Is AST bad?

[Saefinn]

Absolutely second using multiple cross bar pages. Outside of healing, it's a lifesaver to have a universal bar for travel and social stuff (gpose and vital chat macros) that is exactly the same no matter what I'm playing. For healing, I like to put sects/summons/prepull junk on a secondary page to free up buttons for my main bars. It does feel super weird to switch in combat but it's wonderful once I got used to it.

The double-tap + directionals are a bit more awkward but having more cooldowns on my front page helps me track them. I've seen some controller players activate a secondary hotbar specifically to visualize cooldowns, too, but they use the "hidden" page of combining back buttons to access them. One thing about double-tap is that it takes a bit more mental prep. Since it's all off globals, I access the page as soon as I begin casting and hold until it's time to weave.

And with all these extra button spaces, there's enough room for me to macro cards. I feel dirty doing using macros in combat, but it's the only way I can imagine getting through the opener in a raid setting. Not having to physically target for cards has salvaged the class for me. It doesn't always work though, because macros can't queue the way that spells and abilities do, so I just try to get the card out on the next GCD instead. I wind up smashing buttons a lot during the Sleeve Draw.

If anyone has more coping mechanisms for AST on controller, I would really like to hear them.

If it helps, this is my current set up, it may still need some tweaking. Stuff like Synastry could be in a better place. My brain is a little chaotic, so it might not work for some. But I've based my layout on what I feel is fluid with my controller set up with Expanded Hold Controls turned on:



The logic I've gone for is:
RT - Healing
LT - Expanded Healing & Cards
RT->LT - DPS - I've slipped in Sleeve Draw, Neutral Sec and Swiftcast + Ascend because I might weave Sleeve Draw when I'm free to DPS. And as I only need to push down LT when healing, I can quickly get to may Rez and Neutral Sect. The DPS is here for a similar reason, because it feels more fluid swapping to DPS from this position when I've just been casting heals
LT->RT - Other cooldowns and role abilities

Then I use a hotbar just to show me the cool downs I care about on page 2, it's just more visible then.



Then with a little bit of practice against a striking dummy, I can get a feel for how it flows. I've also moved stuff around when certain bits fell janky or places I my misfire more... kinda like me getting back into levelling PLD again recently, I moved my AoE's, but put them in a spot where if I misfired in trying to be quick I turn off Shield Oath...not that I annoyed a random healer in a dungeon by doing exactly that & not realising I did it or anything...