How can I manage all of my skills on hotbars?

[Krindor]

Can you not lift up your hand and move it to the other side of keyboard and press the other control/shift? Your other hand can still stay on the mouse.

You should never move your hand away from movement, even a second or so is going to matter in a situation were you might be targetted by an AoE so moving your hand away from the movement keys is detrimental.

Funny. I dont use the mouse. At all. And never had any problems moving the camera to look around with only the key board.

With the amount of skills we have on our classes, both PvE and PvP, I cant imagine myself playing with only one hand on the keyboard!

I can see this work if you play like with a controller.
But from what you've written below, you only use WASD and arrow keys for movement, how do you strafe and run backwards, if you use the standard movement you'll backpedel and strafe is bound to Q and E if you don't use your mouse?

[Lilyth]

But from what you've written below, you only use WASD and arrow keys for movement, how do you strafe and run backwards, if you use the standard movement you'll backpedel and strafe is bound to Q and E if you don't use your mouse?

Yeah, when I use standard controls, I do strafe with Q and E. To move backwards I strafe too, except I turn my character a little bit so that I move backwards.

I say "when I play with standard" because I use both legacy and standard controls depending on the class I'm playing with. MNK for example I use standard, while I prefer legacy for BLM.

[Rongway]

You should never move your hand away from movement, even a second or so is going to matter in a situation were you might be targetted by an AoE so moving your hand away from the movement keys is detrimental.

This isn't a problem if both hands have movement keys available. While this reduces the keys available for other functions, it's worth it as movement is by far the most important action.

how do you strafe and run backwards, if you use the standard movement you'll backpedel and strafe is bound to Q and E if you don't use your mouse?

Yeah, when I use standard controls, I do strafe with Q and E. To move backwards I strafe too, except I turn my character a little bit so that I move backwards.

Using legacy movement, consider the following keybinds.

Move Forward               :  W  |  UpArrow
Move Back / Walk Backwards :  S  |  DownArrow
Move Left / Turn Left      :  Q  |  LeftArrow
Move Right / Turn Right    :  E  |  RightArrow
Strafe Left                : [NO BINDS]
Strafe Right               : [NO BINDS]
...
Point Camera to the Left   : A
Point Camera to the Right  : D

If you eschew the strafe keys altogether, dodging in eight directions is far easier and doesn't require moving the camera. There will be a slight arc to left and right movement but there will no longer be possibility of back pedalling.

I say "when I play with standard" because I use both legacy and standard controls depending on the class I'm playing with. MNK for example I use standard, while I prefer legacy for BLM.

I'm curious as to why you prefer standard at all if you use legacy some of the time. Have you tried fulltiming legacy and using the Lock Camera on Target (default Num5) to toggle a standard feel?

[Warkupo]

It's a bit of an adjustment, but consider using ESDF for movement rather than WASD. E::Up, S::left, D:own, F::Right.

This gives me Q, A, Z, X, C, V, R, T, G, V, 1, 2, 3, 4 as keys I can hit very easily with Shift and Ctrl still close enough to use as modifier keys. Altogether that's 14 x 3, or 42 pretty easily accessible keys that don't require your right hand to ever leave the ESDF movement buttons.

Consider looking at and learning Auto-Hotkey as well to write up scripts that hold down the right mouse button for you (gives the game an FPS feel), and allow you to bind keys you normally wouldn't be able too like the mouse wheel. As an example, I use the mouse wheel to change my entire hotbar.

[Myon88]

I guess people don't do hotbar switching anymore? Sometimes I feel like it's a skill that's been lost to the ages. It's basically driving manual instead of automatic.

There's no need to have unique keybinds for every hotkey, this is where all the 'skill bloat' issues are coming from, but it doesn't have to be that way. Just have one set of good keybinds and then duplicate them across every hotbar you have. "2" on my primary hotbar is Slug Shot for instance, but "2" on the shift-2 hotbar is Lead Shot. If I want Lead Shot, I hit shift-2 between GCDs to change what bar I'm on, and then use the same hotkey, except now I get a different skill. I can access 44 different skills with only 11 hotkeys, so much space that even 'optional' things that some people cheat and click on are bound (PvP abilities, potion, chocobo mounting/dismounting..).

Since you're only using one set of keybinds for everything, you can just use good binds and avoid having to use unwieldly 2-button combinations to activate abilities. By manually switching bars, you're basically moving the extra work to the unused down time in-between GCDs instead. I dislike 2-button combinations for activating skills in general. What if you need to jump at the same time you use that skill? Or strafe? Or both? It's restrictive and locks you out of options in combat.

