diff

Diff is short for “difference.” In team games, saying “[role] diff,” like “jungle diff” or “support diff,” means the other team’s player in that role was so much better that it decided the match.

What it means

After a loss, someone types “jg diff” in chat. Translation: our jungler got outplayed by theirs, and that’s why we lost. It’s almost always a way of blaming a teammate, and it’s often unfair, since one role rarely loses a game alone. Players also say “gap” the same way, as in “jungle gap.”

You can attach it to almost anything: “tank diff,” “heal diff,” “aim diff.” Calling it on yourself is rarer, but it happens, usually as a joke after getting destroyed.

Examples

• “0 kills in 20 minutes? Jungle diff.”
• “GG, support diff. Their healer was unreal.”
• “Not gonna lie, that was an aim diff. He hit every shot.”

The other diff: “no diff”

In fan debates about who would win a fight between characters, “diff” means difficulty. “No diff” means one side wins easily, “low diff” means it’s a little harder, and “high diff” means it’s close.

Where it came from

The usage grew up in the League of Legends community. Know Your Meme’s earliest example is a tweet from August 2017 by pro jungler Christian “IWDominate” Rivera mentioning an obvious “JG diff.” The site says the phrase spread to Overwatch players around 2020. KYM is still researching the term, so treat that timeline as a starting point rather than the final word.

Related terms

• hard carry: one player winning the game for the team
• GG: “good game,” typed right before “jg diff”
• malding: furious about a game
• noob: a beginner, or an insult for a bad player
• smurf: a skilled player on a low-level account

See more terms like this in our gaming slang dictionary.