Number of Abilities per Job, if this helps anyone.

I have a overly orderly way of binding all my keys, no mouse clicks for anything. The perfect amount of abilities for me is 30, and that's how I'm choosing which jobs to focus on.

Here are the numbers by my calculation. It includes all abilities to level 90 and all role abilities. Edit: Limit Break not included.
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• Paladin 33
• Warrior 30
• Dark Knight 32
• Gunbreaker 31

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• Monk 28
• Dragoon 29 (edited from 27; forgot Arm's Length and Mirage Dive has returned in the last patch)
• Reaper 30
• Samurai 31
• Ninja 31

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• Bard 29 (edited from 30; had an instrument in that hotkey!)
• Machinist 26
• Dancer 29

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• White Mage 30
• Scholar 34 (includes both fairy summons, does not include fairy placement)
• Sage 30
• Astrologian 33

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• Black Mage 30
• Summoner 24
• Red Mage 29

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Interesting stats! I didnt expect dragoon to be the melee with the least amount of buttons.

SCH having the most abilities does not come as any surprise to me, how one class can be both so bloated with abilities it doesn’t need and also be so damn simple except in very high end optimisations (GCD organisation for chain and bio refresh, dissipation timing, energy drain timings etc) is an amazing testimony to how crap healers are right now

Ability number as a max number of skills combined with the somehow combo of non creative job design and skill bloat is seriously becoming a problem for any class that has any sort of secondary function beyond purely “I bring my own DPS”

I don't like using "alt +" or "ctrl +" combinations, so my comfortable range is summoner lol, which explains why I love it so much. I should set up my side button on my mouse to act as a "mouse3 +" set up, that would increase my range a lot.

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Originally Posted by Awarewolf

[*]Death Knight

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Wrong game lol

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Originally Posted by Awarewolf

I have a overly orderly way of binding all my keys, no mouse clicks for anything. The perfect amount of abilities for me is 30, and that's how I'm choosing which jobs to focus on.

Here are the numbers by my calculation. It includes all abilities to level 90 and all role abilities.

• Paladin 33
• Warrior 30
• Death Knight 32
• Gunbreaker 31

• Monk 28
• Dragoon 27
• Reaper 30
• Samurai 31
• Ninja 31

• Bard 30
• Machinist 26
• Dancer 29

• White Mage 30
• Scholar 34 (does not include fairy placement)
• Sage 30
• Astrologian 33

• Black Mage 30
• Summoner 24
• Red Mage 29

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Does this include a button for limit break?

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Originally Posted by Saraide

Does this include a button for limit break?

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Nah, only job abilities.

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

Wrong game lol

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Oops, lmao!

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

SCH having the most abilities does not come as any surprise to me, how one class can be both so bloated with abilities it doesn’t need and also be so damn simple except in very high end optimisations (GCD organisation for chain and bio refresh, dissipation timing, energy drain timings etc) is an amazing testimony to how crap healers are right now

Ability number as a max number of skills combined with the somehow combo of non creative job design and skill bloat is seriously becoming a problem for any class that has any sort of secondary function beyond purely “I bring my own DPS”

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It boggles my mind how messed up Scholar is. More abilities to keep track of, especially with Fairy placement, and yet it manages to be the most boring of the healers. Especially that sad DPS rotation. If they added back all the DPS skills I actually want, the button bloat would be insane.

I don't even know what I'd do to fix it, so I just avoid Scholar. And ironically, Summoner has the least amount of keys -- a boring amount. The Arcanists suffer from either too many or too little abilities, making both jobs crap to play for me. Very disappointing.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

SCH having the most abilities does not come as any surprise to me, how one class can be both so bloated with abilities it doesn’t need

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Although it's true that all of scholar's heals are rarely needed there have been dungeons with big pulls where I have had to use absolutely everything and it ended up as a rotation of every heal or shield ability it has.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

I don't like using "alt +" or "ctrl +" combinations, so my comfortable range is summoner lol, which explains why I love it so much. I should set up my side button on my mouse to act as a "mouse3 +" set up, that would increase my range a lot.

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I have 2 side mouse buttons set to shift and ctrl, it makes things so much easier.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

Interesting stats! I didnt expect dragoon to be the melee with the least amount of buttons.

