Mouse and keyboard or controller and which kind of skill set up/bar etc?

Hi i havent played many games like ffxiv before nor have i used a controller, and watching streamers of the game i feel a little overwhelmed with all the bars and set ups using both. I have tried both and am still not sure which i find easier to use as of yet pad or mouse,can anyone tell me which they find easiest and the hotbar system, skillset ups they find easiest ie 1-9 or QWERTY or F1 to F12 ect as i am a bit of a novice.

You will get a huge variety of answers. Some people love the controller, others keyboard/mouse.
However, many of the keyboard/mouse players have mice with extra buttons or they use a game pad.
Personally I use a mouse, Razer orbweaver, and a normal keyboard. The orbweaver is has programmable keys so you can set it up however you like.

yea i have an omen mouse and corsair keyboard lol im not very computer savvy tho wish i was even with pad tho i still find myself having to use mouse and keyboard

I've never tried to use the controller so i can't say for sure, but i've heard it's actually quite good.

As for KBM, i have a "classic" gaming mouse with only 2 thumb buttons, so nothing too crazy. I use one thumb button to target, and the other to focus the target.

I have 3 hotbars with the following bindings :
1 2 3 4 5 q e r f c
With CTRL : 1 2 3 4 q e r f c
With ALT : 1 2 3 4 q e r f c
With LSHIFT : q e r f

Although i have to admit the game sometimes makes me wish i had a mouse with 10 thumb buttons, at least this setup allows me to move + use actions at the same time (once your muscle memory has worked out all your keybinds, it gets natural and you hit them automatically).
Try to keep things logical for your brain as well. For example, i know i use Swiftcast + Raise a lot as a healer, so i bound them to ALT+R and ALT+E, which allowed me to remember this specific combination pretty fast.

So yeah, if unlike me you have a super high-tech mouse, i would recommend using it to its fullest, because depending on the class you will have a ton of skills to manage when you're 80.
Also, don't use keybindings for stuff that you don't need in fights (like mounts, or buffs that are activated only once at the beginning of a dungeon).

Other players will probably have better advice to give, but i hope at least this gave you a bit of information to work with :)

Controller works much better than it should, its pretty great actually. You just have to turn on extended hotbars, its basically mandatory.

Healing takes some gettimg used to but is perfectly feasible

oooh how do i get extnded hot bars please is that where there are two identical hotbars to the ones you start with so its like four in all ? been trying to find out how to get them

nvm i found out how thx though ok maybe not how do i get two more cross hot bars up all the time so they stay on screen? i got it this time yay
but how do i use the second crossbar with the pad if say i put more skills on it?

Hi! I am 90% keyboard (I rarely use the mouse except for camera angles).

What I do is:
Bar 1: 1-0, + and -
Bar 2: CTRL+ 1-10, + and -
Bar 3: ALT + 1-10 + and -
BAR 4 (rarely used) CTRL+ALT + 1-10 + and -

IN ADDITION, I also have the numpad bound to the hotkeys, so I can hit 1 here or 1 there...both work.
This lets me use the mouse + left numbers, or run around with WADS and the right numbers depending on the job.


The second big thing to do, you'll notice a LOT of jobs have very similar rotations or patterns of play. I would recommend mapping the same kinds of skills to the same places.

In my case, 4-5-6 is my main rotation on any job, with CTRL or ALT 4-5-6 being alternative rotations (like Monk uses CTRL, Samurai uses both). I use 7-8-9 for AoE rotations if they exist, etc. My ranged attention grabber (shield lob, tomahawk, etc) is 3... and so on.

This will help when you play a second/third job to not get lost in your keys.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kraniel

I have 3 hotbars with the following bindings :
1 2 3 4 5 q e r f c
With CTRL : 1 2 3 4 q e r f c
With ALT : 1 2 3 4 q e r f c
With MAJ : q e r f

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Thanks for sharing this. Having hotbar keys assigned to the letters around W A S D makes sense. I am over here struggling to reach 7-9, especially with Ctrl.

I have two questions on your set up:
1. What is MAJ?
2. How do you quickly avoid AOEs without the use of Q / E as side-strafing?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ScottDoom

Thanks for sharing this. Having hotbar keys assigned to the letters around W A S D makes sense. I am over here struggling to reach 7-9, especially with Ctrl.

I have two questions on your set up:
1. What is MAJ?
2. How do you quickly avoid AOEs without the use of Q / E as side-strafing?

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Ah, my bad, it's the old french habit (MAJ means SHIFT in french, i edited my previous post). So what i'm actually using is the LSHIFT key (right on top of CTRL).

When you're walking/running, you can turn around by facing the direction of your choice with the camera (mouse), so i simply decided to rebind left/right strafing to A and D.

Unless you play only on the keyboard like kaynide, or use mouse click to move, i would definitely not recommend using anything above 5. I know it can take some getting used to, but once you have found your bindings, you'll be pretty much set for all your classes. After that it's just a matter of muscle memory.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ScottDoom

2. How do you quickly avoid AOEs without the use of Q / E as side-strafing?

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I learned this the hard way at Brayflox (tanking the dragon), where my keys only allowed attacking OR moving.. after that, I learned that binding keys to the numpad allows my left hand to stay in WADS and the right hand on numpad to use abilities. With that setup I make it so I never “lock” on mobs, so I can just run out whatever direction.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Stepjam

Controller works much better than it should, its pretty great actually. You just have to turn on extended hotbars, its basically mandatory.

Healing takes some gettimg used to but is perfectly feasible

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Expanded hotbar is not mandatory at all.

I've been playing for years, and never needed it, I also clear all savage and extremes no problem.

This goes for healing, DPS or tanking.

Gamepads are designed for gaming, and this is in fact a game, its as viable if not better than keyboard and mouse. You just have to find what you're comfortable with and become efficient.