Some things I do not like.

[SailorCeti]

Don't look at the flowchart pics, just get the basics down and you'll still be better than most. For SAM, I literally set up 3 rows on my tray for the 3 combos. The first one was 123 for the basic combo. The second row was shift1, shift2, shift3 for the secondary combo. And the third row was ctrl1, ctrl2, for the final combo. Doing this made it way more intuitive for me while learning. Also if there are buffs you're just forgetting to use when they come available, put them on a new tray and increase the size of that tray so it'll show up bigger on your screen. I had to do that while learning bard until it felt intuitive. If your hands are hurting, consider one of those mmo mice just so you'll have less keys to actually press.

Lots of guides get weighed down with minmax stuff. Glean the basics, and then just stick with that until you get comfy. There's a guy on youtube named WeskAlber who makes really good "basics" guides that help you through the whole leveling process. It's not a minmax guide by any means, but he's good at teaching the basics of a job. Since you mentioned SAM, here's his SAM guide. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmPGIYBMd-g

You lost me after using shift and ctrl. That's already too much. I do fine on my SMN. But even there, I feel there are superfluous abilities.

[Avoidy]

You lost me after using shift and ctrl. That's already too much. I do fine on my SMN. But even there, I feel there are superfluous abilities.

Maybe try a different role besides melee in that case. BLM is fairly complex but it's at least not a lot of actions per minute. MCH might mess with your arthritis during its burst (lots of button presses there), but on the off chance that it doesn't, the actual setup is extremely procedural with no randomness or fluff.
Failing that, consider other roles besides dps. Healing is basically just pressing one button a good chunk of the time. And some tanks like warrior are basically just 123 until you get enough resources from 123ing to use your resource spender.

[Raoabolic]

Maybe try a different role besides melee in that case. BLM is fairly complex but it's at least not a lot of actions per minute. MCH might mess with your arthritis during its burst (lots of button presses there), but on the off chance that it doesn't, the actual setup is extremely procedural with no randomness or fluff.
Failing that, consider other roles besides dps. Healing is basically just pressing one button a good chunk of the time. And some tanks like warrior are basically just 123 until you get enough resources from 123ing to use your resource spender.

As someone with really bad hand arthritis I can confirm that you can play fairly well with a controller with all classes. You won't be hitting top tier dps numbers but they way I figure, if you are not below 6 on the hate list as a dps then you are doing well enough for current non ex/savage content. Though double tapping the triggers do mess with my fingers but I just switch to my middle fingers to give my indexes a rest, lol. Also, shame on you for suggesting MCH to someone with that condition. A class with a bunch of ogcds really make the arthritis flare up, lol.

[Avoidy]

As someone with really bad hand arthritis I can confirm that you can play fairly well with a controller with all classes. You won't be hitting top tier dps numbers but they way I figure, if you are not below 6 on the hate list as a dps then you are doing well enough for current non ex/savage content. Though double tapping the triggers do mess with my fingers but I just switch to my middle fingers to give my indexes a rest, lol. Also, shame on you for suggesting MCH to someone with that condition. A class with a bunch of ogcds really make the arthritis flare up, lol.

Yeah I admitted that mch probably wouldn't be a good fit for that exact reason. But everyone's case is different (in the link someone posted above, about players with RA, there was one person saying they enjoyed DNC, and that's a job that makes MY hands hurt and I don't even have RA) and OP seemed to be after a job with not a lot of unnecessary fluff and a pretty intuitive setup. If his fingers can handle the burst (big if) then mch fits the bill. But it's unlikely, yeah.

[Raoabolic]

Yeah I admitted that mch probably wouldn't be a good fit for that exact reason. But everyone's case is different (in the link someone posted above, about players with RA, there was one person saying they enjoyed DNC, and that's a job that makes MY hands hurt and I don't even have RA) and OP seemed to be after a job with not a lot of unnecessary fluff and a pretty intuitive setup. If his fingers can handle the burst (big if) then mch fits the bill. But it's unlikely, yeah.

Tbh, I would think the bigger issue is that mch hits like a wet noodle compared to other classes. The person in question is more or less asking what class has the least amount of ogcds. I would say war for tank, brd for ranged, sam for melee, and whm for healer.*

*not a 100% accurate list

[SailorCeti]

Yeah I admitted that mch probably wouldn't be a good fit for that exact reason. But everyone's case is different (in the link someone posted above, about players with RA, there was one person saying they enjoyed DNC, and that's a job that makes MY hands hurt and I don't even have RA) and OP seemed to be after a job with not a lot of unnecessary fluff and a pretty intuitive setup. If his fingers can handle the burst (big if) then mch fits the bill. But it's unlikely, yeah.

Right. See, in WoW, I play a demon hunter because I have ALL my routine abilities on buttons 1-5 and F1-F5. Two rows of 5 buttons. Then, a few buffs and utilities on the right, which I click with my mouse. It's not complex but fun to play. Only, I don't like the direction that game is taking. The thing about strokes is they can affect memory and thinking on the fly. Something I find difficult these days. So, handling much more than this makes my brain shutdown. It's more than whether my fingers can handle it, but one of them not doing anything at all because I've mentally froze.

