Chasing the answers: Vol 1

As a newbie, I am blown away by the talent that is floating around this forum. As someone who really just stumbles through life compared to some of you guys, I want to start asking questions that you might all take for granted, but I can not find answers to.

Here goes: Coming from a print background, the feature set of Flash is mind-blowing. There also seems to be a number of ways of doing the same thing in many cases. What would be the top 3 'Can’t live without’em" functions of Flash for a newbie to learn? Like TellTarget, or layers and loading movies …

Hopefully someone out there gets the drift of the question. Thanks.