In game, you can find me as Shadd. Feel free to ask me any question related to the game, or just toss it in the HELP channel and someone will be able to help you. Feel free to leave any feedback about the guide as a comment here.

One of the most important thing you need to know to save some precious seconds, and THE most important thing if you play a healer, is to know how to selfcast (casting something on/at oneself).
If you cast a target-point or target-ally spell such as a heal or Alchemist's Barrier while holding the Shift key, it will be automatically cast on yourself regardless of the position of your cursor.
The abilities that are affected by Shift casting are:
- Heals
- Shields
- AoEs
- Target ally abilities
- Target point abilities
You should ALWAYS use the Shift key to selfcast things instead of aiming at yourself, otherwise you'll lose time, vision on the fight and accuracy, as you'll have to aim to your target again before being able to shoot at it.
As for the dynamic camera, it will take some time for you to get used to it, but it will be worth the effort and you'll come to a point where you selfcast with shift and don't even notice you're doing so.

Also known as "LMB" or "m1". This is the most important ability of your character, and it's the only one having a very short cooldown (except for healers and very few other exceptions, for which RMB has a short cooldown also).
This is the main damage source of your bloodline; if you read the chart at the end of a match, you'll notice that if you played good enough, most of the damage will be out of this ability (and it will be considerably higher than your ultimate's damage, too!).
If your m1 is a ranged projectile, you should continuously shoot it as long as you have enemies in sight and you don't have to dodge something. Try to land as much of those as you can, but hitting it is not vital when you're out of range: by the simple fact that you're continuously shooting, you'll keep your enemies at a distance, and you can direct their movements in order to flank them.
Ranged m1 abilities usually have side effects too; some of those stack up (like Gunner's), so it's always better to land as many hits as possible, and to land them often in order to keep those stacks up. Other side effects can be situational, like Igniter's which refreshes Ignite and is thus best if hit on enemies when that debuff is on them, or Nomad's, which can pierce targets and thus gives its best when used on opponents that are lined up.
Even if you're a healer, hitting m1s is vital. The fact that you're an healer doesn't mean you shouldn't deal damage; in fact, many inexperienced players feel safe by being near enemy healers when low on health, and get killed by those very healers! Some healers, like Bloodpriest or Astronomer, REQUIRE you to land m1 attacks in order to be effective on the battlefield; others, like Herald or Alchemist, use them to maximize the punishment when successfully defending. In short, if you're a healer, land m1s any time you have nothing else to do, or when you feel using m1 will be more effective than doing something else.
If your m1 is a melee attack, you should use it as your main source for damage, and all your other abilities (in case of melee bloodlines) or the majority of them (in case of other melee classes like melee healers or tanks) are used to reach melee range, defend yourself or make your melee attacks more effective: they're not your main source of damage.

Energy is an important part of BLC gameplay, hence you should learn energy management as soon as possible. The EX abilities are vital to accomplish different objectives that saving up energy for an ultimate could preclude you.
So are ultimates useless? No they aren't, but they're not always the best choice. Depending on the bloodline, the EX abilities can have very different effects, such as giving mobility, survivability, burst potential, aid to allies, crowd control and so on.
So to sum it up: read your EXes, know them and don't hesitate one moment to use them if they could be useful.
Same states for medallions, although those are the same for all the bloodlines.
Crimson medallions can be very useful to improve a burst or stop the enemy's drawback, or some times, they can also be a wonderful defence resource, especially if you're a healer. You can chain a meteor to a burst to maximize the output or finish an opponent, or even use it to make the enemy knockback towards you. You can use a dispel to dispel a transition such as Harb's or Pomp's R and keep up the offensive.
Cobalt medallions often represent the line between life and death, as they can easily turn situations around. A good use of a Sergan Shield when trying to flee towards the healer as opposed to not using it can often mean you're able to survive a killing blow long enough to be healed, or you could use it when exchanging m1 blows and gain a big advantage. A Teleport can save you from a big burst or even an ultimate, and a Breakstone can dispel a long time CC, countering your enemies when they expect you to be stuck somewhere else.
So learn to use them and don't forget you have them, and again, don't hesitate. Ultimates are not always the right choice.

Escapes are really important abilities, and having those on cooldown can mean your death, so save them for when you have no other choice. Use your single target CCs (this ability usually is on the E, expecially for healers and rangeds) first, if your opponent is a single one, and don't flee right away: don't chain your outs as this would make them all unusable at the same time. Instead, take advantage of the CC you've used to deal some damage and counter the opponent's offensive.
If using your single target CC wouldn't make you safe to counter, don't waste it, and use your global escape (usually Space key) instead, but only do this if fighting would put you at a disadvantage.
Remember that if you have a healer's support and your opponent hasn't, you're at a great advantage and could as well wait a bit before fleeing. For example you usully flee from an harb as a gunner, but if your Alche just put a barrier on you, you can safely shot the harb a bit until the protection goes out.
Use the situation at your advantage, keep your cool and don't panic.
Some bloodlines, like most ranged class, have powerful long cast time ability that are usually placed on m2 (other examples are Herald's or Harbinger's E). If you can, connect them after a CC (for example, it's easier for an Igni to cast an m2 after a Q, whether it hits or not) to buy some time for casting. Cast them only when you're safe, as casting these in melee range will probably get you more damage than the one you're trying to deal, and you could always miss!
Another important thing is to wait for trances. Some bloodlines have a trance ability that can turn the situation around if you're careless enough to hit it. If you know your opponent has a trance ability, juke it first by interrupting your cast (default is T key) and cast the real thing only when you're sure he'll not be able to trance your ability.
When to cast long CCs (like Engineer's m2 or Astronomer's Q) then, and on whom? Aim long duration CCs to the targets that your team is not dealing damage to, preferably healers, as this will allow you to be in a 3v2 situation for a (relatively) short amount of time.

