Gladiator/General Hotbar Help (MMO Noob)

[Clefairy]

Hello,

I would just like some advice regarding the most efficient way to organize and use hotbars. Since I'm much more experienced with traditional turn-based RPGs than MMOs, I haven't really done anything beyond the first 20 levels in any MMO other than WoW (and that was forever ago and I forget how I played it when it got more complex). Up until recently, I only had a select few skills that made it easy to manage, but now that I have so many it's become difficult to find a comfortable feel.

Currently, I'm a level 26 Gladiator, and I've always had Fast Blade set to 1 followed by combo actions, with Savage Blade for 2 and Riot Blade for 3 until I needed to move Riot Blade further down as I was rarely using it, and now Savage Blade for 2 and Rage of Holone for 3. This makes it really easy and comfortable to do the three-set combo, but then there's Shield Bash. Shield Bash I currently have at number 4, because only keys 1-4 feel convenient enough for me to use in an instant and I find that I never react with it in time unless it's something I can use instantly.

What really bothers me is that this makes all of my skills to raise enmity, particularly Flash, not as accessible. I used to keep Flash in the 1-4 area, which was really convenient because I could just run into groups of enemies, hit the key, and then go back to whatever I was doing before. But now, I find that I'll always take a second to look down on my keyboard or click over it, activate it, then have to get back to what I was doing, but it's such a distraction for me now it disorients me for a few seconds. What's a good way to combat this? Where do you Gladiators/Paladins put Flash and do you activate it with a key or by mouse?

And that's another thing that's bothering me is the mouse. Clicking on spells can be a pain because you have to move over to them, click, and then move away so the little pop-up box telling you what the spell does goes away. It's also irritating when I want to just keep the mouse over a certain skill, because then the information box just hovers there the entire time. And even without it, I'm not fond of using the mouse for spells I need to activate right away. It works fine for things such as Rampart and Fight or Flight, but when I desperately need to use Flash or Riot Blade in an instant it's a big time waster. Not to mention there have been occasions where I accidentally click past the spell, which means not only do I not cast it, but I deselect my target so I'm not even auto-attacking in the second or two it takes for me to realize what I did wrong, and then I have to take another second to reselect them and cast again.

I'm really bothered that this is such a problem for me already, because not only am I going to get a lot more spells by the time I hit 50, but I'll get a million more after I start leveling the cross-compatible classes. I don't mean to sound whiny and melodramatic in the way I described all of that, but I'm trying to make my feelings relatable so anyone else who may have had similar issues can understand and guide me through it. I just need a good starting point, I was hoping I could figure it out on my own, but no such luck. Thanks!

[ShishioX1]

It's really best to just change things around to work best for you personally, because everyone likes to set things up differently.
Though, something you may not have noticed is that you can change the keybinds for your hotbars. Hit esc. then go to keybinds and the hotbar tab.
Q, E, F, Z, and X are good keys to set your important abilities.
For example:
Flash=1
Fast blade, savage blade, RoH=2,3 and 4
Riot Blade=Q
Shield lob= F
Circle of Scorn=E
Hallowed Ground=X
The other defensive cooldowns, I just have set near each other and click them as needed.
Also, you can change in the settings to when you click on the screen it won't deselect your target, but i can't remember exactly where in the settings it is atm.

[Asphe]

Use CTRL and ALT.

Say, 1~2~3 for your emnity combo, 4 for Overpower. Then use CTRL+2 for Flash, CTRL+3 for Provoke.

You can use ALT+1 for Holmgang because you probably don't use it as often as the rest.

This setup places almost everything you need on 1, 2, 3, 4 + CTRL + ALT

It's really personal preference. Best to just try it out for an hour or so and see if it suits you.

-> You can use CTRL+SHIFT too.

Go to options and see just what you can do.

-----

Use other keys besides the 1 -> = keys.

Usually, players tend to put the most often used skills on 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on. but you might want to consider putting certain things on Q and E. Or the Middle Mouse Button

You'd really, really want to avoid having to click on buttons to perform critical skills so you might take a good look at your left hand when you play and see what else you can keybind to your convenience. You do NOT have to stick to the 1~>= configuration.

