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THINGS I WISH I'D KNOWN EARLIER - Items, Equipment, and Loot

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* If you find an item that seemingly has no use, it's generally one of three things: 1) A tradeskill component 2) Vendor trash (sell for cash) 3) An item involved in a quest (particularily if it's marked as LORE). Make sure you right click and examine any strange items you find (especially if they dropped from chests or you found them from a ? on the ground), as they may start quests. Note that some items used for quests will not be identified as such until you already have the quest (for example, the mastery quest items are like this).

* The game has a trivial loot code. Look at the text in the targeting box. This will say either solo, group, group x 2, group x 3, or group x 4. This does two things. First, as part of considering a mob you can look at how difficult they are. Second, it tells you at what number of allies at which this mob will become trivial and give no chest loot or quest items. ? for solo, 7 for group, 13 for groupx2, and 19 for groupx3. You will notice a little chest icon with a red circle and line through it (no smoking symbol) when a mob will not drop loot for your group/raid.

* Make sure to attune any attunable items you have equipped, otherwise they will not give you any benefit. This is particularily important with weapons, as you will always miss with an attunable weapon that has not been attuned (and you will not get a warning telling you why you are always missing).

* Mobs that are grey to you will not give you exp or drop chests. However, they will still drop items on their bodies, and you can still use them for any kill quests you may have in your journal.

* If a mob is grey to anybody in the group, it will be considered grey to everyone. Note: be careful when grouped with higher level players that you camp in a safe place. When you log back in, mobs that were grey before may not be any longer now that you don't have the higher level player in your group! Also note that if you are in a dangerous place and your highest level group member disbands or goes linkdead, this can leave you in a bad position.

* You can group with someone who is a maximum of 6 levels or 25% higher in level than you (whichever is greater) and still get exp. If you group with someone outside this range, you will not get exp nor quest credit for any kills made.

* If you are lottoing for an item in a group, make sure you have at least one inventory spot open. Lotto items you win will NOT go into overflow. If you have no room for them, they will be lotto'd again! Hopefully this will be fixed in the near future.

* Once a chest's timer expires, the chest becomes open for anyone to loot. Note that unlike EQ1, opening the chest does NOT lock the chest to the character who has opened it. It is possible for another player come along, open the same chest, and grab the loot before you do. Therefore, if you are opening a chest with an expired timer, do not hesitate when putting the loot into your inventory.

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