Some abilities and ultimates don't deal all of their effects instantly when they hit: some explode after a while, and people are often confused by how those work and end up suffering the worse possible consequences or even spreading their effects to their teammates.
Some abilities of the kind are:
- Harbinger's Affliction, which spreads the effect after 1 second if teammates are nearby.
- Stalker's Black Dagger, which deals aoe damage to the teammates nearby when you get out of the effect.
- Alchemist's Deadly injection, which spreads aoe damage and a weaken debuff when it explodes.
- Metal Warden, Ranid Assassin and Seeker's ultimates, which explode after a while, dealing aoe damage.
But there also are positive delayed effect abilities, such as:
- Vanguard Taunt's buff Blood Fury, which replenishes some of the damage taken during the duration.
- Psychopomp's The Other Side, which heals nearby teammates aoe when the effect ends.
All of these abilities effects could be mitigated or improved depending on how the player who is affected by them behaves; most of the time the things to do are obvious given one knows what the effects are: if you are hit by Black dagger or Ranid's Ultimate you just avoid being near your teammates when the effect ends, quite the opposite if you're affected by The Other Side.
Some of those abilities though, have more subtle ways of countering their effects, namely the delayed explosion ones. Those are the abilities which affect individual bloodlines rather than the field - examples are the above mentioned Alchemist's Deadly injection and Ranid and Seeker ultimates.
There are a lot of ways to counter their explosion: if you are struck by those, keep your invulnerability/shield/dispel abilities ready to be cast at the right moment (decide, for example, if you want to dispel the damage or the weaken effect from Deadly injection, i.e. if you want to dispel the effect before or after it explodes).
There also are other means of neutralising those exploding effects: those do not deal damage if you're not on ground level, so being immaterial or flying you will avoid most of the damage, provided your timing is right. You can for example avoid both the damage and the weaken from deadly injection by using Vanguard's Leap Attack and being in air during the explosion; you'll still get the weaken effect if you shield yourself from the explosion using The Other Side, though.
Some of the opponent's abilities can be used to your advantage, if they are stupid enough to throw those at you at the wrong moment: if Ranid's ultimate is about to explode on you and an enemy Stalker or Nomad casts his Black Dagger or Tornado on you, he'll basically save your life!
Harder to use, but still effective, ways of countering those explosions are quick warps, such as Stalker's Deviate or trances such as Spearmaster's, Inhibitor's or Astronomer's, even though the latter ones also require a good timing in intercepting your enemies' attacks.
Finally, when it comes to using these abilities rather than countering them on yourself, just make sure of what your objective is: if you want to bait their outs (f.e. hitting a Deadly injection on an Engineer will make him waste his main out if he wants to avoid all the effects) or actually make the effects take place entirely. The latter case is probably what you want to do if you're using your ultimate as Seeker or Ranid Assassin; to make sure the opponents do not avoid the effects by jumping or having a Barrier on them, you have to wait for the right moment to cast the ultimate: watch your target closely and wait for them to use their outs: using the ultimate on a barriered Alchemist will mean the barrier will be off and on cooldown by the time the ultimate explodes; using it on a Reaver that just jumped will mean he won't be able to jump and avoid the damage by the time the ultimate explodes.
Even if they manage to avoid the effects that way, they wasted abilities and even energy to do that, so if you manage to catch them just after they do that, they'll not be able to react as usual and won't be able to flee.

(credits to Drakir)
Whenever you use an ability, it goes on cooldown; not everybody knows, though, that all of your other abilities go on a 0.30 second global cooldown too (some abilities are exceptions, this is listed in their advanced tooltips). You are already accustomed to waiting small intervals between abilities if you’ve ever played the game, but knowing this mechanic and how to use it will help tighten your combos and let you spend less time in M1 cooldown.
There are two interactions with global cooldown that are worth learning. The first is when you use an ability that transports you (teleports, dashes) or has channelling time (many ultimates, igniter’s M2, many defenses, but not long cast time abilities like execute). When you use these abilities, the global cooldown goes away while you travel/channel, so you can use a new ability as soon as you finish casting them! Hold down the next skill you want to use so it is cast instantly.
The second technique, attack weaving, works because global cooldown is shorter than most M1 cooldowns. For example, as a Seeker, casting M1 -> E -> M1 is faster than casting E -> M1 -> M1, because the delay between his M1 and the next M1 is 0.5 seconds, but the delay between using two different abilities is only 0.3 seconds.
This might seem insignificant, but in this game 0.20 seconds are a big deal, especially since they stack up over longer attack chains. A gunner with full focus stacks will perform the M1 -> E -> M1 -> ex M2 -> M1 combo 0.6 seconds faster than the E -> ex M2 -> M1 -> M1 -> M1 combo, almost giving you an extra M1 hit!
Healers that alternate between M1 and M2 benefit from this too, but Inhibitor doesn't (because m1 also sets m2 on cooldown and vice-versa).
Don’t give up good positioning, dodging or cooldown management to weave, but when none of those are vital, attack weaving will give you that extra edge.

You happen to see things hit you but you can't see from whence they did come, right? To fix this, activate the so called "dynamic camera" by pressing your mouse wheel. This way, the camera will follow your pointer instead of being fixed on your character.
It could feel dizzy and confusing at first, but this is the ONLY way to be able to see the whole battlefield properly, and once mastered you'll surely never get back to fixed camera again. This is worth learning and is one of the basics to follow in order to get actually better and properly make use of one's skills: you can't aim if you can't see, right?

Positioning is one of the most important factors in the whole game. The most important tip, that you should never forget, is never stand still. Always move when you can; that is, keep your WASDing keys pressed even during cast times, this way you'll start moving right away when the cast is finished. Never forget this, as anything that doesn't hit you is a step further to having an advantage over your opponent, and that means you are a step further toward victory.
But this is not enough: being moving always is good, but you should also care where you're going.
If you're fleeing from the enemy because you're taking a lot of damage, remember two vital things:
1. don't stop attacking. If you face your back to the enemy, you'll get significantly more damage, so this will get worse. If you, instead, keep landing m1s as you move away, your opponent will also have to care for his health, instead of being carefree on hitting you with a quite trolly trollface on. Of course, if you can, get rid of the opponent with a CC or an out.
2. flee towards your healer and your allies in general. Don't flee in a random far location, as this would be like inviting your opponent to a party: if he's at an advantage on you, and you flee where you two will be alone, you'll still be at a disadvantage, but nothing and no one will be able to rescue you.
Instead, flee towards your healer so he will be able to heal you while you respond to the damage and turn the situation upside down. He will also be able to use his CC abilities to defend you if needed. Even other allies can help you: dpses can supply additional damage overturning the advantage in your favour, and tanks can deal damage while spacing opponent's attention to them, meaning your saving at the only cost of your opponent's punishment.
If you're the healer always try to form a triangle with your allies, as this will mean you can have all their support if needed, and you will also be able to heal both of them easily. You should always have a clear vision over the battlefield and your allies, although if they overextend, it's their fault, and you should only follow them as long as this doesn't represent a risk for you.
Never face your back when dodging, as damage is increased when dealt at your back. To dodge, follow a diagonal and unpredictable line; never dodge getting straight backwards nor following a straight line unless you're dodging an AoE (in which case following a straight line will allow you to travel for a longer distance in a shorter time span). To better dodge projectiles coming from afar, try to go out of their range, as you cannot know or counter the opponent's actual aiming skill (you'll get better the more projectile's range you get to memorize). Remember aiming requires much more precision the nearer the target is, thus WASD dodging becomes easier at closer distances, while outrange dodging is the only safe dodging at higher distances.

