SHOW YOUR HUD LAYOUT

[SamRF]

Not too special, and overall not too different from default.

I have all the abilities with cooldown, proc, or just anything that needs to be seen pretty center to my screen so I can see it easily during combat. Regular GCD abilities are hidden since there's no need to have them on your screen.



When I need to change key assignment I temporally switch to preset HUD that shows them

[AnonymousBard]

To spice things up, how many of you use keybinds for abilities vs mouse click? I pretty much exclusively click my abilities as i tend to lose track of my fingers with so many abilities to activate on Tanks/DPS.

[SamRF]

To spice things up, how many of you use keybinds for abilities vs mouse click? I pretty much exclusively click my abilities as i tend to lose track of my fingers with so many abilities to activate on Tanks/DPS.

0 clicks! I greatly recommend you take the time to invest in which keys you could use conveniently and optimally, makes for much better experience. I used to also click sometimes until I determined to change all hotbars and dedicate to finding optimal keys in good reach, took a little while to find it but was well worth it!

This will definitely come down to personal preference, but these are the keys I use:





I have full button layout that I find convenient for every job (except for Dragoon & Red Mage), if someone wants to see one, let me know! Tbh "button bloat" and getting creative with optimal key assignments is one of my favorite things about this game due to its abundance of abilities (compared to most other MMO's).

[Makeda]

To spice things up, how many of you use keybinds for abilities vs mouse click? I pretty much exclusively click my abilities as i tend to lose track of my fingers with so many abilities to activate on Tanks/DPS.

Back when I was in WoW, they'd kick people out if they discovered they were clickers. Harh... but... the time it takes to click is one thing, another is the lost of focus on the action as your eyes move, and a third that will sound silly but adds up over time to something major is eye strain from constantly darting your eyes around.
- you can likely be losing as much as a fourth or third of your performance potential by being a clicker... multiply your current DPS by 1.25 to 1.5 - that's what it could be if you managed to transition to keybinds.

Make a set of keybinds that let you memorize 'this key for that concept'.

For example my core rotation is always the same 3 fingers left-to-right in order on every job/class in every MMO, with a shift key for alternate versions of it, moving down one key row for it's AoE version, moving up one key row applies core buffs / debuffs.
One healers that's my core heals, and the row below is the DPS.

When I need more than 3 keys for the most common skills, I cycle in a few nearby keys - and I repeat which ones across all jobs/classes/MMOs... even in some FPS games I use a similar set of keys.

- make a repeated pattern, and use it in every game mapping 'purpose to purpose'.

You should only ever be looking at the icons to count cooldowns... some people make special bars that are just rows of cooldown icons or proc icons...

[Anienai]

I was waiting to see a WHM with only Glare on their toolbar.

[Rasikko]

AST

[Gemina]

I've kind of been wanting to get into this. The one I am posting is for my RDM, which is only 52. However, it is also the most recent job I am playing. What I have quickly noticed is that I continue to find new ways to improve my UI every time I start playing a new job, and incorporate those improvements through modifying the UIs on all my other jobs (the ones I play frequently anyway).

Another reason why I chose RDM is that despite being low level, it remains a DPS job, and has a more complex UI setup than my healers and DRK who are at max level.

Since you are looking for ways to improve, this will be a kind of psuedo-UI guide of sorts. While I am not saying UIs have to be set up this way, they should always be set up in a way that makes sense, and helps you optimize your performance.

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The first thing I will point out is how important I find it to have all the information you need to be easily and readily accessible on your UI without interfering with the information given to you directly on the battlefield such as AoE markers under you. Element size comes into play here. You want to be able to clearly see the information, but also not have it overwhelmingly be in your face. It also should be condensed and located in one location. You don't want your eyes to have to constantly travel from one side of the screen to the other in order to access the information.