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Same here. With RPR being such a snoozefest for me I was surprised to see the ability count be higher.

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Originally Posted by Tulzscha

I have 2 side mouse buttons set to shift and ctrl, it makes things so much easier.

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are you able to do that in-game? Or do you use a 3rd part software and then have to change it out of game?

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

are you able to do that in-game? Or do you use a 3rd part software and then have to change it out of game?

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You just make a new template in whichever mouse's software you're using for FFXIV, then change the keybind in the template.

They could clean up so many buttons by having one for turning all your abilities to either single target or aoe versions aside from the big stuff that hits the first target hard anyways.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Although it's true that all of scholar's heals are rarely needed there have been dungeons with big pulls where I have had to use absolutely everything and it ended up as a rotation of every heal or shield ability it has.

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This. SCH has been my favorite healer for a couple expansions now. I enjoy the variety of healing spells, and the lack of an instant super-heal like Benediction makes it a bit more challenging for me (in a good way) in dungeon runs. DPS aspect is simple, but...it's a healer. When I want a variety of DPS abilities, I play a DPS role. I play healer to heal.

My personal "nightmare action bars" classes are (might be outdated, haven't made a action bar sweep since 6.1) Paladin, Dark Knight, Ninja and Samurai. Scholar is getting there also.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

are you able to do that in-game? Or do you use a 3rd part software and then have to change it out of game?

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Afaik it can't be done in game, only certain keys can be used as modifiers. The mouse I have (Logitech G502) has its own software where buttons can be programmed very easily. If your mouse doesn't have software like that it's still possible to program buttons but it's a little tricky, I used AutoHotkey scripts for my last mouse.

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Originally Posted by ThaCa

They could clean up so many buttons by having one for turning all your abilities to either single target or aoe versions aside from the big stuff that hits the first target hard anyways.

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1.0 had this. You toggled spells from single to AoE.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Although it's true that all of scholar's heals are rarely needed there have been dungeons with big pulls where I have had to use absolutely everything and it ended up as a rotation of every heal or shield ability it has.

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I feel like that only happens when the tank is sitting on their cooldown, DPSes being subpar, synced down to lower levels, and/or combination of those situations. And no, it doesn’t requires people to be playing at very good level either. Otherwise there are plenty that just went untouched. That’s just how bonker their number of tools are.

This actually helps a lot! Thanks. I feared playing some classes due to their button bloat fame(I have some health issues and its difficult for me), but it turns out they have less buttons than the classes I already play.

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Originally Posted by ameliaw

This actually helps a lot! Thanks. I feared playing some classes due to their button bloat fame(I have some health issues and its difficult for me), but it turns out they have less buttons than the classes I already play.

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I’m so glad it helped!!

Updated Bard - it's 29, not 30. I had an instrument in that hotkey, oops.

Updated Dragoon to 29, edited from 27. I forgot Arm's Length and Mirage Dive which returned in the last patch.

Kind of funny they want to rework dragoon, when Samurai and ninja have more buttons....
(Not me suggesting them to rework any of those jobs, it's just funny to me.)

RPR has more than DRG, yet DRG feels much busier.

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Originally Posted by hagare

RPR has more than DRG, yet DRG feels much busier.

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Completely agreed. It’s bizarre.

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Originally Posted by Addy

Kind of funny they want to rework dragoon, when Samurai and ninja have more buttons....
(Not me suggesting them to rework any of those jobs, it's just funny to me.)

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It doens't have to do with the number of buttons, but rather the clunkiness of some abilities (Sight) and irrelevance of others (Life Surge), and the fact that the job needs a rework in order to be able to be expanded in the future. It's a complete stale and job with only a few fixes left to make, deadset rotation, and pretty much no room to expand upon due to it's already many ogcds.

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Originally Posted by Awarewolf

Completely agreed. It’s bizarre.

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Might be cause you're technically pressing less buttons?
Admittedly, I haven't played Reaper since levelling it, but I recall that it had about 5 or 6 dedicated AOE buttons, which I found generally awkward to get used to.
I think Dragoon on the other hand, outside of the AOE 1,2,3 combo, uses all of it's other AOE skills in it's regular rotation.

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Originally Posted by Awarewolf

Completely agreed. It’s bizarre.