LoS (line of sight: check the glossary) is a very important matter especially when it comes to healing and being healed. Many players, especially melees and tanks, often die because they don't receive many heals - the fault of this is often brought on the healer alone. That's absolutely WRONG to do.
Healers, in respect of other characters, have a very frenetic action - they can't stand half a second doing nothing or they're giving up a great advantage to the opposing team. They have to deal with healing three people avoiding they're health to drop below the recovery line, they have to deal with a lot of attackers, avoid many CCs and in some comps and situations, they also have to support team bursts or the team damage won't suffice to win.
Thus, they absolutely CAN'T and SHOULDN'T spend ANY time following the teammates to heal them. Basically, if you're out of your healer's range/LoS or he can't heal you because you're attacking instead of helping him take care of hist focusers or CCs, it's YOUR fault if you die.
I always suggest to play healers a bit in order to know how their life is from their point of view. Knowing how to make your healer's job less challenging will help you help them, thus you'll survive more and win more games.
The gold rules are:
- Don't overextend; don't look at your opponent only, expecting to receive heals whenever you get damaged: instead keep yourself between your healer and your target - the best situation is when you manage to form a triangle with your teammates, with your healer on the most backward angle, although this may change depending on what your healer is in particular.
- When you're not under heavy pressure and even when so if you manage, take a look at your allies health, BOTH of them. This way you can see if your healer needs to spread his heals a lot or if he can safely heal you alone. If necessary, relieve his healing pressure by playing safe; if you're a tank, you can also use your heals to do so - your healer will be very grateful for this.
- Don't let your healer be alone when needed. Support him and keep him safe whenever you can. In 2v3 situations, you have a greater chance to turn the tide if you have an healer on your side, so do anything to keep him alive. Sometimes it's more useful to die letting your healer and the other teammate alive rather than doing anything to stay alive yourself endangering your team as a whole. Remember, you're a team, you're not solo even when you play solo queue.
- Last, don't let your healer be the only one to deal with bursts. If the opponents burst your team, being the healer, yourself or the other teammate, don't blindly keep your offensive up - instead, help the team by trying to stop the burst; this way you'll have a chance for your healer to have to heal less, so your team will lose less energy and you'll also be able to unleash a counterattack right away.

Most of the healer-inherent stuff has been already covered in the relative tip, this one focuses on general things to think about to play as a team, which is what brings victory as opposed to playing on your own.
First off, don't go all by yourself. The worst consequence will be finding yourself 3v1 or 2v1, which is of course bad and you're very very unlikely to accomplish anything decent versus equally skilled opponents. The best situation will instead be a 1v1. Which is bad, since ideally you'll have a 50-50 chance; needless to say, this is NOT enough, especially if you can have better.
Sum: never fight alone; even 1v1s are bad (there are exceptions); be where your team is (without hugging them).
By being with your team, you can take advantage of their abilities to land yours, and obviously the other way around. Don't shoot randomly though: it's best to follow CCs with things harder to hit since the hit will be granted or almost so. The damage you deal will mostly go at waste if it will be healed back: don't keep hitting a bloodpriest just because he's fat if you're the only one doing so: he'll heal back most or all the damage and will probably get some damage back on you. Instead, throw a CC (preferably an incap or weaken) and focus the damage elsewhere.
Sums: synergize with your team; don't keep damage on target that's aren't taking any (exceptions note here too); CC unfocused targets.
About the exceptions, both the don't do 1v1 and don't damage a target that's healing back converge in the same situation: when you want to keep someone busy. Depending on your role you may for example want to keep an alchemist busy while your teammates (healer + dps perhaps) beat the crap out of the other two opponents, who are thus left with no heals and despite being 2v2 are at a general disadvantage. Keeping an opponent busy shouldn't though be a full time job, since it would keep you busy as well. Take advantage of abilities like throws, especially combined with slows (ravener's E is a good example), long incaps (seeker's EX2, engineer's m2) and weakens (vanguard's Q, astro's m1); this last one is especially good when you and your target aren't far from the battle focus point, where for example an healer could still be in range for heals on his teammates; in this situation, blinds (ranid's R, bloodpriest's E) are useful as well. On a final note, when distracting an opponent, what you ideally want to do is preventing him from aiding the team, dealing him as much damage as possible (despite you're focus is not on bringing him down), and be able to aid your team as well. That's why there are goods and bads out of playing far or near your team; it is generally safer to do that near your team though, so they can hopefully react to an eventual counterattack from the target.
Finally, some kind of tanks are particularly good at keeping an opponent, especially an healer, busy thanks to their annoying control->focus abilities or CCs; examples are vanguard and thorn, while other tanks like metal warden and guardian focus on damage and are mostly good when fighting in aid of a teammate. As for tanks, melees like reaver and ranid are especially good at distracting as well; rangeds on the other hand can usually switch between the position, being though more vulnerable to counterattacks. Even some healers can be good at keeping an opponent busy before switching to the team's position again: a clear example is astro.

Of course, aiming is one of the most important things in BLC, and it's what makes it skill based; so aim well and you're doing half the job. With time, you'll acquire this anyway, but if you consciously try to learn it, you'll get it faster: when aiming, don't shoot where your target is; aim for where he's going instead; learn to calculate the right aiming point considering your projectile travel speed (called Velocity in the tooltips; you'll anyway get used to velocity with practice), the opponent's movement speed (the more fast he is, the farther from its current position you'll have to aim), and finally learn to predict how/where will he dodge (this will come with experience also, and will allow you to hit targets even while you're blind!).
The perspective can be tricky: if you shoot in a line in direction east or west you'll notice the projectile doesn't actually travel to the pointer, rather a bit higher than it. Take this into consideration: the nearer the pointer is to a 90° angle with your visual, the more higher than the actual pointer the projectile will go; from zero (accurate precision) on straight up and down, to one whole "cursor" higher at the east and west directions. A good trick to get rid of this issue is to aim at your opponent's feet, rather than their whole body.
Oh, another tip: if you can, shot to the opponent's back, as this will deal 20% more damage.
About aiming AoEs, you should always consider, as with projectiles, your opponent's movement. Most of these abilities don't need direct sight over the targeted area, so you'll benefit a lot by learning to predict enemy movements when you'll be trying to hit targets out of direct sight. These abilities are not only useful if they hit: in fact, you can also use them to restrain an opponent from going in a certain place, or to force them to move away from somewhere: imagine an healer that's carefreely healing around his party: if you put an AoE under his feet, he has to move along to dodge it, and during this time he will not be able to heal. This also counts for long cast time abilities like execute or shadowbolt, or abilities that slow the caster's movement speed during cast time, like Headhunter's ultimate. FInally, if you're using them to defend yourself from a melee attacker, make sure you can flee towards and through the AoE, so that to pursue you, the opponent has to either get hit by the AoE, or take more time, giving you time to think, recover cooldowns, and defend yourself or counterattack.
As you can see, these AoEs are really useful, so don't waste them and use them only when you can take advantage of the above mentioned effects.