There's really no downside; It does require you to have more APM, since you'll be switching between your bars as needed between GCDS; but for all the people out there that love to complain the game is too easy, this should be really exciting for you then. I mean, you get to solve your 'skill bloat' issue and demonstrate you can use a more mechanically intensive control scheme at the same time, talk about a win/win situation!

[Archaell]

Getting a mouse with more buttons is your best bet. Binding ctrl, shift on the mouse buttons (alt is bad due to alt tabbing ^^) makes it much easier to use the abilities than using the regular ctrl and shift.

I have a mouse with 5 additional buttons. Two at the top for ctrl and shift, and three on side for 7-9. That way I can activite 9 abilities on the mouse itself, which I mosty use for instant casts and buffs.

1-6 is easily reached on the keyboard, combined with the mod keys 18 abilities.

I also use F6-F8 for potions and stuff like stances. (Too much used to F1 self targeting)

Then there is the button ";" next to 1, that one is handy too and you can bind stuff there.

As there are many, many skills... I also binded skills to R, T, Y which can be again used with the mod keys giving you nice chunk of additional free binds.

[Krindor]

Since you're only using one set of keybinds for everything, you can just use good binds and avoid having to use unwieldly 2-button combinations to activate abilities. By manually switching bars, you're basically moving the extra work to the unused down time in-between GCDs instead. I dislike 2-button combinations for activating skills in general. What if you need to jump at the same time you use that skill? Or strafe? Or both? It's restrictive and locks you out of options in combat.

This is definitely a clever idea to solving a situation were you don't have enough keybindings. But I disagree that it's in any way more restrictive in terms of handmovement. If we were to look at it. If we have 1 ability on shift 3. That's one press. But if we have an ability set on slot 1 hotbar 2(Shift 2) we then have to press Shift + 2 -> 1 -> Shift + 1 if we're going back to the earlier hotbar. That's 3 keypresses instead of one and pressing shift 2 times is worse than pressing it once if you need to move. If you're on a melee class you might be moving all the time for positionals, so the downtime is not unused and I would rather press one 2-button combination for the ability rather than 2 mid movement. When weaving in skills you would go 1 -> Shift+1 -> 2 if normal during one GCD. With hotbar switching it would be 1 -> Shift + 2 -> 1 -> Shift + 1 -> 2.

[Myon88]

It's just a matter of getting used to the timing, and thinking one GCD ahead so when the time comes, you're 'already' on the correct hotbar and just press one key. The key difference for me is that the only time you're hitting shift+number to change hotbars in this scheme is during the downtime between GCDs when nothing is happening. Personally I prefer this to 2-button keybinds which force you to have fingers on 2 buttons at the moment the skill is being fired.

This goes for weaving ogcds too, even ogcds have their own shorter 'GCD', so if you're weaving but want to change hotbars in-between skills the same principle applies, you just need to do it faster.

Also, if you're smart about it you'll find you don't have to actually switch hotbars that often either. If you apply logic while binding skills and, for example, assign your main weaponskills to shift-1 (the easiest to reach bar), shift-2 for cooldowns, and the far away shift-4 for rarely used things like limit breaks - you'll find that you're only really switching bars at set points in your rotation, and not every GCD.

Another useful tip (that works for any control scheme) is to make good use of jumping. It lets you preserve momentum while in the air, so if there are situations that require you to move and execute awkward keyboard combinations at the same time - you can store your velocity for half a second while you do what you need to do in the air.

[SundayTrash]

I am one of these weird player that uses f1 - f6, shift + q w e r t a s d f g z, 1 - 8, I hold down both mouse button to move.

[RopeDrink]

I don't use QWE for abilities (non-modded) as I do still like to keep the turn-left/right buttons for those moments where you simply have to let go of the mouse but want to navigate on auto-run, however rare it may be (I drink copious amounts of tea while playing, typically with my mouse-hand while my left moves/turns).

Frequently Pressed Abilities:
Shift Mod + QWERT, ASDFG.

Infrequently Pressed Abilities:
CTRL Mod + QWE, ASD.

OMG PANIC MASH Abilities:
ZXCV (Unmodded)

Stances & Buffs:
ALT+1234

Mount & Companion:
SHIFT+1234

Consumables & Macros:
12345 (Sprint, Def, Nuke, Heal, Potion).