials, which is the harder version of them (which confusingly, the normal version is called "hard mode")
• Door Boss — The first phase of a Savage Mode instance with two phases split by a checkpoint.
• Wall Boss — A boss that is confined to one side of the arena, and additionally lacks any positional requirements. This doesn't mean they're stationary, however, as some wall bosses can reposition themselves.

Specific instances

• Alwaysreap — Neverreap, due to spending a significant amount of time as one of two dungeons available in the Expert Roulette and earning a reputation for being randomly selected more often than it ought to be.
• Fun Scaith — Dun Scaith, thanks to its rather grueling gauntlet of boss fights and being potentially nastier than its predecessor. Unless you're really into that, where it becomes more literal.
• The Great Google Library — The Great Gubal Library. SE acknowledged this one; the quest to unlock the hard mode version of the dungeon is called "Let Me Gubal That for You."
• Jenga Tower — Heaven-on-High, a strange looking blocky tower overlooking the Ruby Sea that acts as the Stormblood equivalent of Palace of the Dead.
• Orbonnasty — The Orbonne Monastery, due the infamous difficulty it offers, and having a particularly nasty fight that demands coordination.
• Rabanasty — The Royal City of Rabanastre, for having a plethora of hard mechanics that players still mess up from time to time.
• The Ridorana Wipehouse/Ridoranasty — The Ridorana Lighthouse, for having several ruthless mechanics in comparison to Rabanastre.
• Piss — Anabaseios: The Fourth Circle (Savage), due to its more conventional nickname of P12S spelling out "piss."
• Puppy's Bunker — Another name for the 24-man raid The Puppet's Bunker.
• Wiping City of Mhach — The Weeping City of Mhach, for its sharp difficulty increase compared to its Void Ark predecessor.

Items/Minions/Mounts

• Birds/birbs — The Heavensward Lanners.
• Cats — The Endwalker lynxes.
• Doggos — The Stormblood Kamuy.
• Dragons — The Shadowbringers Gwibers.
• Pony / Ponies — The various elemental horses (Aithon, Gullfaxi, Xanthos, Nightmare, etc.) that drop from the A Realm Reborn Extreme mode Primals.
• Summoner dongs — The prominent horns featured on most high-end Summoner headgear. Many, many fandom in-jokes are based on treating it like a Gag Penis.
• Tin can (armor) — Derogatory term for a specific kind of heavy armor type that inescapably covers the PC completely in metal plate (face included) and is considered very ugly.

Strategies

• In general, for Savage/Extreme/Ultimate raid content, if multiple strategies for tackling a mechanic were developed, it'll be named something so that everyone can be on the same page as to how to execute it. The community tends to have fun with this, for example, in E12S, there's a strategy for positioning everyone during a part where rocks that explode fall on the arena called the "Dwayne strat", named after Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson because one of the most popular images depicting it◊ used his face as a Visual Pun for where the rocks will land.
• Allagan Rave — The strategy (before Unrestricted Party was a thing) of farming Turn 2 of the Binding Coil of Bahamut and ignoring mechanics by waiting 10 minutes for the (easy to outheal) enrage, due to all the blasting lights and waves the boss shot out while enraged.
• Boss Relative/True North — Something the party agrees upon when talking about which direction to apply formations to. Boss Relative means relative to where the boss is facing, so "left" means "left of where the boss is facing." This is used since most of the party is typically facing the same direction as the boss anyway; only the main tank is facing the opposite direction. True North is based on a fixed position, so there's no "left" or "right", but rather "west" or "east".
• Clock Positions — A formation where players spread out into cardinal and intercardinal directions, named as such for resembling the face of an analog clock.

Other

• The fishing community give nicknames to the most difficult and Guide Dang It! fish.
  • Egg — Ahm Araeng's Cinder Surprise, being a giant egg and requiring you to catch other eggs.
  • Salad — Il Mheg's Ealad Skaan, because nobody's gonna remember that and/or can't speak fae.
• (distraction) aggro — An alternate way to say "BRB", with a quick description of what's causing the player to get pulled away, akin to accidentally pulling a mob in a dungeon. e.g. Answering the door is "door aggro", cat wanting attention is "cat aggro", etc.
• Catgirls Online — The game itself (mostly on Tumblr), due to... well, the Miqo'te.
• Crowns — Mentors, due to their symbol. Can also be differentiated by type.
  • Sword crown — Battle mentor.
  • Hammer crown — Crafting mentor.
  • Big crown — Someone who is both.
  • Flag crown — PvP mentor.
  • Burger King crown — A pejorative term for a mentor who is arrogant or clearly doesn't know what they're talking about.
• DMV Portrait — The default standing, blue aether background portrait, which player portraits revert to if their equipment doesn't correctly reflect the portrait's gear settings. Named as such due to the neutral expressions used to take your photo for a driver's license or state ID.
• Double/Triple/Quadruple/etc. Legend — A player that has completed multiple Ultimate Trials, with the number signifying how many "Legend" titles they have.
• FGC (Fighting Game Community) Retirement Home — Due the Covid-19 Pandemic putting a stop to tournaments for a while, many members of the FGC found themselves looking for something else to play. FFXIV ended up catching on like wildfire within the community, and since then, many have made FFXIV their go-to game to play when they want to play something else besides a Fighting Game. It's so popular that, at a tournament in late 2021, the organizers rented out an extra room so that competitors could have a place to play the game between matches.
• Field Trip/Kindergarten/etc... — A dungeon party that is mostly Lalafell, especially if only one player is tall.
• Flowers — "Returners", who have been gone from the game for a while, get this symbol instead of the sprout.
• Greenleaf, sprout, sproutling — New players - though usually not noobs - called such due to the green sprout symbol that newly created characters have next to their names.
• Jump puzzle — The platforming courses in the overworld, signified by conspicuous wooden pegs in the world architecture.
• Mog Station (Store) — The original name for the FFXIV Online Store, which is a storefront that offers extra paid goods such as exclusive costumes, emotes, or level and story skips.
• Pokeball — The "disconnected" status icon represented by a red ring with a zigzag line through it. People compare this situation to a player struggling to break free from a Pokeball, with a complete disconnect making them "caught" by the ball.
• Sad Bomb — The "busy" status icon, which looks like a cartoon bomb with a sad face.
• Unsynced — Unrestricted Party, which allows you to tackle content with any number of party members at the level they currently are (within some limitations). Normally, the game would sync down your level to the instance's upper level limit.

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