Assisting new players, I often see people who get their ultimates as well as big burst & long cast time abilities (executes, shadowbolts...) neutralized or interrupted very often, by means of a simple button press from the opponent. But how to avoid this happening? How to cast a shadowbolt/execute/ultimate without people messing around with it?
This simply ends up in two key concepts of the BLC gameplay: baiting and waiting.
About waiting, it consists in the simple practise of waiting for the opponents to use the abilities that could mess with your ability, before landing yours. For example, if you want to land an execute on a spearmaster as gunner, you're better wait for him to use at least his trance and his spacebar, or you're hardly going to hit him at all. When to think about waiting certain abilities? Do that when you choose your target for your ability; with practice, you'll become more precise about knowing when your ability is about to become available from cooldown, and about being conscious of opponent's CDs.
Especially if your m1 is a ranged one, don't go idle when you're waiting for your cooldown or the opponent's one. Land m1s and controls during that time; that could also help you forcing the opponent to use his outs (= the abilities you want him to have on cd when you land your stuff), which brings us to the next topic:
Baiting. Baiting is the act of faking a cast time or a move in order to force the opponent to use a certain ability. For example, casting execute versus the above mentioned spearmaster, but interrupting the cast time just a moment before the blastoff, he will most likely be decieved into casting his trance. Then you can start casting again and hit him while he cannot trance you any more. This also works with other kind of outs and abilities, like teleports, reflects and so on. Use this technique at your advantage.
Last word on the topic is about channeling ultimates and abilities, such as any beam or multi projectile abilities like ranid's m2 or engineer or inhibitor ultimates, and so on. These abilities can be interrupted; this means that before landing them you should not only be aware of the trances's cds of the opponents (if your ability is tranceable, so this doesn't count for beams), but also for interrupt abilities (stuns, incaps and the such). For example, don't cast an inhibitor ultimate on a thorn even if he already used his shield, because he can still land an E or a spacebar at you, interrupting your channeling right away. If you're sure he can't interrupt you, then cast the ultimate. Also, only a very few amount of channeling abilities can be cast while moving. If your ability isn't one of those, you should consider the range before landing it. Even if your most hated harbinger already used his spacebar, m2 and R, you can't cast your astro ultimate if he's barely in range, can you? Don't be eager, just wait for the right moment and while you do so, create the optimal conditions by isolating your target, baiting the abilities, and getting a good position.

A common practice in lower tiers is to focus the healer: that's not always a good idea. A focus is an hard thing to do well, and you'll often find that when you try to focus someone, you end up not being able to hit the target more than a few times before you succumb to the opponents' hits.
Then what should I do? That's simple: don't focus. Many bloodlines, especially tanks and some melees, have "starters", i.e. abilities that are good to start the game offensive with (see the above glossary for Starter and Pull); those are the best moves to start a game, as they permit you to put an opponent into a very dangerous situation without any or much risk. If your team doesn't have any of these starters or you missed your chance, you should remain defensive using your ranged attacks to try and hold the map centre, waiting for an opponent to overextend. Remember that the main objective is surviving until the end, so you should never take any unnecessary risk.
Back to whom to focus, as said, this is situational. There never is a bloodline that's always good to focus first, independently on how fragile it seems to be. When attacking, a single target shouldn't be focused by the whole team for a long period of time, as this will allow the other two members of the opponent's team to act freely.
Always attack the opponent that's less risky to attack, and coordinate with your team to pressure the healer in order to reduce the recovery possibilities of the target to the minimum.
Don't be hasty to kill an opponent, as any offensive can suffer a counter offensive if you don't know when to stop. Every single damage point dealt under the recovery health of a target is unrecoverable, so your goal is to deal as much of damage in this way, while suffering the least as possible in return.
If you see that an opponent is now receiving a lot of support, heals and cc help from the team, stop attacking him as this would never help you. Instead, switch targets to a more vulnerable one before you suffer too much damage and are forced to retreat. For example an enemy seeker is taking a lot of damage, but suddenly the alchemist puts a barrier on him and it lasted enough time for him to recover his trance's CD: throw a CC on him and switch on the alchemist, as she hasn't the best defence (the barrier) at her disposal any more, and is thus vulnerable the most.

You should always know your enemy, as in what their bloodlines are and what do their abilities do. This is especially true for bloodlines who have a trance or a reflect ability, but every ability has some defensive tools, and knowing what your opponents can throw at you is thus vital to know how to use them to survive at best.
How to accomplish this though? Simple, play as many bloodlines as you can before choosing your main. Pick Random, try out the bloodlines you've never played yet whenever you've got the chance to, and make sure you know what the abilities do, how dangerous each of them is, and what could be the ways to avoid/counter them.
Some bloodlines may seem really hard to play against; for instance, ranids are often whined about by newcomers because they're hard to counter if you don't know how. The solution is play ranid for a while, figure out its mechanism, watch how people counter you, and you'll learn to do so yourself.
The best way to beat an opponent is to be in his head.

First of all, there is no "best" setup that's good for everything, and most of the bloodlines have more than one preferred setup, that may anyway vary depending on your playstyle. I will not list all the bloodlines with the relative "best sets" here; for this, you can ask to the best players of your favourite bloodline.
Whatever your gem setup may be, remember it's best to full out of fine or rough gems before switching to perfect ones. The perfect gems are the worse ones when it comes to price/value ratio, you should thus buy them only when you're sure about your setup, as substituting those will imply a lot of lost coins. Why buy them if they cost too much? Because those are the ones that give out the highest stat output, hence you'll have no other way of maxing the right stats out.
As for what gems to choose, remember to complement your bloodline. If you lack movement speed, you may want to choose sapphires to dodge better; if you're already quick, you could choose sapphires again to get even more quick, or you could choose something else to point on a different weakness/strength to deal with.
There is no useless gem; many people dislike gems containing vitality, saying that it's useless because dodging (speed) is better. This is not an absolute truth, as there's no speed amount you can reach that could prevent ALL the damage; vitality is only useless if you don't suffer any damage more of your base recovery health, and that is extremely unlikely to happen. Don't make prejudice and general opinion bias your choice for you.
Single-colour setups are only good if you're pointing to max out a stat, while sometimes you could benefit more from hybrids. Remember for example that rubies also give out a speed output, and sapphires give a power output as well, so having 50% of each will give you good amounts of both. Most often though, if you're planning a hybrid setup, you'll get the more out of it if you prioritize one stat over the other. For example if you needed speed as a ranged, you could choose a 8 rubies, 4 sapphires build to have a big amount of power with a more than satisfying amount of speed. Choose your priorities and then choose your proportions accordingly.


