How do you slot your Cross-Hotbars? - White Mage

Velo,

Thank you for posting the screenshots. I am on PS4/PS3. I actually trimmed down my bar to where I only have Aero II, Stone II, and Holy on the bar and don't bother with Cleric Stance. I have already emailed this link to myself. I won't copy it exactly but it has given me inspiration on how I can organize my bars. I rarely use sleep so I will probably have esuna and regen on both bars. I will try and share my screen shots at some point. But I am like you. I like have certain abilities in the same area for consistency. Like Shield Bash and Brutal Swing, I ended up changing my bars so they were in the exact same place.

Thanks Winter! It took ages to list the reasons behind my choices, but I've always preferred when people explain the logic instead of just saying do this or that, so I'm really glad you say it's given you some idea's without just copying. There's a lot of choices that conflict with each other, so I don't think there's any perfect layout, and people play differently of course. For example you say you don't bother with cleric stance?! For me it's pretty essential to do any worthwhile damage,since I have all my points in Mind. Or is it just that you mean you don't bother doing damage a lot in dungeons?

I haven't been able to find another thread on the topic of cross-hotbar slotting before, so have had to grab idea's over time from occasional points made in other topics, and then just think hard about it myself. I'm not sure if that's because people don't see it as important / useful, or maybe because gamepad with cross-hotbars are unique to this game and people aren't confident about sharing their ideas yet, but I've found that with each improvement I'm having to fight the interface / controls less, so I can just "BE" the White Mage XD. What I mean is that I prefer to spend my time deciding what strategic or reactive move I need to be making next, rather than what buttons I need to press.

I look forward to seeing your screens if you put them up, and hope more people will share suggestions / screens too :)

Well let me explain further. Cleric Stance is preferred and I do prefer it when I do damage but tabbing through cross bars and making sure I am on the right one was getting painful. Also potentially group threatening. I didn't know I could macro to switch Cross bars. So your Cleric Stance Macro will make it ideal. So what I did is cram everything essential onto one crossbar. Basically Presence of Mind , Virus and Eye for an Eye got dropped which in a sense makes me a less effective healer. That was just on the healing side of things. On the dps side I dropped Aero, Stone, and Fluid Aura. I haven't even bothered getting swiftcast yet since I didn't have room for it. This changes a lot of things for me.

Ah, that makes more sense to me now. I had the same issues with accidentally being in the wrong stance, or double switching stance by mistake, so for a long time I often avoided using it a lot too, even if it could have been effective. However I would encourage anyone not to limit their strategic flexibility, and instead to find a way to use the skills more comfortably (whether through re-thinking hotbars / settings or simply practicing with the controls more), as you are.

I also try to never rule out the usefulness of a particular skill. I've found each has great potential in the right situation. People often consider the dungeons to be scripted, and are only interested in playing in that scripted way. As a result they may rule out the effectiveness / purpose of slotting one skill or another. These healers then become frustrated when the tank can't hold hate / tank doesn't cycle targets / DPS pull aggro / DPS AOE when they shouldn't / DPS don't AOE when they should / player wakes sleeping enemies / etc, etc, etc. They believe they should not need to use x skill, because the other party members should be doing x (and I guess they are entitled to think so).

The thing is just because the mobs behaviors are scripted doesn't mean the players are, or need to be. Having a group co-ordinate well is nice and will get you your loot / progress quicker, but I don't play to just progress. Following a single strategy like a drone can become boring, and doesn't give me a sense of achievement. For me the fact that people will make mistakes, or have different play-style preferences makes each encounter real and dynamic, and is the heart of what an MMO is about. Co-ordination is not just about following a leader without error, but adapting to a teams weaknesses and them adapting to yours. Including cross-skills, White Mages in particular have huge flexibility in their choices (healing, damage, crowd control, damage mitigation, stun, slow) allowing them to engage creatively and contribute heavily to chances of success in the endless variety of possible situations. This is why I'm personally against leaving any skills out of reach, and also why I'm against combining skills with a macro (but removing the individual skills) to preserve space. It's difficult to cram everything into a couple cross-hotbars but I think it's worth it if you can.

So I reorganized my bars last night. I found one glitch though and I don't know if it was because I was accidentally hitting R1 or what. I would switch bars manually to do something but then it would auto switch back after I casted one ability. Maybe it was a button combo but it was getting annoying. But once I figure out how to extract photos from my PS4 I will post screenshots.

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Originally Posted by Wintersandman

So I reorganized my bars last night. I found one glitch though and I don't know if it was because I was accidentally hitting R1 or what. I would switch bars manually to do something but then it would auto switch back after I casted one ability. Maybe it was a button combo but it was getting annoying. But once I figure out how to extract photos from my PS4 I will post screenshots.

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I have an idea of what this could possibly be. If it's happening after the very first cast it could be that you need to turn off "Enable auto hotbar switching when drawing/sheathing weapon":

http://i.imgur.com/FIAPpcs.png

It's found in Character configuration > hotbar settings > Cross.

What the setting does is allows you to automatically jump to a specified hotbar each time your weapon is drawn / sheathed (based on which hotbars you selected in the options directly underneath). In my case this was not useful because I had Stoneskin on my second hotbar. Often before a fight I would manually switch to my second hotbar then cast Stoneskin on a player. Casting caused me to draw my weapon of course, which caused that setting to switch me to the first highlighted set in the "Enable customization for when weapon is drawn" setting. Then I had to manually switch back to set 2 again for the next Stoneskin which, as you say, was very annoying.

If this doesn't solve the issue, do you have any macro's currently with the /chotbar change in?

PS4 :) I roll three/four hotbars. My #3 pops when my weapon is away, number 1 weapon drawn, #2 my dual triggers. This works for me since I mostly tank so I just hold RT most of the time and my double pull is kinda my oh shit grip giving me 8 good buttons on my non movement side to put my combos on then i can relax grip to buff in combo. Healing all my macros are just singles with <t> <tt> progressions. Idk if there's a macro for att mark 2,,??

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Originally Posted by Velo_Vandore

I have an idea of what this could possibly be.

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I will double check that box when I get home. I used your macro for the Cleric Stance to add the /chotbar. I also unchecked hotbar 8 because that was getting annoying as well. I will probably start adding in some <t>/<tt> macros next. This has been great for ideas!

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Originally Posted by Killabye

PS4 :) I roll three/four hotbars. My #3 pops when my weapon is away, number 1 weapon drawn, #2 my dual triggers. This works for me since I mostly tank so I just hold RT most of the time and my double pull is kinda my oh shit grip giving me 8 good buttons on my non movement side to put my combos on then i can relax grip to buff in combo. Healing all my macros are just singles with <t> <tt> progressions. Idk if there's a macro for att mark 2,,??

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http://guide-source.com/ffxiv-guide/...g-ffxiv-macros

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Originally Posted by Wintersandman

http://guide-source.com/ffxiv-guide/...g-ffxiv-macros

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Thanks winter! What I specifically want is this. Tank pulls, I want his non target to pop and mark either cancel sign or #2 so I can sleep or bind withou switching. Kinda asking a lot but if you know how that'd be cool. I've changed all my macros so now I just target tank or target and don't have to switch, marking a bind would just make ir more awesome