Your logic on controller mapping for melee dps

[garciiia]

Was trying to play with controller to chill through the msq, but struggle to find the right places for all the abilities.

Do you have some sort of logic where your combo moves are and where you put your off cd abilities?

[Mikey_R]

GCDs and more used oGCDs on the face buttons. Less used on the D-Pad. The main reason is it is easier to hit them whilst moving, so you can more easily keep the rotation going. From there, where you put the combos etc. is based on what you feel comfortable and there is no harm in experimenting or moving things around until you feel comfortable.

[Dzian]

To take Sam as an example (thought havent played it for a while)

I use the expanded hotbar which helps a lot

on my r2 side square is hakaze
Triangle is jinpu
Circle is gekko
X is yukikaze

Up is shifu
Right is kasha
Left is shinten (spammable ogcd)

Then on my expanded bar Square is iajutsu triangle is guren (the st version)

Then on the l2 side I tend to focus more on aoe and situational stuff that gets used less. you can see both sets are basically the same outside of swappiung the gap close combo for aoe skills.

Monk is basically the same principle. single targety stuff on R2. aoe/ misc L2 and buffs etc on expanded.

The logic and reasoning behind these setups is they allow you to do your full rotation with minimal trigger swaps or hot bar changes. which results in less actions or inputs being required and less strain on the fingers.

then i have a normal hotbar above my xhb which i only use to glance at cooldowns and buffs.

the 2 skills to either side of my xhb are the back paddles on my elite series 2 controller

[wereotter]

Main combo moves, I put on the right hot crossbar. For monk, specifically, I put the formerly rear positional combos on the face buttons and the formerly flank moves on the face buttons (right button being move one, left move two, and down being move three) Triangle used to be the button I used for the dots, but most jobs no longer have this, and currently I have riddle of wind there, and up being used for feint so I can easily weave it into my normal combos. It's also now where I keep shadow of death for reaper since that functions similarly to a dot in its management aspect.

The left cross bar I use for things like iajutsu, ninjitsu, and on the face buttons, some of the main off OGCD skills that I just want to be able to weave in like forbidden chakra, as well as left triangle for movement skills, or skills that can be used for movement, like thunderclap, hell's ingress, and gyoten. I try as much as possible to mirror moves with similar function on all jobs in this manner so that no matter what job I swap over to, I can more or less use similar muscle memory to play them.

I also intentionally don't include skills such as bioblaster that are specifically for AOE on the same hot bar with the single target moves in order to save slots and attempt to keep all my rotation, as much as possible, in the 16 slots provided.

[VictorSpoils]

DoW
Right face buttons: single-target combo
Expanded right face buttons: AoE combo (not used/alternated in a lot of encounters)
Left + expanded left face buttons: buffs (damage/lower CD buffs on the first bar)
Left + expanded left d-pad: more-situational actions (especially tank role actions)

DoM
Anything with a cast time generally goes on the d-pad while instant-casts go on the face buttons

Actions mapped to right or down on the d-pad are also easier to use on the move than up and left, otherwise you can just jump for those.

[Soge01]

Single Target Attacks go on one whole set hot bars. AoE Attacks go on the next page of hotbars and Most abilities go on the third page of hotbars, save for a few that buff job's damage (Dragoon) or are beneficial to helping keep my character mobile (Black Mage). Then I keep those specific abilities on the same page as my single target and AoE damage hot bars.

[KevinM1]

So, I have to play on controller due to my disability. I also use toggle mode for the triggers because of that, so I can't use the W crossbar.

Anyway, I have two combat hotbars. Hotbar 1 is single target, hotbar 2 is AoE. Important abilities (like combos) are on the face buttons so I can press them while moving. I also tend to arrange them as a tree, with the root at the bottom.

Samurai example w/ PS4 controller:

R2 -
X: Hakaze
[]: Jinpu
/\: Gekko
O: Shifu

L2 -
X: Yukikaze
O: Kasha

With the D-pad, I put important/more used abilities on right and down because they're easier for me to hit with my left thumb. I can place my thumb on the left stick easier with them than left or up.

I also want to take this time to thank the devs for how good the controller support is. Without it, I literally wouldn't be able to play this game. Instead, I've been playing since ARR.

[miraidensetsu]

For me, it depends on job role. For DPS, normally I put on R the main rotation combo, while on L the extended combo. For instance, SMN I put Bahamut/Phoenix related spells on R while on L there are the primals phase spells. Hot Bar 1 is single-target, Hot Bar 2 is AoE. Buffs, CDs and situational spells on expanded. Same logic when playing Physical DPS.

That changes when playing healer. Heals on right and x-right, DPS on left and x-left.