Official: Things I Wish I Knew Earlier!

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Combat:
8. Spells, such as heals, will land on whomever was targeted when the spell was initiated, not on whom you are targeting when it actually finishes casting and lands. Thus, you can use the Assist function (mapped to "F" by default) to quickly switch from doing DPS or debuffing of a mob to healing the mob's target then back to attacking the mob in just three keystrokes ~From Voxin

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A quicker way to do this same thing is to enable "Target Forwarding" in the combat options. If you are a minstrel you can target the mob to sing your damage songs at him but also sing your healing songs at whoever the mob is targetting. Or vice versa, target your fellowship's main tank for heals any all your offensive spells get forwarded to his/her target.

When target forwarding is enabled its also a good idea to enable showing your target's target.

--Mazdek

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Originally Posted by Mazdek_2

When target forwarding is enabled its also a good idea to enable showing your target's target.

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I use target forwarding all the time; very useful. One caveat though. If you use this, be aware of what the players are doing. It's easy to break crowd control by targetting a lore-master. If you're targetting a guardian who keeps switching targets constantly in order to grab and maintain aggro, then you'll also be switching targets a lot which can be inefficient. Using "F" periodically helps to make sure I know who I'm really attacking.

I don't enable showing it the other target though, it felt too cluttered and confusing when I tried it (would be nice to be able to turn this on and off quickly in the middle of battle though).

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Originally Posted by Lohi

I use target forwarding all the time; very useful. One caveat though. If you use this, be aware of what the players are doing. It's easy to break crowd control by targetting a lore-master. If you're targetting a guardian who keeps switching targets constantly in order to grab and maintain aggro, then you'll also be switching targets a lot which can be inefficient. Using "F" periodically helps to make sure I know who I'm really attacking.

I don't enable showing it the other target though, it felt too cluttered and confusing when I tried it (would be nice to be able to turn this on and off quickly in the middle of battle though).

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EQ2 had target forwarding as a default, and its use was hotly debated from time to time. Tanks were generally against people using it. If you are targeting through the tank, your attacks will hit the tank's target, which may be a mob he just switched to in order to build aggro to keep it from peeling off onto someone else. By hitting that mob instead of his original target, you make it harder for him to maintain aggro. Similarly, let us say you are healer, and you are using target forwarding, but you are targeting the mob and using the target forwarding to heal the tank. And right as you go to do a heal, the mob changes targets. That heal could hit another player who does really not need the heal while your tank, who may desperately need it, keeps getting beat upon by other mobs. That can get your tank killed.

What convinced me not to use it was that I had an Illusionist in EQ2. And on a few occassions, the mob died right as I went to cast a spell. Right at that same moment, the tank "looked up" to see another mob that was not engaged with us yet. Because I was targeting through the tank, my spell cast before I could stop it, and hit that mob. That drew him into the fight, and on at least one occassion, several friends with him. Had I been targeting the tank's target instead, I would have just got an "He's dead, Jim!" message. Fortunately, we were able to handle the adds in each of those occassions, and it only happened a few times, but it was enough to convince me that target forwarding has more drawbacks than benefits.

I do not know if this game's target forwarding will allow that same thing to happen, but it is really not that much trouble to hit F, verify the target, then cast your skill, hit F again, and verify you are back where you wanted to be to continue.

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Originally Posted by Joviex

Something I found out today: You do not need to have costume items in inventory to actually have them as outfit pieces. Just put on, then remove to bank/whatever and poof.

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This is correct, but be aware that if you delete the item from your inventory that is the same as destroying it forever. Whereas you can leave it in your outfit and it will remain, you cannot drag an outfit item into your inventory.

The system will warn you if you try to do that, but if you're like me and have a habit of clicking ahead without thinking then the outfit item you spent 100s on dying black goes *poof* into the ether. :D

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Originally Posted by sindrael

22. If you see someone shouting for a fellowship in the LFF Channel (or anywhere else for that matter), instead of asking them what their race/level/class is; open the social panel and type their name in the location area. You can also type /who playernmane! ~From Temp3r and Carfilhiot

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Or right-click their name in the chat box and click inspect (easier).

