Button Bloat?

So I picked up this game again, but on PS4. As title suggests, my main concern is the obscene number of actions I seem to be racking up (I'm playing as Ninja), and I'm not even 40 yet. I've already had to move some I would have liked to use frequently to the second hotbar in favor of more important ones, but I can't see my second hotbar on the controller mode, so I have no idea when those actions are off cooldown. Am I actually expected to use all of these at max level? Or do some actions become obsolete when you get new ones? Is Ninja the problem?

The nin on my alt has 2 full hotbars, but since most skills share CDs, I don't have an issue with it (skills on gcd and trick/sneak attacks). But, my main, a pld, uses 3 full hotbars, and I still have no issues, while 3 hotbars is excessive, I have every skill, a ready check, ABC marks, Mark #1, sprint, cross-class, repeated RoH on hot bar 1 &2 all defensive CDS set to hotbar 1 and the hidden hotbars (#3), so I have literally everything mapped out, and I remember it all perfectly. It mostly just takes time to get used to it and to get familiar with your hot bar layouts. And, yes, I do play on ps3 an alt account for making money on a different world. If I can't travel with more than 1 mil, I'll make money on one, buy stuff, world transfer, and re sell it on a my mains's world. Easy way around the gil limit. And play on a ps4 with my main

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Originally Posted by Rahuran

I've already had to move some I would have liked to use frequently to the second hotbar in favor of more important ones, but I can't see my second hotbar on the controller mode, so I have no idea when those actions are off cooldown.

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Place a hotbar over your crossbar with abilities that have CDs. That way you can see the CDs of moves you may not use very often. Also try to get use to the L2 + R2 / R2 + L2 function to give yourself more slots for abilities.

Something like this:

https://i.imgur.com/y5qD4WJ.jpg

However, I have buffs such as B4B and IR on both crossbars, so there is no point in putting it on the hotbar.

So far I plan on having all of my mudras + ninjutsu on one crossbar, I have my spin edge > gust slash > aeolian combo + mutilate on another crossbar. Are there any others that I would want to have readily visible on the last two? I guess my question is then, what 16 actions need to be on that first hotbar that I will actually need to be using frequently in combat?

That is all up to personal preference honestly, as far as skills go, unless it's when/how they are used, there's no real guidance. Because where they are, if you can still use it properly, is not a big issue. On my alt dgdggdg hghghghg I set up crossbar 9 for pet actions, just so I could see if it's skills were off cd, will do the same once I get the jobs on it.

The best thing though, is to place them on a cross bar so you can see the cd, like above poster mentioned

The screenshot I posted has the most commonly used abilities (except Ninjutsus and Invigorate; they are on the L2 + R2 bars). Can remove the pot for Invigorate for preference.

EDIT: I forgot Mutilate and Shadow Fang ( on my 2nd bar), you get it though lol.

In the end, it's personal preference.

Alright, thanks! I'll try these out and see if they help. I'm no stranger to button bloat actually (I raided in WoW for many years), but I'm not used to trying to hit all the things with a controller interface.

If you use the (L2+R2) and (R2+L2) cross-bars, that's 32 skill slots available before having to switch bars (though only 16 of them are visible on-screen at a time). Although by level 50, I did have to resort to having a separate weapon-sheathed hotbar for non-combat stuff like teleporting, mounts, etc., 32 should be enough for combat actions on most jobs. (At least it should until Heavensward adds another few levels worth of skills. Not sure how many more we'll need to accommodate at that point.) For Ninja, even though I use Ten, Chi, Jin, and Ninjutsu from my (L2+R2) bar, I have Ten duplicated on my first bar just for visibility of that set's cooldown. So far, it's the only one I've had to duplicate for visibility like that, and I think I have enough slots to get the rest of the way to 50 (I'm currently 45).

My biggest annoyance with my current hotbar setup is that my character sheathes his daggers for Ninjutsu, so in the middle of a fight I suddenly end up on my non-combat hotbar until I manually unsheathe them again. (My non-combat hotbar does include a few combat actions —the ones I typically use as starter moves to initiate combat— so sometimes I'm all right just using those to unsheathe my daggers again and continue the fight, but any time those aren't what I intended to use next it throws me off my stride a bit.)

I would suggest just having a hotbar you switch to manually for mounts/minions/repairing/etc. It took me a little bit of time to get used to mine but it is second nature now and it's convenient having a shared hotbar that doesn't impose on anything. Just make sure to take it out of the R1 rotation.