Alex's Guide to Battle Mode

Battle Mode (activated by pressing /bm) turns your keyboard into your hotkey bars using each row of keys as F1-F9.

The first bar is keys Z ~ > (that's the entire row with Z as F1 and > as F9)
The second bar is Q ~ O and
the third bar transforms from A ~ L.

Now you might be asking why would ANYONE want to use battlemode? The answer is simple, some classes have lots of skills (Priests, wizards, super novices…the list goes on) and it's a hassle to hit F12 to switch bars, especially in battle or WoE when timing can be pretty crucial.

There are several ways, if you play only one class you can print out some stickers and stick em to your keyboard (there seriously is an image floating around on the net with a priests keyboard) OR you can have a friend/guildie teach you by telling you to hit which skill so you can do it properly (for instance, if you're a wizard, you have Fire Bolt 10 on Bar 3 F1, so when your friend/guildie tells you to hit fire bolt you'd press Q), it also helps if you have a sheet of paper with your skills written on it and the keys they correspond with. Either way, it can take an hour or so to fully master it (sometimes less, sometimes more, depends on the person).

But wait!! How do I chat to my Guildies/@main/friends?! Space will become your ultimate friend as it activates your chat bar.

If you use certain skills more often than others, an easier way to use your skills speedily is to use your off hand on the keyboard and main hand on mouse. For example: If you write with your left, your left is on your mouse, your right will be your keyboard hand. It's REALLY helpful if you have one of those ergonomic keyboards (you know the ones that are raised and split down the middle?).

An example of the above is this: as a priest I make use of the left side of my keyboard for all my commonly used skills like buffs and heal. The top row, which is part of my 2nd bar contains my attack skills (like agi down, Lex aeterna, lex divina, holy light) as well as pneuma, the 3rd bar, (home row keys people) has all my buffs since my hand rests there (agi up, blessing, imposito) as well as cure and heal, the bottom row or 1st bar has all the skills I might need, with the ones I'll need most within easy reach (for instance my V is teleport and B is recovery) and the other not so used skills are just below that. On the right side of the keyboard, I've placed all the skills I hardly use (like warp portal and aqua benidicta) because I don't use them often at all.