-----

Use more hotbars.

So you're run out of space for 1, 2, 3, 4? CTRL+ done and even ALT+? try CTRL+SHIFT.

You can have 4 hotbars, or more. And perhaps instead of putting your Emnity combo on 1, 2, 3, 4... you can put it on ... CTRL+1, 2, 3, 4

The idea being that you try to keep everything in the 1, 2, 3, 4 area... within easier reach.

--> You can move the hotbars around, even make them align vertically instead of horizontally. While you can't stick individual buttons where you like.... feel free to stick a vertical hotbar neat the middle of the screen and put duplicates of important skills there... a timer hotbar if you will.

-----

... and now for the other way of it. Since I play all the jobs as it were, I will put '6' as my annoying, offensive skill. CTRL+6 as my healing skill. The reasoning here is that I trade away some speed and convenience for commonality among all my jobs and classes.

When I play VBS, I have 48 functions mapped within 3 key lengths of my WASD keys. When I play FF14 though... on occasion I have to perform some contortion with both hands to activate a skill... but at least I always know that CTRL+= is my main AOE buff spell/ability.

It can be hard to start this sort of customisation early on, but if you stick with it... you'll wonder why you ever did it any other way.

--> Press both mouse buttons to move forward? You can do more. Flip a 180 with a button press (run forward past the mob, flip 180. Repeat). You can have it so you activate skills and strafe with your left hand... everything else is done with the right hand / mouse.

[Clefairy]

Originally posted by ShishioX1:

It's really best to just change things around to work best for you personally, because everyone likes to set things up differently.

Of course, but I guess I just want a good starting reference since I have tried and failed to find something myself. I felt like I was missing something, and what you said about using other keys on the keyboard seems like one component!

Originally posted by ShishioX1:

IThough, something you may not have noticed is that you can change the keybinds for your hotbars. Hit esc. then go to keybinds and the hotbar tab.
Q, E, F, Z, and X are good keys to set your important abilities.
For example:
Flash=1
Fast blade, savage blade, RoH=2,3 and 4
Riot Blade=Q
Shield lob= F
Circle of Scorn=E
Hallowed Ground=X
The other defensive cooldowns, I just have set near each other and click them as needed.
Also, you can change in the settings to when you click on the screen it won't deselect your target, but i can't remember exactly where in the settings it is atm.

This certainly seems like it would work better, but I guess I'm curious about Q and E -- wouldn't that make strafing a lot more difficult, if not impossible? I'm sure the other keys have uses too, although they escape me at the moment and could probably be more easily remapped. It kind of seems odd to me that this seems like the most viable solution, yet it's not set like that by default! At least, I think it would work better for a lot of people.

Originally posted by Asphe:

Use CTRL and ALT.

Say, 1~2~3 for your emnity combo, 4 for Overpower. Then use CTRL+2 for Flash, CTRL+3 for Provoke.

You can use ALT+1 for Holmgang because you probably don't use it as often as the rest.

This setup places almost everything you need on 1, 2, 3, 4 + CTRL + ALT

It's really personal preference. Best to just try it out for an hour or so and see if it suits you.

-> You can use CTRL+SHIFT too.

Go to options and see just what you can do.

-----

Use other keys besides the 1 -> = keys.

Usually, players tend to put the most often used skills on 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on. but you might want to consider putting certain things on Q and E. Or the Middle Mouse Button

You'd really, really want to avoid having to click on buttons to perform critical skills so you might take a good look at your left hand when you play and see what else you can keybind to your convenience. You do NOT have to stick to the 1~>= configuration.

-----

Use more hotbars.

So you're run out of space for 1, 2, 3, 4? CTRL+ done and even ALT+? try CTRL+SHIFT.

You can have 4 hotbars, or more. And perhaps instead of putting your Emnity combo on 1, 2, 3, 4... you can put it on ... CTRL+1, 2, 3, 4

The idea being that you try to keep everything in the 1, 2, 3, 4 area... within easier reach.

