The difficulty curve in the game has... problems...

[Inanegrain]

I've been trying for 15y and in that time managed to add only 4 more hotkey slots and even then I have a tendency to mis-tap hotkeys and/or not reset my fingers to movement keys properly regardless of practice. I am at my limit in terms of hotkeys, it's just not something I can improve in that dept. So it's click some of them or don't use them at all. FF14 has so many abilities (like old WoW) that there are are simply too many for me to hotkey everything I need so it's main abilities and short cooldowns, whereas longer cooldowns I click. If I get used to the timing on boss abilities I should be able to avoid that problem (I have in Unreal/Ex1&2). It also means I'm coming into this with a major impediment that most people don't have to deal with, that was one of my major reasons for not even trying.

I only have 1 job geared out at 590+ presently, SMN, I thought about MCH, but I can't play BRD or DNC with any kind of skill. Also, with how far MCH is behind every other DPS it felt like a huge handicap, if I could get SMN even close in terms of performance it would easily out-DPS MCH. SMN also leaves the door open to playing rezmage with the same gearset if I need/want to (I'm not as good at it, but I can play it ok). It would take me a couple weeks of grinding to get another job to 590+ and that is the bare minimum I'm willing to enter this in order to stack the deck in my favor as much as I possibly can.

The technical issue of "I'm fighting my controls", rebind them all to whatever you think is comfortable. Same issue people with other games on either KBM/Controller while people got used to it effectively such as MH, Apex Legends, etc.

Shift/CTRL/ALT modifiers, Q, E, R, 1-5/6, etc. Controllers? I have no suggestions, just that people are good on it.

[Issaella]

I've literally tried every possible solution, like I said, I've been playing MMOs for 20y. If I use both shift and control modifiers I will hit the wrong one a non-zero percentage of the time, regardless of how much I've practiced it. If I try to use anything beyond 7 or shift+6 I will hit the wrong key a relatively large percentage of the time. Again, despite endless practice. So about what I have is 1-6, shift+1-6, e/q and shift+e/q (the latter pairs generally I set for cooldowns and movement abilities). Even with shift+5 and shift+6 after half an hour or so it starts making my hand hurt, which is an entirely different issue. I can handle MCH, SMN, DRG, and RPR with only clicking my big cooldowns, but other jobs with more abilities means more clicking. I can almost do RDM, but mis-tapping the melee combo still give me issues, I was really hoping they would compress that into 1 key like they did with the GNB cartridge spender. Tanks and healers aren't as big an issue so I don't have as much issue there, either do to fewer primary abilities (WAR, GNB) or the simplified DPS rotation (WHM/SGE) allowing for more efficient clicking.

[IdowhatIwant]

I've literally tried every possible solution, like I said, I've been playing MMOs for 20y. If I use both shift and control modifiers I will hit the wrong one a non-zero percentage of the time, regardless of how much I've practiced it. If I try to use anything beyond 7 or shift+6 I will hit the wrong key a relatively large percentage of the time. Again, despite endless practice. So about what I have is 1-6, shift+1-6, e/q and shift+e/q (the latter pairs generally I set for cooldowns and movement abilities). Even with shift+5 and shift+6 after half an hour or so it starts making my hand hurt, which is an entirely different issue. I can handle MCH, SMN, DRG, and RPR with only clicking my big cooldowns, but other jobs with more abilities means more clicking. I can almost do RDM, but mis-tapping the melee combo still give me issues, I was really hoping they would compress that into 1 key like they did with the GNB cartridge spender. Tanks and healers aren't as big an issue so I don't have as much issue there, either do to fewer primary abilities (WAR, GNB) or the simplified DPS rotation (WHM/SGE) allowing for more efficient clicking.

Keybinds will make a huge difference. I can't stress enough how important getting keybinds set up in a way that you a comfortable with improves your performance. Best way is to make a system where certain skills are always going to be certain buttons so that all jobs you can use the same system. Once you get that all set up it's just getting muscle memory from that point on.

[LeonKeyh]

I've literally tried every possible solution, like I said, I've been playing MMOs for 20y. If I use both shift and control modifiers I will hit the wrong one a non-zero percentage of the time, regardless of how much I've practiced it. If I try to use anything beyond 7 or shift+6 I will hit the wrong key a relatively large percentage of the time. Again, despite endless practice. So about what I have is 1-6, shift+1-6, e/q and shift+e/q (the latter pairs generally I set for cooldowns and movement abilities). Even with shift+5 and shift+6 after half an hour or so it starts making my hand hurt, which is an entirely different issue. I can handle MCH, SMN, DRG, and RPR with only clicking my big cooldowns, but other jobs with more abilities means more clicking. I can almost do RDM, but mis-tapping the melee combo still give me issues, I was really hoping they would compress that into 1 key like they did with the GNB cartridge spender. Tanks and healers aren't as big an issue so I don't have as much issue there, either do to fewer primary abilities (WAR, GNB) or the simplified DPS rotation (WHM/SGE) allowing for more efficient clicking.

Unironically; Play with a controller.

Pick a job that you haven't leveled that you've been meaning to check out (or start a new character) and level it using a controller. After playing FF14 with a controller, I can't go back to hotbar combat MMOs with keyboard.