Expansion has been fun until ability overload has made me lose almost all interest

[Inanna]

I welcome the new abilities. It's more for me to play around with. What I've disliked A LOT is how long it takes to get the new abilities! Leveling has been such a pain in Heavensward. And I'm talking about being on the MSQ! I'm spending so much time on side quests that it's killed the pacing for the MSQ, which has been fun itself. Maybe it's cause FATEs are dead outside of Lv50-52, I dunno. What's up with that anyways? I don't care much for things being longer if they could be shorter and better.

[Thandronen]

I completely agree with everything you say here Geryth. Unfortunately, I see that you're getting a lot of negative responses from people on here for your opinion and that is a shame, because I doubt most of them have played or actively play endgame as DRG to understand what it is you're trying to convey.

It's definitely too bloated now and I can see myself being frustrated to the point of not wanting to play it as much going forward. For the record, I have spent a ton of time doing hunt marks and every sidequest available to me on DRG, so I've had lots of practice with these new skills and I really believe that it is going to be a big pain to maintain a solid rotation and constantly dodge everything on the floor now. I hope I'm wrong, because I love playing DRG but if I find myself struggling in raids with it, I might have to say goodbye to it for now.

[Colt47]

Well, what they are doing is fine if the intent is to eventually completely move away from using cross class abilities as something people are expected to use outside of utility purposes such as resurrect, stone skin, bloodbath, etc. Also, I do have a hard time believing that the limited number of abilities they are adding are going to seriously boost complexity. So far with Paladin the only thing the new abilities have done is add something to do while not tanking or give a way to get MP back.

From what I've observed with my friends and myself, the most commonly used keys for actions are 1-6, with other keys involving stretching the hand to reach or attempting to feel for the key on the macro device like a game pad or naga mouse. With ctrl, that expands the pc common items to 1-6 and ctrl 1-6. Utilities that aren't typically rotated through often get put everywhere else, such as potions, mounts, etc.

So really, on the PC my feelings are that we probably have about 12 slots for actively rotated abilities if we really push it, and the rest are good for cooldowns. This doesn't account for the fact people still have to learn where to position / move their fingers in a given rotation so they don't need to look away from the action.

[Aura_Shurifon]

I love how people like to say "Keyboard and Mouse" is better than gamepad, when I read this thread...
With a gamepad, i can look in a direction, move in another direction, while casting any of my 32 quick access ability without the need to look at my hand, ever.
And i can easily add 16 more short cut with one switch if needed (for really low needed skill, target number or some macro for asking some regen)

But I do agree that if they add more skills, without new optimisation, it will become a problem. They could (should have) add more traits that group some skill or review/simplify the combo system to use less buttons (like : 3 different combo ? then 3 button instead of 6 if combo are : 1-2-3, 1-4-5, 1-4-6)
And I agree that making macro a bit better to use (for said combo for exemple) would help a lot.

[Fenwick]

I have personally done away with using CTRL and SHIFT mostly. I have key bound the following instead, and things seem to be much less annoying because of it.

F1 to F5 = Buffs
R = Proc. Ability (Reprisal, Bloodletter, etc)
F, G, V, T, Y = Misc
` = Sprint or Provoke
CTRL + M3 = Stance(s)

Works for me in any case. <.<

[Souljacker]

I don't use shifts anymore, either. I have written macros that rewrite my bars depending on stance and what I want to do in the fight. It may not work for a job like Dragoon where there just *might* be a little room to trim some things out (*ducks*) but it's worked great for warrior.

As far as using a controller - I used one exclusively in XI but just can't get it here. I use a G600 mouse (like the Naga) and now that I have access to a numberpad on one hand and all my personal binds to letters on the other, I just can't see how a controller is superior. And that's coming from someone who argued vehemently about the abilities of controller playing users in XI. I don't like the cross bar. I don't like how it activates. I'd probably like it better if it worked like the macro palette did (you press a trigger to activate it, then when you hit an ability it deactivates again) but there's no way to make it do that (it either stays activated until you turn it off or you have to uncomfortably hold the trigger). It is my hope that they will release a dev kit and let us make adjustments to the UI and then I might find some time to change these things, but until then... I'll stick to this method in which I can also look in any direction, move in another, and activate abilities. That's not something that's exclusive to controller users, you know.

Really to have many abilities at your disposal you will just have more options with a keyboard and mouse.

[Geryth]

I can tell ya'll haven't read the whole thread (though it is 15 pages). In at least three posts I've praised how Warrior is played and setup