About bars and controller users

[Andaeron]

As a controller user on either PC or PS4, here's how I layout my bars.


1) Weapon Drawn Hotbars. Set three hotbars to be not shared among classes. Then make one of them your Main Bar (we'll call it 1). Then, disable auto sheathe and make L3 draw weapon only (not Draw/Lock Target). In essence, this makes it so you only have one bar of skills accessible when fighting. These are your primary rotation/skills.

2) Quick Bars. Make a second unshared hotbar (2) the skills that you use in battle, but not the ones that you use constantly. These can be situational, or long cooldowns. Enable access to them with the L2+R2 combo Seekified mentioned.

3) Everything else. Put stuff that you either ONLY use outside of combat, or non-emergency spells on the last unshared hotbar. These can be accessed using R1+(a Dpad or Face button).

So, as a WHM, my Main Skills are on (1). No matter where I find myself, if I draw my weapon, there they are. If I select an enemy, they are there. And the best part, is since (1) is the only bar available via direct switch, quickpressing R1 in combat never accidentally removes them. My secondary skills (Raise, Sprint, potions, etc...) are on a second hotbar that I can access quickly via L2+R2, but I always come back to (1). And if I need anything on (3), like maybe Protect or Stoneskin II, I can R1+X (if it is actually hotbar 3), cast it, and then quickpress R1 again to go right back to my main bar (1), without fail. These skills could even be macro'd to in

The biggest drawback at first is remembering that you have to draw your weapon first, but just a little practice will take care of that.

[Niwashi]

As a controller user on either PC or PS4, here's how I layout my bars.
<snip>
The biggest drawback at first is remembering that you have to draw your weapon first, but just a little practice will take care of that.

I use a similar arrangement. To take care of needing to draw your weapon first, my weapon sheathed bar (in addition to having all my non-combat stuff) duplicates a couple of the combat actions from my main weapon drawn bar, the actions I tend to use first when initiating combat. I can run around with my weapon sheathed, spot an enemy and fire off an attack, which automatically draws my weapon, switching my bar to the one with all the rest of my primary combat actions. (I still need to manually sheathe my weapon when done, though. At first I tried it with auto-sheathe, but some NIN actions would sheathe my weapons while still in combat which kept screwing up my bars. With my current arrangement, it will automatically draw my weapon when starting combat and remain drawn until I manually sheathe it.)

I have:

• bar 1: primary combat actions.
• bar 2: less common, more situational actions. (Mostly combat actions, but includes things like Protect too, normally out-of-combat)
• bar 3: extra space if first 2 bars weren't enough (only used for SCH/SMN so far)
• bar 4: out of combat stuff + a couple combat initiating skills

With weapon drawn, R1 "cycling" is set to bar 1 only.
With weapon sheathed, R1 "cycling" is set to bar 4 only.
(Set to automatically switch whenever I draw or sheathe.)
Bar 2 is used with the R2+L2 and L2+R2 extended bar combos.
Bar 3 I only get to with R1+face button selection. This is a little more awkward, but still doable. (That it's a bit more awkward is probably why I'm not particularly good at Scholar or Summoner jobs. I have too much tendency to just leave my pet to do his own thing.)

All four of the bars I use are class/job specific. The out-of-combat one (bar 4) is set up with most of the same things on each, but needed to be job specific in order to add the combat initiating actions, as well as to simplify DoH/DoL.

Since crafting and gathering don't count as drawing your weapon (even though you do have your tools out), my weapon sheathed bar (bar 4) becomes my main crafting / gathering actions bar on DoH/DoL classes. That means regular out-of-combat stuff like mounts, minions, sprint, teleport, return, etc., which combat jobs have on bar 4, instead get moved to my extended L2+R2 bar (bar 2) for DoH/DoL classes.

[Andaeron]

I use a similar arrangement. To take care of needing to draw your weapon first, my weapon sheathed bar (in addition to having all my non-combat stuff) duplicates a couple of the combat actions from my main weapon drawn bar, the actions I tend to use first when initiating combat.

I used to have an attack/stance change button on my noncombat main bar (since it was shared across all classes), but in all honesty, that wasn't the real issue. When I first started this, I would be in Haukke, doing the Void Lamps, and interacting takes you out of combat, then I'd accidentally use Sprint instead of healing my Tank. I would just like it if the game client would not auto sheathe on certain events (I'm looking at you, entering purple combat circles). "You sense a hostile presence." *sheathes weapon* O.o ?!?