Pugilists/Monks - Tell me about your Hotbars.

[JMadFour]

specifically, how many of them you use for active combat abilities and consumables.

so here is the thing. I just got Twin Snakes, which gives me two abilities to use in Raptor form.

I've been reading up on being able to Macro our combos, which I will definitely need to do, because I don't have super finger dexterity to be able to quickly hit CTRL-1, 2, 3 with one hand (keeping the other on my mouse)in the middle of big fights and so forth. I need to condense as many of my MAIN heavy use skills as I can to my regular 1 to = buttons. cause I don't wanna be all clicky either.

like I said, I've been reading up and I am seeing that i should theoretically be able to macro the main pugilist/monk combos together and use them successfully, and I am planning to learn how to do that, I got the first macro down, for Bootshine/True Strike/Snap Punch.

which brings me to another issue. when I use the Macro, I don't see the flashing indicators for my Raptor and Coeurl form skills. the easy solution of course, is to put those skills individually on a separate toolbar, just so that I can see them when they flash. which brings me back around to my original question.

I am hoping that I can condense my skill/consumable usage to 2 hotbars, and use Hotbar #3 as my "watch for flashing indicators" hotbar. that way, i don't need that 5th hotbar on the left-hand side of my screen, overlapping with my Party menu(playing on a 14-inch laptop). is that feasible, or will i actually still need that 3rd hotbar for active skills/consumables?

(oh yeah, I have my 4th hotbar on the right-hand side of my screen, for Gear-switching, and my Teleport/Return/Sprint skills)

[ASnogarD]

Macros wont really help you later, the global CD is 2.5 sec but the wait command in the macros only allow you to wait in increments of 1, so it can be 2 secs and get a error or 3 secs and you lose 0.5 sec per wait... which say in a basic raptor -> coerl -> Opa rotation would be a loss of a 1 sec (2 x 0.5 for the 2 waits between raptor and coerl).

You can rebind keys to use other modifiers, I changed mine from CTRL + 1 -> = to SHIFT + 1 -> = as hitting SHIFT 1 is easier, you can also bind additional mouse buttons like the side buttons on a lot of mice models (I put sprint on the one button and push to talk for Vent on the other of my Mx518).

The other reason you shouldnt rely on macros is that you cant always just go blindly through a rotation, and may need to switch up depending on many factors so being able to hit your rotations manually will let you adjust those on the fly as needed.

Mind you you are free to disregard my information as I am a) a Conjurer / WHM and not a Pug / Monk and b) inexperienced as well, just saying what I learnt / heard / read about aspects of the game.

[Gardes]

Here's mine. Haha..ha..

[Shirai]

I'm not sure that'll really help the poor lad.

[Shori]

the difference between twin snakes and the other is the position you are around the mob (one is flank and one is rear) so its completely up to you which you use as they both complete the same combo.

in terms of hotbar I have button 2 as rear and Ctrl-2 as flank

[Naryoril]

i don't think relying on macros for whole chains is a good idea because there are a lot of situations where you have to interrupt your chain, such as a mob dieing or avoiding AoE. And how do you pick up where you left off when you rely on the macros?

About the hotbar: that's why i bought a razor naga a few years ago, it has 12 side buttons, tough only 6 are comfortably usable for me. hotbar 1 is mapped to 1-5, R and the first 6 side buttons on the mouse. Hotbar 2 is mapped to the same + alt. This is more than enough to fit in everything you need to have fast access to.

[Bixby]

I'm assuming you mean the following macro:

/micon "True Strike"
/ac "Bootshine" <t>
/ac "True Strike" <t>
/ac "Snap Punch" <t>

I ended up not being a fan of those. Partly, it just felt wrong, because PGL/MNK is the only class that can use this kind of macro this way, so I always felt weird fighting on my PGL. Partly I hated having to choose between missing information or filling up hotbar slots with the individual skills just so I could see what was active. It works okay as long as you land every hit, but I was getting so used to mindlessly mashing that one button that when I happened to miss, I had a much harder time reacting to it than I did when I kept the skills separate.

Anyway. One thing you might want to look into if you're having trouble with your current keybinds is just changing your keybinds themselves. The letters around WASD are much easier to hit in combat than 7 through =, and most of them aren't really so vital that you couldn't bind them somewhere else.

[monkeypox]

I used to use macros for the same reason, but to see the "flashing" I also placed each Action to a non-functioning hotbar so I could still see the icon flash.

I also agree that macros aren't good for all situations, but for soloing the "3 action 1 button" thing worked fine for me, but each person is different.

[Swear_Bear]

I've been reading up on being able to Macro our combos, which I will definitely need to do, because I don't have super finger dexterity to be able to quickly hit CTRL-1, 2, 3 with one hand (keeping the other on my mouse)in the middle of big fights and so forth.

A Razer Naga might help with your finger dexterity.

[Lgalang]

If you dont use letter E and Q and R you can keybind your most use skills on those. Macro are useful but not really for monk jobs. Reason is you are losing dps and sometimes not completing your rotation. example, if you combine bootshire,twinsnake,and snap punch in one combo there is a chance that either twinsnake and snap punch wont execute on a rapid press cause this is just a script. it will send it to the server as a script and if the global cooldown misses the scripts of the first 2 it will comes back to bootshire and there you ruin your rotation. each of this skill i macro just for the sake that i wanna do mercy stroke. Anyway back to your issue with the buttons.
Q = Dragon Kick (Side)
E = Twin Snake (Side)
R = Snap Punch (Side)
Shift Q = Bootshire (Back)
Shift E = True Strike (Back)
Shift R = Demolish

*As you can see what i did on mine put the rotation is a straight line near the move and use shift to switch from side to back in the same order as your rotation.