Pictomancer on Gamepad feels bad?

[Assax]

Hey,

I figured why not gauge how others feel about what has been the biggest issue for me when it comes to Pictomancer on gamepad.
Simply put, my usual way to go is to put instant casts on face buttons and things that are not instant on the d-pad since I can't use those properly while moving with the analog stick anyway.

However when it comes to PCT gameplay the whole Motif -> Muse -> Hammer somehow breaks everything. I have iterated over many setups by now and nothing truly feels "good" . I can't seem to wrap my head around why motifs and muse are not just working similarly like what has been done for viper, e.g. if a motif is drawn, why not just replace it with the muse? Why have separate buttons for everything. Similarly the 1-2-3 combo should just be replaced with the stronger version when palette is active?

I want to like this class but it just feels super clunky on gamepad for some reason I can't seem to clearly put my finger on.
In general it feels like the development team took everything they learned about consolidating skills when creating viper and threw it out of the window. I don't see any reason why the Aetherhue skills are not just the same button considering the normal casts get entirely disabled?

[LilimoLimomo]

I agree that it is super weird that in an expac that seemed to introduce combining buttons to free up hotbar space, Pictomancer has so many actions where you have action A and action B, and B can only be cast when you can't cast A and vice-versa; they could be the same button! Hopefully they can address this.

I haven't progressed Pictomancer too far, so I'm not sure if this changes at some point, but in the 80's Picto seems to be a very macro-friendly class. So for now, that's how I've been making Picto feel better on a controller. If that sounds up your alley, I recommend giving the following macros a try:

Basic Cast macro
Casts whichever of the two spell combos is currently available. You can do the same thing for the AoE version. You could also use the same concept to make macros for all the Motif + Muse pairings if that's your speed.
Will cast if pressed anywhere between 0 to 11 frames earlier than the GCD becomes available. Loses an average of 0.5 frames per chained cast, or 1.5 frames if cast non-chained.

/macroerror off
/ac "Fire in Red"
/ac "Blizzard in Cyan"
/ac "Fire in Red"
/ac "Blizzard in Cyan"
/ac "Fire in Red"
/ac "Blizzard in Cyan"
/ac "Fire in Red"
/ac "Blizzard in Cyan"
/ac "Fire in Red"
/ac "Blizzard in Cyan"
/ac "Fire in Red"
/ac "Blizzard in Cyan"
/ac "If you want, you can put an OGCD here, and it will cast the OGCD instead if you press this button well outside of your GCD window."
/macroicon "Fire in Red"

Spell Preparation Macro
Charges one of your uncharged spells. It's hard for me to imagine a situation where I have time to charge a spell and really care about which one charges, so if you feel the same, this macro can charge them all. For additional convenience, I setup my HUD with a tiny hotbar under my crosshotbar that contains all 3 of these actual spells so that I can visually see when each of them is off cooldown and ready to cast.
Will cast if pressed anywhere between 0 to 10 frames earlier than the GCD becomes available. Loses an average of 1 frame per chained cast, or 2 frames if cast non-chained.

/macroerror off
/ac "Creature Motif"
/ac "Weapon Motif"
/ac "Landscape Motif"
/ac "Creature Motif"
/ac "Weapon Motif"
/ac "Landscape Motif"
/ac "Creature Motif"
/ac "Weapon Motif"
/ac "Landscape Motif"
/ac "Creature Motif"
/ac "Weapon Motif"
/ac "Landscape Motif"
/ac "If you want, you can put an OGCD here, and it will cast the OGCD instead if you press this button well outside of your GCD window."
/macroicon "Creature Motif"

Hope these help someone!

[GrizzlyTank]

The hammer motif -> muse -> activate is the most egregious one.

I can see why they didn't merge the motf/muses but still would have preferred it.

[Mikey_R]

To the OP, this is what I currently have it setup as as a Level 100 Pictomancer.

I try and keep GCDs on the face buttons, the exception here is Rainbow Drip and Star Prism, they are used once every 2 minutes so it isn't much for me to quickly do that every so often. If I were to change it, I would swap Ranbow Drip, Star Prism and Subtractive Palette from RT with the Motives from RT > LT, but I haven't played around with it much yet.

Spell Preparation Macro

I'm not going to say anything about your basic combo ones (though, to pre-empt things, you will probably make one for Holy in White and Comet in Black as those are also mutually exclusive at level 90), however I will mention the Motives. I have found you do need to have more control over which one you use. You might be after the creature motif, but your macro might paint the landscape motif or any other combo. Just something to bear in mind.

[animeking]

Unsure if you're using 1 hotbar or 2 hotbars.
I'm not fully leveled on PCT but I'm not having the same issue.
If it's the amount of buttons you want you can have 2 hotbars up at once on gamepad.
If it's how the PCT job abilities are set up, separate and group what you need for each skill, ie: motifs on 1 wheel, muses on another.

[Khryseis_Astra]

This is what I’m currently using for Picto… not 100 yet, but I’ve already put everything on the bars.


For the most part, I keep all my AOE stuff of the left trigger and single target on the right, while keeping the skills I don’t need to access as much on the double taps. For now it’s okay, but I do feel some clunkiness with certain actions. I’ll probably adjust more once I’m max level and see how the overall rotation flows with all the skills available.

But with this layout, I’m able to keep all my motifs and muses together, which helps a bit. I’m definitely in favor of more button merging though! lol I could arrange things a lot better, say, if Subtractive Palette, just changed the single target/AOE combos to their different versions.