Others have already mentioned anything I could offer about macros, so I'll just add some advice on hotbars.


Quote Originally Posted by lvillanueva5 View Post
Since this is a console version, I'm trying to get used to juggling the different tabs on the action bar and would rather keep the most important heals on Bar 1 before putting others on Bar 2, etc.
You should also set up one as an extended crossbar. You can activate that by pressing both R2 + L2 together. (It matters which you press first, so you can get 8 buttons by pressing R2 then L2 and another 8 by pressing L2 then R2.) That gives you an extra hotbar worth of space before needing to swap out your main hotbar.

There's also a new one, called W crossbar, which you can reach by double tapping either R2 or L2. The double tapping is a bit finicky, so I don't like it as well for combat actions, but put some of my out-of-combat actions there and some menu items (like inventory) that I use frequently enough to prefer them on a hotbar rather than going through the menus to reach them all the time.

Once a cross hotbar is designated as your extended or W crossbar, you can remove it from the list of hotbars you'll toggle through for your main hotbar (since you've got another way of reaching them).

For instance, I set mine up so I'll toggle between bars 1 & 2 when my weapon is drawn (but for most jobs, don't even use bar 2, so it just stays on 1). I have only bar 3 set for when my weapon is sheathed. Bar 4 is my extended crossbar and 8 is my W crossbar. (I don't currently use 5, 6, or 7 for anything.)

My combat actions are set on bars 1 (main combat bar) and 4 (extended bar), plus could extend to bar 2 (second main combat bar) if a job needs more than 32 slots. Bar 3 (out of combat bar) has stuff like teleport, mounts, sprint, and a couple emotes I like, plus the attack skill I use when first initiating a fight (just so I can start from there and have it draw my weapon and switch me to my combat bars rather than have to draw my weapon manually as a separate action). Currently, bar 8 (W crossbar) has some commonly used menu items, but there are only a few I use a lot, so I'm considering keeping just half of it, and moving the other half of my W crossbar to one of the currently unused ones, making it job specific, and placing job skills like White Mage's Protect or Ninja's Kiss of the Viper and similar stuff that are generally used ahead of the fight so don't really need mid-combat responsiveness there.