--> You can move the hotbars around, even make them align vertically instead of horizontally. While you can't stick individual buttons where you like.... feel free to stick a vertical hotbar neat the middle of the screen and put duplicates of important skills there... a timer hotbar if you will.

-----

... and now for the other way of it. Since I play all the jobs as it were, I will put '6' as my annoying, offensive skill. CTRL+6 as my healing skill. The reasoning here is that I trade away some speed and convenience for commonality among all my jobs and classes.

When I play VBS, I have 48 functions mapped within 3 key lengths of my WASD keys. When I play FF14 though... on occasion I have to perform some contortion with both hands to activate a skill... but at least I always know that CTRL+= is my main AOE buff spell/ability.

It can be hard to start this sort of customisation early on, but if you stick with it... you'll wonder why you ever did it any other way.

--> Press both mouse buttons to move forward? You can do more. Flip a 180 with a button press (run forward past the mob, flip 180. Repeat). You can have it so you activate skills and strafe with your left hand... everything else is done with the right hand / mouse.

Well, Ctrl + anything for me always feels kind of slow, and I've specifically had issues with putting Flash there since it's a lot easier to have on a single key that I can press in an instant. Also, you mentioned assigning abilities to Q and E as well, but mentioned strafing with the left hand. Is there some good strafing alternative if I do want abilities assigned to Q and E?

This has all been a tremendous help from both of you, so thanks. I can already see the main problem was I was too afraid to mess around with the controls, but now it seems like the obvious solution.

[Tumas Altaawus]

To strafe, hold the right mouse button and use A and D.

I have my combo on 1, 2, 3. Riot blade on 4. Flash on 5. Provoke on 6. Accessing 1-6 gets easier the more you play. For the rest of the skills, I click them. I have ctrl + numbers set to marks, so I have my cooldowns on another bar and click them as I need them. Thought I recently got a new mouse with more buttons, and bound the buttons to those.

After tanking for around 400 hours (my main job is paladin) I found this to be the most comfortable for me.

[Tumas Altaawus]

Once I get home I can take a screenshot of my skill bars if it'll help.

[ShishioX1]

There isn't really a need for the strafe buttons if you switch over to the Legacy control instead of using the Standard control.
I've been using the Legacy controls and haven't once needed to use Q or E for strafing, so I just made them hotbar keys instead.

[Clefairy]

Originally posted by Chargeback Thomas:

Once I get home I can take a screenshot of my skill bars if it'll help.

Yeah, I would definitely appreciate that if you could! Do you not have issues clicking abilities often and in time, like Shield Bash? I'm curious that if I keep at it, maybe I can get to the point where clicking doesn't hinder me as much as it does now.

Originally posted by ShishioX1:

There isn't really a need for the strafe buttons if you switch over to the Legacy control instead of using the Standard control.
I've been using the Legacy controls and haven't once needed to use Q or E for strafing, so I just made them hotbar keys instead.

Okay, I'll give that a shot. I stuck with the standard controls just because they're more similar to every other MMO I've ever played, particularly WoW, but if it can improve my performance I can definitely try something else.

[Tumas Altaawus]

Here you go.

Most of my cooldowns are linked to a mouse button now, as is shield bash and spirits within. But I used to either click both when needed.

[Tumas Altaawus]

Paladin needs all their skills. Most of them are cooldowns, the rest are there to generate aggro or prevent attacks. There's only 2 skills I rarely use as a tank, and those are cover and shield swipe. Though I do need to throw out a cover every so often if I lose aggro and people don't run towards me.

[Clefairy]

All right, I think I got a pretty good setup going. Right now I have my combo attacks and Shield Bash at 1-5, Flash and Provoke for my extra mouse buttons (which for some reason I didn't think of using until now), Shield Lob at ` (so it's easy to pull an enemy and then go straight into a combo), and the rest on hotbars for clicking, which is working very well! Of course I'll have to twiddle with it when I gain more abilities, but this gave me an excellent starting point that I can work from myself. Looking over all the suggestions here helped tremendously, and will probably help me in the future when I have twice as many abilities as I do now. Thanks to everyone that replied!