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Originally Posted by Voxin

Tanks were generally against people using it. If you are targeting through the tank, your attacks will hit the tank's target, which may be a mob he just switched to in order to build aggro to keep it from peeling off onto someone else.

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Thats just an issue of role definitions. Someone of high DPS like a Hunter or a Champion, or maybe a Captain or Burglar who place marks on mobs to help people damage it, should be labeled as the Main Assist whose role is to direct who dies next. :)

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Originally Posted by ArmyAunt

Mine shows my local time. I'm in Central & I'm pretty sure all of the servers are in Eastern.

Also, the clarification of what part of the day/night cycle you're in was added in Book 10. Before that it just said Day or Night.

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I'm pretty sure the time shown is just your local time. Last night myself and a friend tested this and it showed each of our local times (he is east coast, I am west).

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Originally Posted by Muddyfoot

I'm pretty sure the time shown is just your local time. Last night myself and a friend tested this and it showed each of our local times (he is east coast, I am west).

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I read that the game uses your system clock for this info.

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Originally Posted by Mazdek

Thats just an issue of role definitions. Someone of high DPS like a Hunter or a Champion, or maybe a Captain or Burglar who place marks on mobs to help people damage it, should be labeled as the Main Assist whose role is to direct who dies next. :)

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It is not really just an issue of role definitions. Not all groups designate a main assist, especially since a Main Assist is, ideally, an Off-tank who is capable of maintaing aggro on the designated target himself. Not all group make ups have such a person, and the truth is, most groups never bother designating a main assist even if they do have someone capable of that role. It is common to see them in a raid or a difficult instance. But most content does not require that level of coordination, and therefore, most groups don't use them.

Even so, using a main assist diminishes the problem, but it does not eliminate it. When a target dies, the Main Assist has to look for the next target. He may have to cycle through several targets to find the target he wants. If people are attacking through the Main Assist while he is doing this, they are hitting targets they should not be hitting yet. And if a player is targeting the Main Assist's target and casting beneficial spells (e.g., heals) through the target, the target, as before, could aggro someone else right as the caster tried to heal the target's previous target, causing the heal to land on the wrong player.

Does "target through" work? Yes. Does it even work most of the time? Yes. However, it can cause problems, and it is always best to specifically target what you want to hit since you have zero control over what your target is targeting.

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Originally Posted by Fringe

I read that the game uses your system clock for this info.

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It appears to now. In Open Beta, the consensus was that the game time was the server time. This looks to have changed to local time at some point, and displaying the PC's system time would be the way to do this.

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Originally Posted by Voxin

Even so, using a main assist diminishes the problem, but it does not eliminate it. When a target dies, the Main Assist has to look for the next target. He may have to cycle through several targets to find the target he wants. If people are attacking through the Main Assist while he is doing this, they are hitting targets they should not be hitting yet.

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Using Tab to cycle through targets is not wise in this situation. It could be very deadly as Tab has a tendacy to jump to another group of Mobs not involved in the battle after you cycle through closer Mobs. In this situation you should use the mouse to select the next group target.

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Originally Posted by LawLessOne

Using Tab to cycle through targets is not wise in this situation. It could be very deadly as Tab has a tendacy to jump to another group of Mobs not involved in the battle after you cycle through closer Mobs. In this situation you should use the mouse to select the next group target.

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Mouse selection of mobs is not without its drawbacks. Mobs or players can be between you and the mob you want. So unless you are just randomly selecting mobs from those right in front of you, picking a specific mob out of a frenzied battle can be even harder with mouse selection of the mob, and if all you are concerned about is the closest mob, you can just hit backspace, which I believe is mapped by default to select nearest enemy. Mouse clicking works in some cases. In other cases, it makes things harder than Backspace (to get to the nearest target) followed by Tabs (to cycle through targets from that point) until you get the target you want.