Many people fail to see how looking at one's own or some pro's replays can get their gameplay better. Some other try to watch them but can't seem to get anything good out of it.
So what to look up when watching replays?
When watching your own replays be on the lookup for when you get stomped and try to figure out why. What did you do wrong? Did you use a CC too early, so you wasted an opportunity to use it more effectively? Did you do something the opponent was predicting? Were you in the wrong position?
Try to spot this kind of errors and slow down the replay speed if needed. In any case, think whatever you can to avoid giving the fault to your allies. You can't get them better by yourself, so do things that can help YOU get better yourself. If they were far from you when needed, you were probably far from them on your turn. This kind of thing is not always true, but thinking it will help you get better and will also make you a more kind player to other's eyes, which is good for the community as a whole.
When watching the pros' replays look at how they react to situations, try to predict what will they do (again, slow down the speed if needed), then see if they do something different, and if so, verify the consequences and figure out if and why their decision was better than yours.
If, by watching your own replays, you spotted some situation you can't seem to face, given the occasion, look at what the pros do when in the same situation.
Look and try to figure out why they pick one target over another, and how do they deal with it. Look at when they give up the offensive to retreat and, again, figure out why.
If you fail to understand the situation in the details or as a whole, play the replay again, watch it as a whole first, and on the interesting parts individually afterwards.

Conquest games are part of the scenario gamemodes, alternatives to the standard arena team deathmatch games.
Your team's objective is to cap (refer to the glossary above) unclaimed bases and thus filling up the blue/red bar opposing your enemies. The more the bases you own, the more quickly the bar fills; there are 3 bases in every map and copping in more than one people at a time on the same base doesn't make any difference.
Thus forth, it's usually best if one person caps a base while the teammates defend him: taking damage will slow down the capture and casting spells while capping will cancel it.
It generally is a good strategy to keep two bases without spreading out to the third too much, so your team can easily defend those it already owns.
In this gamemode, the resurrection medallion is replaced by a warp medallion and killing enemies results in them dropping HP orbs which recover a lot of your health (unaffected by recovery health).
During these games, healing and damaging powers are enhanced and two types of energy orbs are present: one power rune in the middle, which spawns very seldomly and greatly enhances your healing and damage abilities, though enlarging your size during the effect and gets dropped if killed, and one orb per base, which can only be collected by the team who owns the base and enhances both powers and movement speed. All these orbs stack with each other and with the global conquest buff mentioned above.

Just as any well-known capture the flag, the goal is to steal and keep both your enemies' and your team's artefact in your base for a short (but often intense) amount of time. During this gamemode, similarly to conquest, the healing and damaging outputs are enhanced and the resurrection medallion is replaced by a warp medallion which teleports at cursor location. In addition, a third gamemode medallion is added, used to throw away artefacts in your possess, to be used, f.e., when you know you're about to die, to pass the ball to a teammate. A rune of power greatly enhances healing and damaging while enlarging you for a relatively long amount of time, giving your team a significant edge; just like conquest one, the orb is shared among the teams and is dropped on death, granting the effect to the next wielder for the remaining time. At a player's death, an health orb is dropped, significantly recovering the collector's health.
At the spawn point, the player is set in front of two additional spawning orbs which confer a rather significant buff to movement speed for a short amount of time; the two orbs don't stack with each other, so it's often best to leave them to the other teammates if both are ready to be collected or if you're heading to defence. In order to get to the battlefield from the spawn point, one has to choose among three portals: the central one heads to the team's base and is thus good to defend, while the other two warp the player to lateral positions further in the map, favouring attacking.
To pick up an artefact, you have to stand on it: it will be automatically picked up instantly if it lies in the battlefield, but it will need three seconds if it's lying on the opponent base's pedestals - during this time casting any ability causes the timer to reset, so you will be exposed to enemy counterattacks. Finally, casting most mobility abilities (most spacebar abilities, teleporting trances and so forth) while carrying the artefact causes it to be dropped on the ground.

Answer:There are no "best" bloodlines. All the characters of this game are meant to be equal in power; they differ in their role on the battlefield and in how those roles are performed.

A: That, is up to you only. Remember you can try out ALL of the bloodlines by playing a single player game before deciding. Just go in Play -> Standard Games -> Single player, and you'll be able to choose any bloodline to face AI bots.

A: There's a knowledge base into the game itself, located at Bloodgate -> Knowledge Base -> Bloodlines guide. Or you can go to http://www.bloodlinechampions.com/bloodlines.php to check them without having to log into the game.

A: The best and most obvious way, is indeed playing it again and again. Try it out in single player mode before buying it; use all the abilities (including the EX abilities!) numerous times to make sure you learn what they're for and how to land them. Also try thinking the best synergies and combinations you could land with those. Learn the best cooldown rotations (see glossary for reference) and try out different ones, then get off to practice in the private games; do your best and you'll eventually get to a good skill level.

A: The starter quest is a small bunch of "objectives" you can fulfill to recieve either 3000 bloodcoins or one free bloodline out of a selected range. And no, the starter quest is the only "quest" in the game; the most things akin to it are achievements.
To complete it, fulfil the following objectives:
- Reach or get past level 5.
- Complete the basic tutorial.
- Win at least 1 arena, 1 conquest and 1 capture the artifact game.

A: Melees: Spearmaster, Ravener. Rangeds: Engineer, Igniter. Tanks: Glutton, Vanguard. Healers: Psychopomp, Herald of Insight.

A: Every three days at 00:00 server time, 4 of the 8 free temporary bloodlines rotate - they're different for each player.

A: Go to Options, then, in the general tab, check the "Advanced Tooltips" checkbox. This will affect both abilities' tooltips and trait's characteristics' tooltips.

A: When the time runs out, a Sudden Death warning appears. When that happens, a circular red fog starts to close around approximately the centre of the map (it's not always as central as the energy orb though - near to it by all means). Characters that find themselves inside are gradually and heavily damaged. The damage dealt by the fog DOES NOT damage recovery health (see the glossary and tips below), rather the character's "true" health, starting by the left of the bar, so healing and barriers will not be effective against it.
The right way to deal with the opponents during this phase is trying to keep one's "true health" above the enemies', and trying to stay outside of the fog, but knock the opponents into it - skills like grimrog's Spacebar, vanguard's Q, pomp's EX Spacebar, warden's numerous knockbacks and so on can help keeping the opponents in the fog, while aoes like alchemist's or warden's F can help getting a huge advantage since the enemies will take damage wherever they are. Also, some abilities may be discouraged: linear dashes or warping trances like speaarmaster's or inhibitor's can be very deadly for the user if the opponent who triggers them is near to the fog; hitting an opponent with stormcaller's or nomad's tornado in a fog situation will most likely help him survive. Other abilities are challenged: for example one could use vanguard's intercept to dive an high health opponent into the fog, sacrificing self to even up the situation for an ally.

A: Either here, or join the Help channel while in game (type /j Help) and feel free to ask any question that's unanswered here; the community will surely be happy to help you. Don't be afraid to ask, no one's going to bite you!
Also, make sure you check the Knowledge Base (Bloodgate -> Knowledge Base) before asking. The answers you're looking for could already be there.

