WHM and Gamepad: how do you play?

I'm a PS3 player. My UI is pretty much default (with some things shrunk or moved further to the edge of the screen). I use two main cross bars with a fairly organized setup. R2 face buttons on bar 1 has stone, stone 2, aero, and stance. Dpad with protect, repose, water, and SoS. L2 face cures and sprint (yes, sprint. I dislike swapping bars to sprint lol). Dpad SS, esuna, regen and divine seal. 2nd bar has other useful things like swiftcast and whatnot spread how I like it. Medicas and Holy are on L2 face. Couple screenshots below are a bit old and were taken at different times just to clarify, the 2nd was accidental trying to open the menu and setting auto run in CT lol. Also I think I was screwing around with it at the time of the 2nd one, aero 2 is usually where that stance is lol.

I used to just R1 tap to swap, but I got used to switching by holding the button and hitting a button to switch after I made a marking bar with some useful stuff for tanking. On all of my classes I have similar setups too, main stuff on the face and less used stuff on the dpad.
http://i.imgur.com/mIk1JMp.png
http://i.imgur.com/FGP5kux.png

Oh and I sometimes SS mid fight. It's not super efficient in most cases, in fact it's generally not good to do mid fight because of it's MP cost, but at times it can be a life saver. Say a DPS eats a hit but you can't really take your focus off the tank for whatever reason (constant big damage due to being lesser geared). Swiftcast, SS the DPS and pop a regen (keep in mind that that swiftcast eats a timely raise, hope you have a SMN with you lol). As long as the person doesn't eat another big attack they'll be fine. It's situational, certainly not recommended for repeated use in fights like Titan HM, but you learn when it will be useful over time spent healing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Estellios

Stoneskin isn't often used mid-fight later on because it's slow and MP inefficient, but it is crucial in some fights when you are anticipating a big hit that is usually telegraphed like Titan's Mountain Buster. It's nice to throw it up whenever Swiftcast is up, though.

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I'm fairly new to lvl 50 healing, just finished Titan up last night, but one use that I found is if you have to raise someone in Titan (HM). Their HP is often dipped to a point where they have a rough time surviving Tumult and through no fault of their own, they just can't stay up. If you can toss a stoneskin on them while weak, it may help them survive the next Tumult.

I will toss stoneskin up on people if I have a moment, I agree it does help with the random damage tossed out.

-I use stoneskin A LOT midfight. I often go for 100% uptime on myself and the other healer. I know it's inefficient, but I also know I'll stand in the wrong place eventually.
-I rarely use cleric stance.
-Protect is rarely needed midfight.
-I don't have eye for an eye - I didn't like acn.
-I do like cure III when it's half cost to cast and melee need some light healing.

My main 16 cover my most encounters:
Cure I
Cure II
Cure III
Medica II (divine seal macro?)
Benediction
Esuna
Stoneskin
Sprint
Stone II
Aero
Regen
Shroud of saints
Holy
Raise (switcast/PoM macro)
Virus
Divine seal

The other 16?
Protect
Cleric Stance
Medica
Presence of Mind
Sprint (yes it’s on both)
Stone I
X-ether
Echo drops
Fluid Aura
Repose

Maybe switcast, and surecast??? IDK – they’re macro’d into other abilities.

My hotbar is highly customizable where i have 2 when out of battle, and 2 that can only be activated while weapon is drawn. That being said, I'm able to fit all Skills special to that class on One and a Half Hotbars. This includes WHM

I use 1 hot bar set normally, then Access to a 2nd Hotbar by Holding L2+R2. L2->R2, and R2-L2 can summon 2 different Half Hotbars. I have 1 half hotbar set to both, in case i ever accidentally use R2L2 over L2R2. which can happen a lot.

As far as organization, my stuff is all over the place and only to be understood by me due to habits and tendencies lol.

my L2 R2 hotbar normally consists of "Oh Sh@# lets get it done!" such as Benediction, Swiftcast, Medica II and a "Need MP macro" for WHM.