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I play on controller so the xbar is present at the low center. I don't actually need it for input purposes, and is used more for reference. Those who play on controller have somewhat of a handicap, but let me elaborate:



When setting up the xbar, you can assign skills to the Dpad, and also the 4 face buttons. What is important to know is that skills you assign to the Dpad can and likely will sacrifice movement because you use your left thumb to move but also input those commands, so you want to at least try to not put highly used ogcds or skills designed to give freedom of movement to these keys. Instead you should put GCD skills here, or off globals with really long CDs. This gets a bit more complicated if a job has a lot of instant skills such as melee and physical ranged DPS. The concept remains the same though, and you want to assign skills on your controller in a way that doesn't impede your performance.

Now the xbar is also set up a certain way, and is influenced by the job gauge. RDM for example uses black and white mana. The gauge displays the black mana on the right, and the white mana on the left. So what I did was assign my black mana generators using R2+face buttons, and my white mana generators as L2+face buttons.
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To the right of the job gauge is Verfire, that will proc under the condition 'Verfire Ready'. Respectively Verstone and 'Verstone Ready' are to the left of the job gauge. These are my indicators letting me know to use these skills instead of Jolt.

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Above the job gauge are my active status effects, good and/or bad. In the case I provided, you will see that Acceleration, Verstone Ready, and Verfire Ready are all active. Dualcast was just spent which you can clearly see on the battlefield. Any other buffs/debuffs will show here as well, and I can clearly see the timers on each. What I am constantly looking for is the Dualcast buff, which tells me to not use Verstone, Verfire, or Jolt. It also tells me I messed up if I see all of them are active. When I see the dualcast buff, I immediately know I need to follow up with Veraero or Verthunder. Everything flows downward from the top.


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Above the job and status effect gauges is the focus target bar. This gives me all the information I need about the target without overlapping any of the information beneath it. Including the target's HP%, and status effects it is benefiting/suffering from. As RDM 52, I have no status to give a mob other than death.


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Below the job gauge are certain ogcd skills. Centered and laid out horizontally. You might notice that all three here are also on the xbar. The reason this is because they are a bit bigger to facilitate viewing their wind down, but more importantly, they are placed in the order they are used in my openers. As an example, as RDM I will always open up using Acceleration, and after some other skills are used, the next one I use will be Corps, and then Fleche will come following my next dualcasted spell. This will expand as my RDM levels up, and the hotbar is set up in a way to allow this.


Below that are the HP/MP gauges. And their placement here is actually VERY recent. Previously it was in the default position, centered below the xbar. They got moved to right where they should be when I started playing BLM after playing RDM, and I quickly noticed how much my eyes were going from left-center to right to access the information.

Want to know what happened as soon as made this change? My headaches that have been plaguing me for weeks totally went away.
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As for the remainder of the UI: To the very left is the chatbox, set to five lines with just a tad of transparency added. Above it are the global passive buffs such as 'Reduced Rates, and also the ogcds that I still need to monitor, but are used under situational circumstances instead of as soon as you can when they become available.



As a general rule of thumb on controller, you want to be able to view your cooldowns that are not on your main xbar at all times. So strategic placement of hotbars and other UI elements is how you accomplish this. I also find it ideal to place the skills you use the most on the default xbar, and the xbars you access using single-press/double-tap of L2 and R2 should have the skills you use less frequently, while still keeping your freedom of movement in mind.
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To the upper left is the Party and Enmity lists. If I was in 24-man, the other alliances would show up just underneath the party list. This information becomes more important, the more support that job provides to the party. Needless to say, as a healer, I look here a lot. I see a lot of players placing their party list right in the center of the screen, and this would bring those headaches I was just liberated from right back.

Center top is my exp bar, and boss bar. Both there just for reference and out of the way. And lastly to the top right is the map and duty list, just set to an element size that I can easily see them when I need to.

Anywho, I think that is about all I got for right now, and glad to have this off my chest xD. Anyone who read all this, you rock!

[Kinazu]

Here is mine. Nothing special and quite basic, but it works for me.

[Kuroka]

My alliance list is left, next to my mini map and my party list is below my map, above the chat windows.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

Here's my UI: