User:Useraverage/What I've Learned So Far

''This is a work in progress and not ready for public consumption yet. Please feel free to post a Message to me''

''Current status : Very rough : Not everything I want to say has been put down or linked yet. I still need to do spell checking and other basic things. But I do invite you to comment if I have forgotten something, misstated something or gotten something flatout wrong.''

Whether you have just traveled from Shipwreck Shore to Korthos Village through The Grotto, or are battling the Drow in The Forgotten Realms, there is always more to learn about DDO (Dungeons and Dragons Online). This is a chronicle of what I've learned so far. With game updates out every so often and the developers of the game "tweaking" things constantly, some things will always be changing, but even people who have played the game for years often discover something they missed that's always been in the game. This isn't going to be a complete guide to DDO, just some observations I've made while playing and learning. Hopefully everyone, whether new to the game or a long time player will find something useful here. This is a narative, and there may be some useful tips for all players sprinkled throughout. Also throughout are links to other wiki pages where things are described in more detail.

If you just started playing DDO
There is a lot going on in the world of Eberron. And it can be a bit much to take on all at once. To help you start out, the good people at Turbine, Inc. (the company that makes DDO) has designed a tutorial system, complete with hints about what to do and how to do it, that starts with you being shipwrecked and meeting Jeets the rogue, and ends with you saving the village of Korthos from the same dragon that attacked your ship. Along the way you will learn lots of game concepts that will be used over and over as you journey through Eberron. You will also advance your character (often call a toon, short for cartoon) and gain eqipment to help you further in your questing for more experience and loot!

Yes loot! Whether it's those gems that are only good for selling for platinum (and some gold,silver, and copper); or armor, weapons or equipment your character class can't use; you can sell almost everything to a general vendor, your local tavern keeper, or later on to pawn shops (where other people can buy them after the pawn shop owner marks it up a bit of course). But pawn shops, the Auction House, and even the mailbox come after you complete your questing on Korthos Island. The first things you need to learn are about forming a party, getting hirelings to help you out, and a concept often called "flagging".

As you advanced to higher and higher levels of your character in DDO, you will be able to do more difficuly quests, some of which last a long time and require the skills of a "balanced party" to complete. You can start out "solo'ing" quests and some advanced players can do a lot of even high level quests on their own, but Dungeons and Dragons whether using using Pen and Paper (PnP) or online with DDO is about adventuring with others. One of the recent updates made it a default that when you enter a quest, it posts it to the social panel and allows anyone who wants to to join you. It is better to learn about the social panel from the beginning. You can bring it up from the DDO menu located in the lower left hand corner of your screen. Click on the ampersand (the "&" symbol) and select Social. By default this should also be mapped to the "O" key (Keymappings can be changed. Select "Main Menu" then "Options" then "Key Mapping" to see what keys are mapped to what functions).

There are four tabs at the top, the one to help form parties is "Grouping". You can create a group by posting a "Looking For Members" notice (called an LFM, or sometimes people say LFG, although that means "Looking For Group"). You can also request to join a group that someone has already posted for. I won't go into all the details of the who/what/etc of group forming here. Just be aware that most players look here to join a group for particular quests. You can type in the chat box all day long "Can someone please help me with quest XXX?" on the general chat channel and someone might help you out, but most experinced players who might be willing to help teach you are either posting here or looking here to join a party. Once you join a party, switch to the party tab by clicking on it. There you can send and receive messages strictly to and from other party memebers no matter where in the world of Eberron they are.

If you can't find a party, or no one will help you, or maybe you just don't have enough healing potions and there isn't a member of your party with healing spells, there is always hirelings. Yes there are Non-Player Characters (NPCs) that for a bit of platinum, will fight and/or heal for you and your party. In Korthos Village there is a Warforged named Jevan Solidus. As you come out of the Wavecrest tavern, he is straight ahead. (The tavern is a green mug on you map. The mini-map is shown all the time. Press the compass symbol on it, or by default the "M" key to bring up a full map).

Hirelings can only work for one person at a time. So if you and another member of your party both buy a contract for Dryad Willowisp the Elf Cleric, she will only come to work for the first person to summon her. You can buy as many contracts as you have platinum for and space for in your inventory. But once a contract is invoked, a one hour countdown timer starts. The timer runs whenever you are not in a public place (such as a quest dungeon or wilderness area). When it expires, the contract disappears from your inventory. This timer runs, even if you personally did not summon the hireling or even if no one else summoned the hireling to aid them.

Once you summon a hireling, a shorcut bar will show up that you can click on to give your hireling his or her orders. (More on this later). Be aware the hirelings bought from vendors can only be summoned at the beginning of a quest or wilderness area. If you forget to do so, you will have to walk back to the beginning to summon them.

Which brings us to the final concept, "flagging". In DDO it means that the game keeps track of what quests you have and have not done (see the Adventure Conpendium, mapped to the "P" key by default) and sets a "flag" for some quests when you have completed others. Simply put, you can not do some quests until you have done some prerequisite quests first. Doing the prerequisite quests is called "flagging". Once you have done them all and probably talked to an NPC serveral times in between quests, you will be "flagged" and can then go on and do the quest. When there is an order in which a set of quests has to be done it is often referred to as a "chain", since the quests are linked together in an order, one following another.

The overall goal of the tutorial of Korthos Island is to "flag" for The Salvation of Korthos. In order to do that you will need to flag for the Korthos Island wilderness area, to get to the quest, Redemption, which will in turn "flag" you for Misery's Peak. From there you can stay on Korthos Island, repeating quests (or doing ones that were optional), gain experince points (XP) by exploring the wilderness area and ridding it of enemies, or move onward to the city of Stormreach, starting in the Harbor. Until you complete the Salavation of Korthos or prematurely leave the island, you will be in "Snowy" Korthos. You will not see and may not be able to join other people in a party who are in "Sunny" Korthos.

Just off the boat in Stormreach or still exploring the Harbor...
If you talked to Valeria Sinderwind and left Korthos Island against her advice, before you have the Salvation of Korthos quest, you might want to head back to Korthos. Just find her in the Harbor on the docks near the Leaky Dingy Tavern, and she'll take you back to Korthos Village. There are two reasons to do this.

One is social. If you are a new player to DDO (or to any online game for that mater) you might be quaintly referred to as a newbie. However, sometimes people will just call you a noob. Maybe nothing is meant by this, or maybe they are using it as a derogatory term. One thing that can get you quickly called a noob, is to ask a question or do something foolish that you would not ask or do if you had done the tutorial on Korthos Island.

The other reason is preparation. There are people who have played the game for years. Their toons have undergone "True Reincarnation". They have played quests that have given them mounds of loot, and thus they have equipment for every level from 1 to 25 for their toon's current class, and platinum to buy what they don't have, all waiting for them in their bank account. You don't. The Salvation of Korthos quest will give you some unique starter gear that you can't buy. Loot from Korthos Island quests (sometimes just abbreviated KI) will help you buy better equipment for you character.

Speaking of which, maybe its time to explore the harbor and the rest of Stormreach before jumping right into the quests available to you in the Harbor. There are things in the Harbor (and the rest of Stormreach and the world of Eberron) that were not on Korthos Island. For one thing there's the mailbox. You can now send and receive messages with other players even when they are not online. You can also send and receive items and money. But if you just started playing DDO and have done a few quests, you will already have mail notifying you that you have earned some Turbine Points (TP). (more on TP later).

There is a general vendor on the docks, and the tavern keep at the Leaky Dingy or the Wayward Lobster will buy your loot and sell you food and ale, but there are also other places to shop. If you are a spell caster you might want to visit Dagoward's Apothocary for some supplies. Or if you have the plat, you can buy some healing pots,curatives or "buffs" from Nalia Dagoward there. Next door is Hammer and Chain for all you weapons, armor and ammo (ammunition) needs (different shopkeepers will sell you different kinds of things). Or maybe you just don't have room in your backpack for all the items you think you need to keep and not sell. Brax Goldthumb will help you access your bank account.

Not satisfied? Still looking for that special something? Have some plat burning a hole in your pocket? There are two other places to shop. One is the Auction House, and the other is the pawn shops (and if you want a few other shops here and there with some mediocre weapons and armor).

The AH (Auction House) is where players can bid on loot other players have put up for auction. Each auction has a time limit (maximum of three days), a current or minimum bid for the item, and possibly a buyout price. There are all sorts of options to help search or browse through what's available. The winner of the auction is mailed the item, and the seller gets the proceeds in the mail, minus the auctioneer's fee. If you are outbid, your bid will be returned to you in the mail. Spauler Nine-Band represents the Auction House in the Harbor.

Don't see what you want in the AH? Or maybe you don't have enough plat? Time to look into loading screen tip number 103, pawn shops. There are four kinds of pawn shops. There are weapon pawn shops, armor pawn shops, clothing pawn shops, and jewelery pawn shops. Each pawn shop proprieter will only buy or sell their kind of item, and only items within their price range. For low range weapons and armor, and all the jewelry and clothing pawn shops, its time to head for the Market, the hub of the busy city of Stormreach.

Where are all these things? Don't be such a noob! Just joking. Loading screen tip number 139. Open up your map (again the compass icon on the mini-map or by default the "M" key) and place your mouse pointer over all the colored icons. Each will have a tooltip when the mouse pointer is over it, telling you what it is. By default all the icons are shown. But you can turn them on or off, or just look the list to find out what each different icon shape represents by clicking on the drop down menu's little triangle on the map called "Map Notes". When you find Stormreach Market, head for the gate and go on in.

Pawn shop proprietors will buy your loot for more than a general vendor or the local tavern keep will. Of couse not all loot is weapons, armor, clothing or jewelry, so you will end up selling some to a tavern keeper or general vendor. It is best to explore and get a feel for where things are in the market. But to get you started, ahead and to the right when you enter the Market from the Harbor, is a bridge and some steps down. The bridge will take you to an area with a general vendor and magical supplies vendors (including another potion vendor for healing pots, curatives and buffs). Down the steps you will find a set of performers in the middle of an area with a lot of pawn shop proprietors. All clothing and jewlery pawn shops for Stormreach are here. The lower end weapons and armor pawn shops are here too.

So what happens when you get to a higher level and need better weapons and armor? Well if you can't loot it, and can't find it in the AH, then for weapons you can head to House Denieth and the Fare Trades pawn shop. For armor, it's house Kundarak and Second Gaunlet Goods.

Where else to shop in Eberron
While there are no pawn shops for magical items, there are vendors for various goods at various levels. House Phiarlan has Object Desire for level 3 scrolls of both the Arcane and Divine variety, as well as some wands and spell boosting pots. Erstwhile Emporium, also in house P (Phiarlan), has some spell components and inscription materials, and for everyone, medium size bags for collectables, gems, and ingredients.

For a more complete selection of spell components there are two places to shop. One is in House J (Jorasco), the Feather's Fall Apothocary. Arcane components and Divine components, levels 1 thru 9 are available there. Also hard to find things like Anointed Cold Iron Weapons and Pouches of Granite and Diamond Dust can be found at Feather's Fall, along with yet another potion vendor for spell boost, healing, cures and buffs. Also in House J is the House of Wizardry. Arcane level 4 and 5 scrolls, Divine level 3 thru 7 scrolls, and Divine spell boosting pots can be found here as well as a wand vendor. House J also has their version of Erstwhile Emporium, called Empty Handed. Again some components and inscription materials, and some medium sized bags.

But what about the other place to shop for spell components? How do you get there? The answer is magic. Magic exists alongside technology in Eberron, and some of it is available to everyone. One kind of magic is teleportation. If you've explored the house enclaves off the market, you may have noticed the blue, shimmering fields in the standalone edifices. These are teleporters. By clicking on the blue field when you are close enough, you can select a destination and be instantly trasported there. There are also people called Farshifters who will teleport you to other places on Eberron and back. However there is a destination that is not listed on the teleporters and has no Farshifter willing to send you there, but can be reached by anyone able to cast a teleporation spell and maybe by a few other magical means. It is the hub of the Arcane world, the tavern known as the Portable Hole. Here arcane scrolls levels 1 thru 7 and components for level 1 thru 9 arcane spells are sold, along with potions and a few specialty items like a Small Soul Bag. A level 13 wizard or level 14 sorcerer might be persuaded to use the Greater Teleport spell to take you there. Then again, it is best to be wary of such powerful magic users...

If you are an Artificer, you will find some components and scrolls for you at some of these places, but your main stop will be in house C (Cannith), and Taniera Grisvill for Artificer specific scrolls and level 1 thru 6 components. However, there are some scrolls that be you an Artificer, Sorcerer, Wizard, Cleric, or even a Rogue with a really high UMD skill, will not be able to buy from a vendor. Which leads us to ....

Time to delete this toon and start over
You can always learn more about DDO, but at some point you may come to realize that when you started playing your character you made a few mistakes in creating it. Some are correctable and some are not without being reincarnated. It might just be easier to start over. This is a decision each player has to make at some point. As you get to higher and higher levels on your toon and do the more challenging higher level quests, you may realize that you just don't have what it takes to make it in Eberron and it is time to start over.

I don't pretend to know everything. There are definitely lots of things I still need to learn, especially about some of the character classes I only tried for a little while, but never played into the higher levels. However if you read the last section, at the end I mentioned that there are scrolls you can't buy from vendors. You can find them as loot, or buy them in the AH. But if you are a Wizard, you get to pick some spells to learn every time you level up. It is obviously best to pick the spells you can't buy (see the Rare Arcane Scroll List). This is only one example of something you do when you level that is not reversible except through reincarnation. And if you've read the page that reincarnation links to, you will see that feats, skills and stat allocation are the other things.

The DDO wiki has a Newbie guide page with a lot of links, including one to the official DDO forum for New Player Advice & Guidance. There is a lot of good information all over the place and I will try only to hit the high points and relay some experinces I have had that will hopefully be helpful.

One of the things you will read repeatedly if you look at advice is "CON is not a dump stat". Simply put, no matter what class you play, sooner or later you will get into a higher level, more challenging adventure and you will need Hit Points. You will take damage. Even if you are a healer. Palemasters can "Harm" themselves. Warforged might be able to cast a repair spell on themselves. And everyone can drink a potion or be healed/repaired by a caster. But all these things take time and can be interrupted if the person drinking or casting is attacked. Hit Points buy time. No matter how careful a player you are, there is always that chest that spawns a mob of monsters when its opened or monsters that wander or respawn. You will eventually be attacked. The more damage you can take without dying, the more time you can buy until help arrives or you can help yourself, the better. And remember that caster that is going to heal or repair you has to have time to target you and to cast the spell. You might die while the spell is being cast on you or waiting while a spell is being cast on another party member. Advice will vary, on how many of your build points you should put into the Constituion Ability, but if you have a 10 or *shudder* an 8 CON, you will not get much sympathy when you die quickly in high level quests.

One thing not mentioned much is Strength. As your character progresses to higher levels, you will be able to use better equipment. Some equipment will help you boost your abilites to higher and higher levels. But starting out, if you have a STR of less than 10, you will easily become burdened when there is some heavy loot to be had like armor, and might have to throw it away *sniff*. Most abilities are only good for raising your ability modifier which happens on even numbers. Even one more odd point of STR will increase your carrying capacity. So consider getting a STR enhancement item if you have a low STR and have an equipment slot available. You can also get spells cast on you and walk into poison traps and areas that will temporarily reduce your STR. Consider carrying a potion of "Bull's Strength" to counteract this until the effect wears off or use a potion of "Lesser Restoration" to remove the effect.

All other stats are kind of dependent on what class you are playing, what you want to do with that toon, etc. However there is a special dependency that isn't mentioned up front, and that is between Intelligence (INT) and skill points. I discovered too late that your base INT, the INT you start with your build points, that can increase thru abil raises at levels 4,8,12,16,20 and 24, and inherent bonuses from tomes, are the only things that count when calculating how many skill points you gain when you level up. No potion, equipment or ship buffs will help you when you visit your class trainer to level up and receive skill points to alocate. So again, like STR, less than a 10 and you might be hurting. If you are thinking about multi-classing, you will definitely need more INT. You will need to study up on inital skill points (i.e. your first level of your toon should be the one that has the most skill points allocated), and what are and are not class skills. You will need 2 skill points for every rank of non-class skill. Getting a level or two of this or that turns out to have a lot of complications. Study up and look at advice on so called "splashing" or "dipping". Seriously consider using something like Ron's Character Planner, so you can see whether you will have enough skill points to keep critical skills at their maximum.

Skill points is another thing you can't redo without starting over (either starting a new toon or reincarnating). One thing that is not mentioned enough is that you must have one rank in a skill in order for equipment to be able to help you. If it is a non-class skill, this means 2 skill points must be allocated to get that 1 rank you need. One skill that needs special mention is the Jump skill. There are items, potions and spells to help you boost you Jump skill, but it is best to have some ranks in the Jump skill. It currently stops being effective past a skill level of 40 (which means if you get a jump skill of 100, you still can't jump any higher than if you had a 40). Equipment can at most get you +15 jump, and a spell cast on you can get you at most +30. But these thing are dependent on your level or the level of the spell caster. DDO is a video game and there are some quests where you have to have a certain amount of jump skill or you will not make it through the quest (or sometimes to the optional chest, objective or rest shrine).

Finally is feats. This is actually somewhat redo-able through a Mind Flayer who has taken up residence in House Jorasco named Fred. However you have to wait the standard three days before Fred will talk to you again about changing a feat, and he only does one feat at a time, with the price going up with the level of your toon. He'll want more plat, but he'll also want a Siberys Dragonshard of some quality. You might get them from chests or as a reward, but can also make them from fragments in the Stone of Change. (Follow the links for more information about how many fragments).

This brings us to a trick I learned that can help you even if you don't have a character planner program. It also works for Enchancements which are redo-able, and we'll talk about them in a moment. When you bring up your character sheet (available from the DDO menu or by default bound to the "C" key), both the Enhancements and the Feats tabs will have 4 checkboxes at the bottom. Anytime, anywhere you can bring this up an uncheck the "Show Trained" box and check the "Show Unavailable" box by clicking on them with the mouse. If you position your mouse over the icon for a feat, it will show you what is required to get that feat. Some feats will require that you get a different feat as a prerequisite. Some feats have level requirements, which means your trainer will not offer it to you until you are that level. If you are thinking about getting Fred to swap a feat for you there are two things to consider. One is that you can do the one time quest Hall of the Mark and receive one free feat swap (supposedly to get a dragonmark, but it can be used for anything). The other thing is to seriously consider taking the Toughness Feat at least once. Not only does it get you some more Hit Points, but it is the prerequisite for the Racial Toughness Enhancements availale to various races.

It's not too late for prestige
One thing I didn't learn until I had a toon past level six was that if you took the right enhancements when you spent your action points at your class trainer, at level 6 (and depending on your class possibly advanced versions all the way up to level 18 and a special enhancement at level 20 called a capstone) he or she would offer something called a prestige enhancement. And depending on your class, you might have a choice. Prestiges are listed on the pages for the various Classes, and there is currently a nice planner to help you on the web at http://ddo.motd.ru/planner. But again there is an in game trick you can use anytime, anywhere to find out what you need. You can even do it while you are visiting your class trainer and in the processes of respending your action points (To do that, visit him and ask to "Reset your enhancements" which will cost you some plat and can be done once every three days. Then "Spend action points on enhancements" as normal).

Bring up your Character Sheet (DDO Menu on lower left, or by default the "C" key) and go to the Enhancements tab. Uncheck the "Show Trained" box and check the "Show Unavaiable" box. A long list will show up. To make it more manageable, look for the two buttons near the upper right that look like bulleted lists. The one on the right will show the tooltip "Collapse All" when you place the mouse pointer over it. Press it. Now scroll thru the list and look for your class name and prestige enhancement (i.e. "Cleric : Prestige Enhancement" or "Wizard : Prestige Enhancement", etc.). Left of the words is a plus sign ("+"). Click it and that portion of the list will re-expand. You can now place the mouse over the icons and see what the prerequisite requirements are for that prestige enhancement. It may require one or more feat that you currently do not have. Note that the capstone enhancement for level 20 is listed under the section "Capstone Enhancements" and requires 20 full levels in the class (i.e. no multiclassing). Requirements you have met will be shown in green and those you haven't are in red.

Enough of this talk, this is a video game, let's play!
Okay. It is a video game. So lets go over a few things. If you know the quest well and know how to play well, you can go though quests quick if you want to. This is called "Zerging" by some people (see Wikipedia for an explanation). Also, there are players who have advantages in equipment and ability bonuses earned in past lives. There are also ship buffs (explained later in guilds). All of these things can make it seem like this is an easy game to play. If someone runs ahead and kills all the tough monsters for you, then its going to be an easy quest. But what happens if there is no one in the party like that? Or what happens if you or someone else comes running back with a dozen monsters hot on their tail? Is it going to be an easy quest?

Here are some things to remember.

1) There are traps. The higher the difficulty and level of the quest, the more damage they do. You can jump over some. You can time some just right and run past when they are off and recharging. Some are just going to kill you, and you need some one with the search and disable device skills at a very high level. (Often called a "trapper" or "mechanic"). If you don't know where the traps are, you can look at the wiki page for the Quest. But it's hard to remember, and sometimes even harder to match up a 2-D map with a 3-D game world. It's best to have someone up front who knows the quest, especially if that person is a trapper. If the trapper stops, you pass him or her at your peril. If you are a trapper, or even a Monk or Ranger, you can invest skill points in your Spot skill. This and some eqipment to boost it might give you enough warning to stop before walking into a trap.

2) Everything you can do, the monsters can do, whether they did it in the last quest or not. They can trip you, cast spells on you, etc. Start learning which monsters do what. Which brings us to my next point.

3) Remember loading screen tip number 180. It's a video game. A good way to not take damage from a spell is to not be there when the spell "lands". But you can't avoid all spells, so...

4) Go for the casters. They are sometimes called shamans, or healers, but also have clear names like cleric or wizard. Even if you are a melee character, you might want to look at the Spells pages. This is what can be thrown at you. The Concentration skill applies to monsters as well as players. If you are attacking, they have to make a Difficulty Check roll against their Concentration skill or they fail to cast. A healer is going to make it take a long time or make it impossible to kill the others. Take out the casters first.

5) Carry some curative pots to counter lingering effects of traps and spells. Your healer might have the right spell equipped to cure you, but that would use Spell Points which could be used to heal you in the next fight. If you are low on plat, remember that breakables sometimes have pots in them, and some Collectables can be traded for pots.

6) Watch your own Hit Points and pull back if you have to. Even if you are a melee class character, you can get too many monsters damaging you at once for even a dedicate healer focusing on you to keep you healed. If you are self healing (Healer/Palemaster/Warforged with Repair spell) you can fail to cast a spell to bring your hitpoints up. And there are always wandering monsters, or the possibility of a mob of monsters nearby making a "Listen" check and deciding to join the fun.

7) Remember loading screen tip 170. And in general, spells are line of sight. Try to be in sight of a healing spell and out of sight of a damaging spell.

8) Stay with the party leader. Their picture will have a "star" next to it. They are also the one who has their name listed in the LFM. That person or persons going off on their own, may or may not know what they are doing. Ask your leader if you should be going with them, before following.

9) You attacked it, you kill it, and don't die while doing it. For melee classes this is fairly straight forward. But for ranged people (bow, crossbows, etc.) and casters this can be tricky. In general a monster will attack the person who is doing the most damage to it. This is called acquiring its aggression or "agro" for short. If you attack something, and it is a meleee monster, it is probably going to be coming straight for you. If you don't have the armor class and hit points to stand there and wait for it, you are going to have to run if it doesn't die before it gets to you. Do you really want to wait until the last second to find out? You should probably be running backwards while shooting or casting, or circling it if there's room. If you get trapped in a dead end or surrounded, the ceiling better be high enough and you better have enough jump skill to jump over the head or heads of whatever is after you. And all this time, and you have to think about self-healing and/or keeping in line of sight and distance of the healer who may be busy. So be sure to have the equipment or spell to move quickly and jump, keep in mind where the healer is, and consider "assisiting" with a kill, instead of taking something on by yourself. If a monster is chasing you, other people can't hit it and help you kill it. Of couse if no one does any damgage to a monster it might just choose you anyways, or maybe your race or class and its don't get a long too well. There are exceptions. But it is only a video game and if you can take out a monster on your own, that's one less that can hurt other memebers of the party. Besides you've been nice to the people in your party and they'll take your soul stone to a resurection shrine, right?

Did you know?
Even if you've played DDO a lot, you may have gotten set in your ways and never tried some things. It often helps to experiment to learn if something works or maybe has been fixed in the last release to "Work As Inteneded" (WAI). Here are some things you may not have considered.

1) If it's a square icon and about so big, you can drag it to a shortcut bar. There are a few exceptions but a suprising number of things can be put in a shortcut bar. If you are new to the game, anything you can equip in your inventory, you can put on a shortcut bar so you can quickly change equipment. If its equppied and is a "clickie" (i.e. it has the ability to cast a spell when invoked), you can invoke the shortcut and cause it to cast its spell. But did you know that this also works for weapon sets? Make a weapon set of a main hand and off-hand weapon, weapon and shield, or whatever combo and you can drag it to the shortcut bar. It also works for arrow stacks not in quivers (switch to a bane arrow, or holy, or whatever for each target). If you are new to the game then you might not know that you can go thru the Feats and Enhancements tabs and drag the square icons to your shortcut bar so you can Sneak, or Auto Attack, or Sprint. Spell casters can drag their spells to their shortcut bars. But did you know that you can drag some spell options to the shortcut bar? The options of resist energy can be individual dragged to the shortcut bar, making it unnecessary to select which version you cast. It currently has the side effect of removing the main spell from the shortcut bar. Currently the options of Summon Monster don't appear drag-able.

2) You can cycle through hostile targets with the keyboard. You can use this to take inventory before the fight or help find that caster that needs to be taken out by your spell or bow. Or perhaps you can cast a spell that will do damage over time (often called "DOT'ing"). By default the key to "Select Next Combat Target" is the Tab key.

3) You can cycle through things you can interact with such as NPCs, levers, shrines, trapboxes, etc. with the keyboard as well as invoke interaction (once you are close enought to the targeted NPC or item). The default key to "Select Next Interactable" is the Backspace key. The default key to "Interact" is "U". You can use this to find something you need to pick up, including soul stones. By default in the Options menu under "UI Settings", "Combat takes precedence over non-combat" is turn on, so a mouse click is likely to swing a weapon or shoot it instead of interacting with what you are trying to click on if a monster is nearby.

4) When interacting with NPCs you can select which option you choose with a single key (although by default NPC Dialog Choice #1 is ctrl-F1, technically two keys, ctrl-F2 is the second choice, etc. But these can be remapped.) This can help you quickly go thru crew on guild ships that cast buffing spells, or in challenges where "Time is Money".

5) When a quest has you defending an NPC, or you summon a monster or hireling to fight for you, the NPC or summons can have buffing spells cast on them making them harder to kill. They can also be healed (although in the case of summoned monsters it costs less Spell Points to resummon them). If the NPC isn't going to fight, you might even be able to cast invisibility on him or her to keep them out of harms way. Even if you aren't a spell caster, some "clickies" can be used by targeting the NPC or summons (by default the right mouse button or the Backspace cycling trick) and then invoking the clickie. You can examine your target to see if it worked (by default the "Z" key).

Should I join a guild?
If you new or somewhat new to DDO, you may not have joined a guild yet. But sooner or later you are going to acquire some equipment you want to use and discover that it has a "guild augment slot" (see Guild Crafting). To use it you must have a minimum guild level of 1. Fortunately this is where all guilds start, so joining any guild (or starting your own by purchasing a charter from the DDO store if you are "free-to-play" (F2P) or "premium") will satisfy this requirement and allow you to use equipment with guild slots. However there is a lot more to guilds that just being able to use some pieces of eqipment that have guild slots (Note that although guild slots come in sizes, a guild's "size" is actually dependent on its level, not the number of members in it).

If you start your own guild you will instantly have your own special chat channel that any member of your guild can communicate in. The Guild tab on the social panel will list a roster of guild members that is sortable by clicking on a column name, thus allowing you to find a toon that is of a certain level or class, a specific name, or who is online and where are they currently located. There is also a "Message Of The Day" (MOTD) that is settable by you as guild leader and your designated officers. This will show up on the guild channel when a member logs in.

This roster is actually one of two sub-tabs. The other lists rewards available to your guild at its level and those yet to be unlocked by achieving a higher Guild Level(follow the link for a page listing rewards). At guild level 4, you will be able to start shopping at the Guild Discount General Vendor in House Kundarak who will sell some things other general vendors do for a little less. Other guild discount vendors will become available to you as your guild progresses.

So how does you advance your guild level? Once you belong to guild, chests you loot will start randomly dropping items that will give your Guild Renown. Also killing certain monsters will generate renown as well. And randomly NPCs will list guild renown as an option for your reward for completing a quest.

But whether you start your own guild or join one that someone else started, it will be or will eventually be level 26 or higher. This is when renown decay starts. Why is there renown decay? If there wasn't, there would only be a few large guilds at the max level of 100 and everyone would be wanting to join them. Besides to keep with the fantasy idea of a guild being famous, it's the old "what have you done lately?" question done large. If your guild is not actively doing heroic deeds, then you are yesterday's news.

What is renown decay? Basically its a tax on your guild applied every day if it is over level 25. The tax is based on the guild level and number of accounts that belong to the guild. A common misconception is the more toons you have in your guild, the bigger the member count. A guild can have lots of toons on its roster that belong to one DDO game account and it counts as one member for the purposes of renown. However, each toon that leaves a guild takes some of the renown it earned with it (although it is not transferable to another guild, it is just lost). "Recent Departures" are counted as members for 14 days before everyone finally acknowledges they are gone for good and they are no longer figured into renown decay.

All this and more factors into Guild Renown and may help partially answer the question of "Why won't guild XXX invite me to join?". Any guild below level 26 might not be worried about departures since they don't suffer from renown decay. A member leaving on bad terms is still leaving 75% of the renown they earned behind. But once a guild hits level 26, "Recent Departures" are helping increase the tax on the guild when the member is really no longer part of the guild anymore and is not helping earn renown to help fight decay and grow the guild.

Again tooltips come into play for finding out information about your guild and a particular toon's contribution to the guild. Placing the mouse pointer over the shield in the guild tab that has the guild level will show how the "Modified Account Size" is calculated. Placing the mouse over the red bar that indicates current guild renown and total need for next guild level will bring up how much renown your toon has contributed to the guild.

Another big thing about guilds is airships. In lots of public areas in the city of Stormreach, you will find a door to an airship tower, allowing you to board your guild's airship (provided it has purchased one). Once on board you can talk to the captain and have him or her drop you at any other airship tower. A quick way to get around. On board are places for crew and other ammenities. The bigger the ship, the more it can hold. Each ammenity has to be purchased and installed or changed out by an officer. Once in place, any guild member can purchase a similar contract to help extend the life of that ammenity. Only one airship is available when a guild reaches level 20, with others available at higher guild levels. Only the Silver Flame Priest Contact can be purchased at level 20 for platinum (although Turbine Points can be spent on some gold seal contracts). Some amentities are merely replica's of services available at other places in Eberron, but there are unique "buffs" that boost abilites, skill, and resistances to spell damage.

But an airship can be used by non-guild members as long as three conditions are met. The captain is wary of non-guild members, so at least one guild member (you or someone else) must be on the guild airship when an invitation is issued. To issue an invitation or to be invited to someone else's guild airship, you must be in a party with them. The invited person must be near an airship door to accept the invitation. (Note that you don't have to be in any guild to accept an airship invitation). Clicking the right mouse button on a party member's name in the party chat box, or their status indicator (Name/HP/SP/Ki) will give you the option of issuing an invitation.