Besides, the issue is not how the mob gets selected when it comes to attack through. If someone is attacking-through, no matter how the tank is selecting targets, the attacker has no control over what target the tank may be looking-at at any one time. So it does not matter if the tank cycles through targets with Tab or directly clicks on the target with the mouse. If someone is attacking through thinking they are hitting the target the tank is currently looking at right as he changes targets, the attack will hit the new target no matter how that target was selected.

Target-through works fine most of the time. But if you target the tank, then hit Assist ("F" by default), and verify that is the target you want, you don't have to worry about what the tank is doing anymore. Your target will not change until it dies or you change it to another target yourself.

That the Erestor is where Legolas was.

I just wanted to thank Sind, thread creator (and now Hall of Famer) for creating this, it was helpful for me to read...now that I've been playing for a few months! ;)

f11 can also be used to take a screenshot

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Originally Posted by atteSmythe

ctrl-esc or alt-esc should work, too (the former bringing up the start menu, the latter being the standard hotkey for minimizing a full-screen program in Windows). There's a side effect, though - the game captures the ESC key, which will clear your open windows. If that doesn't matter, though, it does work on my XP system.

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Windows + D has been the Windows shortcut for "Show Desktop" since 1998, and will even minimise "always on top" windows. This will work in both XP and Vista

The command syntax is

/who name minlevel maxlevel

So if I wanted to search for someone named Bob with no level restrictions, I would type

/who bob 1 60

Things I Wish I Knew Earlier?


I wish I had known that you could buy coal from vendors earlier than 300 points from dinging GM metalsmith.

No word of a lie, I have mined -EVERY- SINGLE- CHUNK- OF- *!@#$%^ - COAL except for the 2 stacks that i bought in the AH about a year ago.

I had 2 bags FULL of Ancient Iron Ore for all that time in my bank taking up space and more Excellent hides than I knew what to do with.

Thats what I wish I'd known earlier!

/facepalm

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Originally Posted by Apsalar

Things I Wish I Knew Earlier?


I wish I had known that you could buy coal from vendors earlier than 300 points from dinging GM metalsmith.

No word of a lie, I have mined -EVERY- SINGLE- CHUNK- OF- *!@#$%^ - COAL except for the 2 stacks that i bought in the AH about a year ago.

I had 2 bags FULL of Ancient Iron Ore for all that time in my bank taking up space and more Excellent hides than I knew what to do with.

Thats what I wish I'd known earlier!

/facepalm

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:eek: OUCH!

It was a silly post, so I cleared it.

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Originally Posted by Sanguijuela

I just wanted to thank Sind, thread creator (and now Hall of Famer) for creating this, it was helpful for me to read...now that I've been playing for a few months! ;)

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I'm back!

I'll go through and consolidate some of the items added since then into a more streamlined format and as up to date as possible.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed since the thread's creation; and I'm more than happy to see the community is more than ever just as great as it was when I was last here.

-Sindrael

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Originally Posted by sindrael

I'm back!

I'll go through and consolidate some of the items added since then into a more streamlined format and as up to date as possible.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed since the thread's creation; and I'm more than happy to see the community is more than ever just as great as it was when I was last here.

-Sindrael

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Welcome back, Sindrael. :D

Don't know if it's been said here but i looked at the first post and didn't find it

There is a command you can give that tells you the total amount of playing time you've had in the game...discovered it a while back can't remember the command exactly so if anybody else knows it that would be very helpful!

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Originally Posted by Reodred14

Don't know if it's been said here but i looked at the first post and didn't find it

There is a command you can give that tells you the total amount of playing time you've had in the game...discovered it a while back can't remember the command exactly so if anybody else knows it that would be very helpful!

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Quite simple... /played will give you the accumulated time for that particular character.

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Originally Posted by Amonceleb

Quite simple... /played will give you the accumulated time for that particular character.

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Ah ty knew it was something simple ~~

Here are a couple others that were probably mentioned in this thread already

You can autorun by pressed Number lock - you can change direction left or right but if you move forwards or backwards it stops

You can inspect people by highlighting & right-clicking on their name if they have typed something in a chat window (doesn't work with emotes)

EDIT: you don't even have to highlight their name, just right-click..usually works