[littlehobbit13]

But even there, I feel there are superfluous abilities.

As a Healer main, lemme tell you how un-fun the game is when you have only ONE button to press. My DPS kit amounts to a single target/aoe as appropriate and a DoT. For 20(+) minutes. One button for 20 minutes if the team is even half decent and not taking damage. More than once I've zoned out in settings like that, gone on autopilot, because the content is so scripted that it doesn't require much brain power. The better variety of abilities is what makes it interesting. I sympathize that you have mobility challenges, but reducing the amount of buttons you have will NOT improve enjoyment of the game in the long run. You think to yourself "how nice I don't have a huge rotation to memorize" but that sense of serenity doesn't last as long as you think. It gets BORING. The reason we play games is for the mental engagement. One person's mobility challenges doesn't mean the whole of the content needs to be dumbed down to a handful of abilities. There are people out there with physical challenges who are figuring out how to adjust for themselves in order to get into end content raiding. The key is that they're adjusting on their end, not asking everything about the game to cater to them.

If this were any other content, would you be making the same request? Are we remove bases from Baseball because some people aren't great at running? Should we remove the deep end of every pool because some people aren't good at diving? We all have to make PERSONAL adjustments to a degree depending on what activity we're attempting to engage with, because engaging in a different activity that already accommodates our individual challenges is also an option. If you choose a challenging activity, it's weird to then complain about it being a challenge.

tl;dr - The whole FFXIV community shouldn't have to take a reduction in job engagement for one person, especially because the game is already quite accommodating to players of different skill levels. You might look at playing DNC, it's mostly just different sets of 4 buttons, and it's very proc-heavy so there's no so much of a strict rotation to learn. I thoroughly enjoy playing it, you might too. If you're dead set on playing SAM, find a striking dummy and practice rotations at your own speed until you feel good about them. You might also look into using an MMO mouse or controller so you have less physical movement to access your different abilities.

[SailorCeti]

As a Healer main, lemme tell you how un-fun the game is when you have only ONE button to press. My DPS kit amounts to a single target/aoe as appropriate and a DoT. For 20(+) minutes. One button for 20 minutes if the team is even half decent and not taking damage. More than once I've zoned out in settings like that, gone on autopilot, because the content is so scripted that it doesn't require much brain power. The better variety of abilities is what makes it interesting. I sympathize that you have mobility challenges, but reducing the amount of buttons you have will NOT improve enjoyment of the game in the long run. You think to yourself "how nice I don't have a huge rotation to memorize" but that sense of serenity doesn't last as long as you think. It gets BORING. The reason we play games is for the mental engagement. One person's mobility challenges doesn't mean the whole of the content needs to be dumbed down to a handful of abilities. There are people out there with physical challenges who are figuring out how to adjust for themselves in order to get into end content raiding. The key is that they're adjusting on their end, not asking everything about the game to cater to them.

If this were any other content, would you be making the same request? Are we remove bases from Baseball because some people aren't great at running? Should we remove the deep end of every pool because some people aren't good at diving? We all have to make PERSONAL adjustments to a degree depending on what activity we're attempting to engage with, because not engaging in a different activity that already accommodates our individual challenges is also an option. If you choose a challenging activity, it's weird to then complain about it being a challenge.

tl;dr - The whole FFXIV community shouldn't have to take a reduction in job engagement for one person, especially because the game is already quite accommodating to players of different skill levels. You might look at playing DNC, it's mostly just different sets of 4 buttons, and it's very proc-heavy so there's no so much of a strict rotation to learn. I thoroughly enjoy playing it, you might too. If you're dead set on playing SAM, find a striking dummy and practice rotations at your own speed until you feel good about them. You might also look into using an MMO mouse so you have less physical movement to access your different abilities.

Question...

While I do not tank or heal due to the immense pressure it puts on me, I do like the rotation you described. Unlike yourself, for me, the fewer buttons the better, making it more enjoyable. So, is it possible to play SCH as DPS, off-healing when needed? How viable is the actual DPS?

[littlehobbit13]

Question...

While I do not tank or heal due to the immense pressure it puts on me, I do like the rotation you described. Unlike yourself, for me, the fewer buttons the better, making it more enjoyable. So, is it possible to play SCH as DPS, off-healing when needed? How viable is the actual DPS?

DPS are DPS and Healers are Healers. If you go into a run on Healer, you're going to be expected to know how to heal when everything is going wrong, and good reaction time can literally be the difference between life and death. There is no such thing as "off-healing". My SCH kit takes up 3 full hotbars and you WILL use all of it when things go south. Yes, WHEN, not "if". You should NOT play Healer just for the non-existent DPS rotation. You will be considered to be griefing your party. Again, take a look at DNC. It's ranged and pretty minimal in regards to a rotation, and it's very mobile so you have a lot of space for a slower reaction time.

Do NOT play Healer, you will not enjoy it and people will hate you if you play it the way you're thinking of playing it.

[Stormpeaks]

You lost me after using shift and ctrl. That's already too much. I do fine on my SMN. But even there, I feel there are superfluous abilities.

If you feel like SMN has a lot of spells to use I really dont know what to tell you, they made SMN an absolute dumbed down class to a point all you have to do is push 5 buttons, if even that