A: You can ask for recruitment either into the chat channels or the LFG channel (type /j LFG); please don't do this in the Help channel though!
If you're unable to find a clan or just want to get the achievement, you can always create one in the Clan screen on the bottom left-hand side of the screen.

A: Find one (2v2) or two (3v3) friends to team with and go to Play -> Teams to create a team. Notice how you need at least level 5 to do so.

A: The teams that get past the qualification phase are arranged in a way so that the strongest teams are to meet during the last games of the finals; so, the higher your qualification score, the lower the score of your first opponent.

Answer: Grades get up depending on your rating, which goes up and down depending on your games' results. Notice how in-game performance isn't relevant; game results instead, are. Winning a game 3-0 grants more points than winning 3-2; This also counts for losses and losing rating. Check below for a FAQ on the better ways to grade up.

A: You can check your teams' rating by clicking on them in the Teams screen. Solo matchmaking has a public rating that you can check in the relative screen.
Go to Bloodgate -> Knowledge Base -> Leagues and Ladders -> Levels and Grades to find a chart with each Solo, 2v2 and 3v3 rating requirement for each grade.

A: 3v3 rated games are the ones that have the shortest gap between each grade; after those come the 2v2 team rated matchmaking, rated solo matchmaking and last, unrated matchmaking.

A: Private games can't get your grade higher than grade 10; other matchmaking queues (solo, 2v2 and 3v3) have no grade cap.

A: As for solo matchmaking, see above. Remember parties in solo matchmaking get penalised by being matched against harder opponents than the single components of it would meet. As for rated teams, rating has a much more important role than grade has, once your placement is over.

Answer: The most important things to unlock are those which you unlock once, as you will not have any need to spend further coins in them.
The first thing you should unlock are traits' tiers; if you find yourself at a low level to unlock them all, but you already got quite a bunch of coins, don't waste them: either save them up, or buy the right medallions (check below for a tip on how to choose them).
Once you have all your traits tiers and at least one medallion for each type (crimson, cobalt, passive), buy the gems to fill them out.
You can change the traits any time, but before choosing medallions and gems setups, make sure you decided what your main bloodline will be.

A: Facebook achievement has been disabled and is thus impossible to get, at the moment.

A: Traits are particular passive abilities and characteristics you can spend points into to enhance your character powers; you may be familiar with this kind of system if you've ever played an RPG or an MMORPG game before.
You can find the traits' screen by going at Bloodgate -> Traits and Medallions -> Traits.
Traits are divided in up to 7 "tiers" (columns) and three rows. You can unlock each tier by reaching a particular level and then spending a certain number of bloodcoins to unlock each of them.
Tiers: Odd numbered tiers feature three different characteristics that increase your characteristics (see below), while even numbered ones feature passive abilities. To be able to use each tier except the first, you have to put at least three points in the previous tier, only one is allowed (read below), and thus required, for even tiers. Each point is added into a global bar, so you don't need to put a point in each tier if the previous ones have enough into them already.
Rows: Each row feature a different kind of ability or characteristics set depending on the color. The top one is red and focuses on damage related abilities and characteristics; the center one is green and focuses on survivability tweaks; the bottom one is blue and features speed and cooldowns reduction stuff.
Points: Each characteristic can have as far as 3 points in its square; this counts for odd numbered tiers only. Each passive ability allows only one point per tier instead, and this counts for even numbered tiers only.

A: Those are

• Power (increases damage output and, about half as much, healing output and shields durability),
  
• Vitality (increases your maximum HPs and max Recovery Health by a small percentage),
  
• Speed (that increases your movement speed and thus how quick your character is to start moving also),
  
• Expertise (that slightly increases your maximum energy and how quickly you stack energy up),
  
• Focus (that slightly reduces the durations of all your cooldowns where they are at least 1 second long),
  
• Swiftness (that slightly decreases the cast times of all your abilities).

A: Medallions are particular items that grant additional abilities and that can hold gems (check below) into. They are distinct into four categories/colours:

• Crimson: These medallions feature mainly offensive abilities that have to be activated for an energy cost.
  
• Cobalt: These medallions feature defensive abilities that have to be activated for an energy cost.
  
• Passive (purple): These medallions feature various passive abilities that do not need to be activated and have no cost.
  
• Troll (yellow): These medallions feature either passive or active abilities made to bully your opponents, and do not grant any practical advantage to the wearer, nor can those hold any gem. As an exception, these medallions can only be purchased by Funcom points.

Energy costs for crimson and cobalt medallions are quite various, so be sure to check the costs for the ones you choose.

A: Choosing your medallions you should take some points into account:
Frequency of use: choosing a medallion that you'll use is surely better than having a mere placeholder for gems. If you feel like you can make a good use of Arcane Disruptor, don't pick Meteor Shard just because it's cheaper or generally considered "better".
Traits complementing: a medallion should be well suited to your traits of choice and be able to exploit their potential. If you use Last Stand as a trait, Aegis of Gergan may happen to be superfluous.
Bloodline complementing: a medallion can be used to sharpen your bloodline strengths or to bevel its weaknesses. If your bloodline is slow and lacks a counter for melee chasers, you could pick Sergan's Finest and Frost Shard; if your bloodline has a stun but no big burst ability to make as use out of it, you may pick Meteor Shard; if your bloodline is good when opponents are near each other or grouped up, or has a strong ability that's easy to dodge, you could pick Webi's Void Stone and so on.
Playstyle: if you use your EXes a lot or you're kind of ultimate dependent, you should favour low-energy cost medallions; if you tend to find yourself alone you may pick either Talisman of Teleportation or Aegis of Gergan to patch the gap by, respectively, repositioning or preventing some damage.
(Thanks to Fenyx1 from the official BLC forums)

A: Medallions are equipped by clicking on them in the "My medallions" screen. You can equip only one medallion per category (colour). Only equipped medallions are counted for gems' benefits and only equipped medallions' abilities can be used during a game. You can change your equipped medallions during the character selection screen before a game starts.

A: Gems are objects that grant small additions to your statistics (see above) and need to be attached (socketed) into a medallion to be effective. Those are separated into three tiers depending on how much points they grant and their price (rough, fine and perfect); for each tier, there's one gem for each statistic (see above). Other than the main characteristic, each gem grants minor additions to two other characteristics also.
To socket a gem, click on an equipped medallion in the medallions' screen, then click on a gem slot and choose the gem to socket.

A: No, once socketed, a gem cannot be moved or removed. You can though overwrite a gem with another one, but you'll lose the previous one for good.

A: Sure: the user Seijax (from BLC forums) created a build calculator for this purpose. Check it on http://www.bloodlinecalculator.com/

A: Rated 3v3 games are the most rewarding concerning bloodcoins. To know how to create a team, check above. If you haven't already, you can also fulfil the easy achievements that require you to win at least one game for each bloodline. To do so, you can use the single player, in which all of the bloodlines are free to try against AI bots.
Also consider that the higher the game length, more the coins earned.

