How can I manage all of my skills on hotbars?

[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!