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Probably because most of rpr ogcd and timer tracking functions off of a resource bar. Drg has many different cds to track regularly to not drift or lose uses.

I'm left handed on Mouse/Keyboard and I can comfortably reach for at least 8 buttons (10 if I count 5 and Cntrl 5 on my bottom 2 hotbars) Everything else I have to mouse over(and thereby have to dip my vision away from looking at the boss for a brief moment from time to time) I wish I could optimize this better while not having to buy an MMO mouse with extra buttons. I want to step up my gameplay a bit. Granted I do pretty well in my current state but I have a lot of room for improvement.

Any suggestions? If I could somehow bind my third hotbar to Shift + (1,2,3,4,5) that would be excellent but I'm not sure currently if it can be done without removing currently existing keys.

(I'm not sure if this is the right thread to be requesting this.)

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Originally Posted by Reclusegamer

I'm left handed on Mouse/Keyboard and I can comfortably reach for at least 8 buttons (10 if I count 5 and Cntrl 5 on my bottom 2 hotbars) Everything else I have to mouse over(and thereby have to dip my vision away from looking at the boss for a brief moment from time to time) I wish I could optimize this better while not having to buy an MMO mouse with extra buttons. I want to step up my gameplay a bit. Granted I do pretty well in my current state but I have a lot of room for improvement.

Any suggestions? If I could somehow bind my third hotbar to Shift + (1,2,3,4,5) that would be excellent but I'm not sure currently if it can be done without removing currently existing keys.

(I'm not sure if this is the right thread to be requesting this.)

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Can't speak for the left-handedness, but I personally find I can only comfortably hit 1-5, so I use Ctrl, Alt, and Shift 1-5 as my numbered buttons.
Then I also bind R T F and G, with Ctrl R T F G.
That's usually enough for me, but I do have to dip into the Shift letters as well.

Top to bottom my hotbar will be:

Shift 1 2 3 4 5 R Ctrl+R Shift+R
Alt 1 2 3 4 5 T Ctrl+T Shift+T
Ctrl 1 2 3 4 5 G Ctrl+G Shift+G
1 2 3 4 5 F Ctrl+F Shift+F

Then I also have Q E bound to food/pots on all jobs.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

I don't like using "alt +" or "ctrl +" combinations, so my comfortable range is summoner lol, which explains why I love it so much. I should set up my side button on my mouse to act as a "mouse3 +" set up, that would increase my range a lot.

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I have everything set up so I can reach my skills with a single finger on my left hand, though it has eaten up a good number of my system hotkeys and removed my ability to strafe lol. Edit to add: I use my arrow keys for movement instead of WASD, so my setup makes sense for me.

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Originally Posted by Iyrnthota

Then I also have Q E bound to food/pots on all jobs.

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This right here! ;)

I just realized I had my strafe and turn buttons swapped around because my lower diagonals were making me backpedal slowly(and yes it caused me some problems in certain situations.)

and ever since I made that switch it's been much easier to dodge, so technically I don't need strafe buttons anymore. I can use those buttons for other skills.

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Originally Posted by Reclusegamer

This right here! ;)

I just realized I had my strafe and turn buttons swapped around because my lower diagonals were making me backpedal slowly(and yes it caused me some problems in certain situations.)

and ever since I made that switch it's been much easier to dodge, so technically I don't need strafe buttons anymore. I can use those buttons for other skills.

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Yeah, I never really used strafe anyways with the movement config I have (legacy? always get them mixed up)

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Originally Posted by hagare

RPR has more than DRG, yet DRG feels much busier.

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Simple.

DRG has more abilities (oGCD) and they're mostly on short recast timers. Nastrond: 10s (3x per minute), Jump: 30s, Mirage Dive: 30s, Gierskogul: 30s, Life Surge: 45, Spineshatter: 1m, Star Diver: 1m.

RPR's skills are mostly weaponskills (tied to the GCD).

More importantly, it's a huge mistake to judge how busy a job is based on the number of buttons it has. Most jobs have useless buttons, some have GCD speed increase skills/traits and AOE rotations very rare in EX, Savage and Ultimate content.

Ultimately, you should be looking at CPM (casts per minute) on dummy parses if you want an accurate picture of how busy jobs are.