Gems

Gems ratio are, in respect of primary and secondary stats:
- Rough gems: 1:0.5:0.5
- Fine gems: 1:0.57:0.57
- Perfect gems: 1:0.62:0.62
Practically, the output equally raises by 2 points going up the tier. Fine gems give out 2 points per stat more than rough gems, and perfect gems give 2 points more than fine gems.

- Amethists: primarily Focus, secondarily Vitality and Expertise.
- Diamonds: primarily Swiftness, secondarily Vitality and Speed.
- Emeralds: primarily Vitality, secondarily Focus and Power.
- Rubies: primarily Power, secondarily Speed and Expertise.
- Sapphires: primarily Speed, secondarily Swiftness and Power.
- Topazes: primarily Expertise, secondarily Focus and Power.

Medallions

Troll medallions are not listed.

Crimson:
- Arcane Disruptor: dispels positive effects from enemy targets and negative effects from friendly targets in an area.
- Lord Smorg's Heirloom: projectile that damages and slows. When hit, increases caster's attack speed.
- Meteor Shard: deals damage in an area and knocks back enemies.
- Sergan's Finest: temporarily increases movement speed.
Cobalt:
- Aegis of Gergan: temporarily prevents some damage.
- Breakstone: dispels every negative effect from self. Can be used when incapacitated.
- Frost Shard: incap and gradual slow in a melee cone.
- Talisman of Teleportation: teleports self.
- Webi's Void Stone: temporarily pulls enemies to the center of an area.
Passive:
- Charm of Baron Ruuska: reduces Weaken, Amplify and Silence effects' duration.
- Gedan's Hourglass: decreases Slows and Blind effect's duration.
- Kae's Soulstone: on death, fears enemies around the wearer.
- Law'Rence Fury: on kill, temporarily increases damage done.
- Mark of the Assassin: increases backstab damage.
- Phoenix Medallion: on death, heals allies around the wearer.

Traits

Odd tiers increase stats, even tiers activate passive effects.
Tier 1:
- Strength: power, speed.
- Endurance: vitality, swiftness.
- Spirit: focus, expertise.
Tier 2:- Quick Recovery: reduces incapacitating effects' duration.
- Resistance: reduces damage taken when incapped.
- Focused Mind: reduces cooldowns when incapped.
Tier 3:- Potency: power, expertise.
- Stamina: vitality, speed.
- Concentration: focus, swiftness.
Tier 4:- Fury: increases damage done on low health.
- Devotion: increases healing received on low health.
- Reflexes: increases movement speed on low health.
Tier 5:- Force: power, swiftness.
- Toughness: vitality, expertise.
- Vigor: focus, speed.
Tier 6:- EX Mastery: reduces cooldown on EX use.
- Rejuvinating Energy: heals on energy use.
- Medallion Expert: reduces energy cost for medallions.
Tier 7:- Might: power, speed.
- Fortitude: vitality, swiftness.
- Intellect: focus, expertise.
Tier 8:- Death Dealer: recovers health and energy on kill.
- Last Stand: shields on low health.
- Ultimate Recovery: recovers energy on ultimate use.

- 2s: abbreviation for 2v2.
- 3s: abbreviation for 3v3, usually used to refer to the team gamemode rather than the solo or unrated ones.
- AFK: stands for "Away from keyboard".
- Amplify: amplify is a powerfull debuff that causes the character to suffer more damage than normal. This properly named effect is usually inflicted by Harbingers, but other classes like Herald of Insight can inflict it also, even if it is referred to with a different name.
- AoE: stands for "area of effect". These are effects or abilities whose effects are dealt in an area, rather than a single target or projectile.
- ATM: "at the moment".
- BB: "bye bye".
- BG: stands for "bad game", usually quite an impolite way of mocking the beaten opponents or whining about a loss.
- Bloodline: sometimes abbreviated as "BL"; a bloodline is one of the playable characters of the game; sometimes also referred to as "hero", "champion" or simply "character".
- Buff¹: opposite of "debuff", buffs are temporary effects that enhance the character's abilities or capabilities, such as increasing movement speed or damage, or activating additional effects to some abilities. Effects that do not have any effect per se are included in this category too.
- Buff²: opposite of "nerf", refers to a patch change in an ability or character that makes it overall stronger than before.
- Burst: a burst is an high amount of damage dealt into a restricted time gap. This kind of damage is often partially unrecoverable.
- Def: abbreviation for defend or any conjugation of "to defend", especially the imperative. Chiefly but not exclusively used in scenario games, its an order for the team to defend the artefacts or the already claimed bases.
- Cap: "to cap" is to conquer an enemy or unclaimed base in conquest games.
- Carry: "to carry" is to play as better as to balance a condition in which the "carrier's" team is farly weaker than the opponents; alternatively, this term means to be skilled enough to do most of the team's job all alone. Finally, outside of matches, this term is used when someone, usually high in grade, teams with one or two lower graders to help them grade up.
- Cast time: a cast is the act of charging an ability: the time that intercurs between the ability activation and the moment it actually starts to take effect is called "cast time".
- CD: abbreviation for "cooldown", see below.
- Channeling: a channeling ability is an ability that requires you to stand in position while it takes effect. These abilities can be interrupted by pressing the default key T, if needed.
- Combat value: combat value represents the total value gained by using abilities and medallions. This, though, shouldn't be used as a skill meter, as bloodlines stack up value in different ways and quantities one another; a value that is high for a bloodline could be an average for another one.
- Control: See below for "Crowd control".
- Cooldown: a cooldown (CD) is a time gap in which you cannot use an ability or medallion. It activates each time you use said ability, or when that ability has been temporarily disabled by an opponent's ability.
- Cooldown rotation: a cooldown rotation is a given order in which abilities are used. For example a common defensive cooldown rotation for alchemist is Q, E, R. Cooldown rotations tend to become habits, so they can be predictable and exploitable for opportunities, the most obvious ones being trances.
- Crowd control: a.k.a "CC" this represents a wide span of effects made, rather than heal or damage, to restrain your opponent and temporarily limit his overall efficiency. These can be incap(acitates), slows, knockbacks and so on.
- CTA: "Capture the artifact", one of the gamemodes of bloodline champions, alternative to arena and part of the "Scenarios" which include both CTA and Conquest gamemodes.
- CVPS: "Combat value per second". Represents the average combat value gained each second during a round. As flat combat value alone can be too misleading for this, CVPS is often used as a meter for player skill. Despite this, CVPS can be misleading too, as each bloodline has its way of stacking it up and has a different average than other bloodlines. As a general rule, very low numbers (usually below 60-70) are considered symptom of bad skill, while high ones (over 130-140) are considered the other way around.
- Debuff: opposite of "buff", consists in a temporary effect that reduces the victim's capabilities or enhances negative features, like amplifying damage.
- DoT: "damage over time", meaning effects that damage the character a bit at a time for a temporary time span. Each time a damage is inflicted this way is called a "tick".
- EX: an EX ability is a special ability that costs 40% energy to use. Every bloodline has two of these as EX versions of normal abilities. Using an EX version of an ability puts the ability into cooldown.
- FFS: stands for "for *peeeeep*'s sake", an expression of frustration.
- Focus: to focus someone is the act of prioritizing attacks and damage on the same target. This is also referred as "tunneling".
- GG: stands for "good game", a common formula considered polite to be said at the end of a game, sometimes followed by WP. Some people use it to mark a "good round" too, although this is somewhat incorrect. A GJ or WP would be more fitting in these cases.
- GJ: stands for "good job".
- GL: stands for "good luck", often used together with HF at a game start.
- Global cooldown: a global cooldown is a cooldown that activates on all your abilities (with some exceptions) whenever you cast something. It lasts 0.30 seconds.
- GZ: stands for "gratz" -> "congratulations". Often used to congratulate with someone for an accomplishment of his, like winning a tournament, a difficult match and the such.
- Haste: "haste" abilities are abilities that grant you a temporary buff to your movement speed, such as nomad's spacebar ability.
- HF: stands for "Have fun", often used as a greeting at the start of a game and sometimes accompanied by GL.
- HoT: "healing over time", meaning effects that recover your health a bit at a time; each time health is recovered this way, it's called a "tick".
- Incap: or "incapacitate" in full name, are debuffs which inhibit the use of any abilities. This category also contains "stun", "fear" and "removal" effects.
- Interrupt: an interrupt is a crowd control ability or effect made to interrupt cast times and channelings; it usually is an incap also.
- JK: stands for "just kidding".
- Juke: to juke is to fake a move or an ability; this is usually done with long cast times abilities to bait trances.
- Kiting: as in "to kite", represents the act of avoiding a fight or one or more opponents by using both WASDing and abilities such as the outs.
- Knockback: a knockback effect is an effect that knocks your character back; it can either be a slight one, moving your character only by a few points, or a big one that can change your position significantly. Many knockbacks interrupt cast times, albeit none can interrupt a channeling per se.
- LFC: stands for "looking for clan".
- LFG: stands for "looking for group", usually intended as team or party.
- LoS: stands for "Line of Sight", mostly used by healers to tell teammates when they're extending too much, going out of their sight and thus their healing range.

