Don't wish to turn battle mode off, press ENTER once before typing your message, and the text field will become re-enabled if you're trying to type to other players And it'll go back to normal Battle Mode state after you send the message. It's annoying at first, but it helps when you're in a party fighting with others, that Battle Mode snaps right back into action after sending a line of text to your fellow players.
Then it's a great idea to hotkey different gears (elemental weapons, armors, headgears, accessories, etc) if you're playing in a WoE or PVP scenario. This is known as swapping, and the use of Battle Mode makes it easier than ever before to perform quick changes in your gears! It just simply drag and drop the icon from your inventory window to the hotkey location you wish to place it, just like when hotkeying skills!
At last don't have support skills to heal yourself, or buff yourself with? Well, So you can drag useable items from your inventory such as potions and other healing type items, as well as spell scrolls (both offensive and supportive scrolls). Having a multitude of different potion types helps you to not waste your more potent potions for the instances you just wish to heal a little, instead of a lot.