- M1/m2/m3: refer to mouse buttons: m1 (LMB) is the left mouse button (or the right one if you're using a left-handed configuration), m2 refers to the secondary button (RMB), m3 usually refers to the clickable scrolling wheel most mice have.
- Mobility: this refers to the overall capability of a character to move fast/easily, and how good he is at changing his position and dodging. "Mobility abilities" are abilities that greatly enhance your mobility for a short time span, when used. These could be teleports, haste or dash abilities.
- MM: stands for matchmaking, i.e the game queues like practice, solo (SMM), 2v2 and 3v3.
- MOBA: stands for "Multiplayer Online Battle Arena", the game genre BLC belongs to.
- Nerf: opposite of "buff", refers to a change in one ability or character that makes it overall weaker than before.
- OP¹: stands for "overpowered", an adjective used to indicate an ability or bloodline believed to be over the average balance level, thus stronger than it should be, as opposed to underpowered.
- OP²: in the forums' jargon, the thread starter (i.e. author).
- Out: an "out" is an ability that you can use to save yourself from dangerous situations. These abilities are usually quick crowd control abilities, teleports, trances, stances, or transitions.
- Peel: "to peel" is to help someone getting out of an hot spot or situation by attacking his focusers instead of going out offensively.
- Projectile: a projectile is whatever object your character throws when using certain abilities. Not all projectiles are mad to hit an objective: Herald's Chronoflux is in fact a projectile until it reaches its location and become a ball.
- Pull: a pull is an ability which literally pulls the target towards the user (f.e. harbinger's m2, vanguard's E or thorn's Q).
- Rated/rating: a rated game or match is a game, fetched by a rated matchmaking, which takes your rating into account. By winning or losing, you get or lose points that are used to determine both your grade and your placement in the rankings.
- Recovery Health: the recovery health is the maximum amount of health that can be healed back; it can be increased by the Vitality statistic. This recovered health is displayed on a lighter color on the healthbars and turn grey when it reaches its maximum. It often is a good practice to try and deal damage to targets who have no current recovery health on them, as most of this new damage will become unrecoverable.
- Removal: a "removal" is a debuff effect which temporarily removes you from the game, incapacitating you while it lasts. Characters affected by removals are immaterial and can't thus be hit, damages or healed, except by DoTs and HoTs.
- RH: abbreviation for "Recovery Health", see above.
- Slow: as the name says, slows are debuffs which limit movement speed, projectile speed or both.
- SMM: "solo matchmaking", one of the rated gamemodes of Bloodline Champions.
- Soz: abbreviation for "sorry".
- Sp: or "space", stands for the ability that, by default, is set on your spacebar key, which is usually an out.
- Stance: a stance is a status, similar to a trance, in which being hit activates an effect. Differences from trances are that users are allowed to move, but direct AoEs do not activate the trance.
- Starter: a starter is a bloodline or an ability which is good to start the offensive, by, for example, pulling an opponent without any risk of the sort.
- Switch: to switch is a verb used to refer to the fact that one is changing his target from one to another. A switch is a risky tactic but it can turn out to be very rewarding if properly executed.
- Teleport: a teleport is an out ability that (more or less) instantly changes your position to another one, without directly crossing any point between the two.
- Tick: a "tick" is the precise moment in which a continuous or cyclic effect (like DoTs and HoTs) is applied.
- TPS: "Total (combat value) per second", check CVPS above.
- Trance: a trance is a channeling ability that makes you stand in place and activates when hit by projectiles or direct AoEs.
- Transition: a transition is a buff or debuff that temporarily makes you immaterial but able to move. Some of those can also make you invisible to the opponent's team.
- Tunneling: or "to tunnel (someone)"; check above for "focus".
- TY: stands for "Thank you".
- UP: or "underpowered", as opposed to overpowered, is a bloodline or ability believed to be weaker than the average, thus under the balance level.
- VPS: "Value per second", check CVPS above.
- WASD: refers to the default keys used to move your character. You could happen to see this used as a verb: "to wasd" means to move or dodge using your wasd keys, rather than a mobility ability.
- Whine: "to whine" is to moan about something related to the game, most often a loss or a bloodline/ability believed to be OP.
- WP: stands for "well played", usually follows a GG but can also be used to congratulate with one's teammates or opponents between single rounds.
- YW: "You're welcome".