WXHB long-term carpal tunnel

[Keg]

I have some Hotbar setups that aggressively use WXHB for rotations. I'm starting to (very rarely) have some issues opening cans or using housekeys because of the way my fingers are used to moving and curling playing FFXIV.
Suggestion: I play on PC with a Dualsense controller. Why not use the shoulder buttons to mimic the 'Gamecube shoulder click' to set off the WXHB?

Just a feature I'd like to see, throwing it out there.

[angienessyo]

You might want to consider changing your hotbar setup. I play on controller and only put stuff I don't press as often or my AOE rotations in the extra bars. Are you not able to rebind your triggers to your shoulder buttons?

[Collin_Sky]

If you're using WXHB as part of your main kit, you've got your hotbar set up really, really bad.
If you're using the WXHB buttons so much it's giving you carpal tunnel, you've got your hotbar set up even worse.

[LilimoLimomo]

I'm a controller player with long-term joint/wrist/finger issues. WXHB has been a no-go for me and especially if you're starting to experience issues, I'd recommend stopping using them. Listen to these early warning signs and make adjustments; you don't want to reach the point where simply playing the game feels difficult or painful Here are a few suggestions to consider that may help:

Care for your hands
Do stretches and take regular breaks to give your hands a rest. Here are some stretches that I've found helpful:
https://youtu.be/EiRC80FJbHU?t=89

Avoid mashing buttons
If you happen to be in the habit of mashing buttons, I'd recommend trying to quit that, and instead get into the habit of pressing each button once at the proper time. Buttons in FF14 have a window of padding so that if you press them a bit before you'd be able to cast them, the system will remember and cast, so there's no need to mash even if you're trying to never clip your GCD. Fewer button presses will mean that much less strain for your hands.

Macros
You're using the WXHB because there are too many buttons to fit on your normal crosshotbars; thankfully, that's the problem that macros are the best at solving. A well-written macro generally will do a single action every time you press the button, but the action that it performs will be dependent upon context. In this way, you can reduce the amount of buttons you actually need to press by combining multiple Skills/Abilities into a single button. There are a few flavors of this:

• You can make a single button that does a Skill (like Keen Edge) if pressed within the GCD window, but instead does an Ability (like Danger Zone) if your GCD is on cooldown.
  
  
• You can make a single button that does a melee action (like Keen Edge) if you're within melee range, but instead does a ranged action (like Lightning Shot) if you're outside of melee range.
  
  
• You can make a single button that does a resource-requiring action (whether that resource is mana, some sort of charge, or the ability not being on cooldown), but if that resource isn't available it does a different action. For example, you could put Burst Strike and Keen Edge on the same button.
  
  
• You can put multiple resource-requiring actions on the same button, giving yourself what is in effect as "spend resource" button. Personally, I like to do this with my tanks' generic mitigation abilities so that I have a "mitigation button".
  
  
• You can make a single button that does one action if you're targeting a teammate, and another action if not. For example, you could make an "enmity management" button that uses Shirk if you're targeting a party member, but uses Provoke if you're not.

Hopefully this gives you some ideas about how using macros can massively reduce the amount of buttons you need to press!

But those are just the basic techniques. If you want, you can really go wild and make macros that change what buttons are on your crosshotbars based on context. For example, I've got some macros for my Dragoon so that every time I press a combo Skill, it populates a nearby button with the next combo Skill. After all, if I just pressed combo 3, then there's literally no reason I would need combo 2 to be on my hotbar. By thinking about what actions you wouldn't ever need to use at a certain part of your rotation, you can dynamically change your crosshotbars and reduce button bloat. Using this technique, I was able to fit all 10 of Dragoon's combo skills into just 4 buttons.

Here's a video that demonstrates how the bars change and shows the macros: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsZo2iWJDrs&t=1s

Those are the highlights of macros, but there are some other things you can do with them as well. If you're interested in learning more, there's an old thread I wrote with a lot of information in it ( https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-or-Lost-Casts ). And I'd be happy to answer any questions you have or help you troubleshoot any macro-related stuff you're curious about as well; I want your hands to be capable and comfortable for decades to come! ^^

[Collin_Sky]

Macros
You're using the WXHB because there are too many buttons to fit on your normal crosshotbars; thankfully, that's the problem that macros are the best at solving. A well-written macro generally will do a single action every time you press the button, but the action that it performs will be dependent upon context. In this way, you can reduce the amount of buttons you actually need to press by combining multiple Skills/Abilities into a single button. There are a few flavors of this:

• You can make a single button that does a Skill (like Keen Edge) if pressed within the GCD window, but instead does an Ability (like Danger Zone) if your GCD is on cooldown.
  
  
• You can make a single button that does a melee action (like Keen Edge) if you're within melee range, but instead does a ranged action (like Lightning Shot) if you're outside of melee range.
  
  
• You can make a single button that does a resource-requiring action (whether that resource is mana, some sort of charge, or the ability not being on cooldown), but if that resource isn't available it does a different action. For example, you could put Burst Strike and Keen Edge on the same button.
  
  
• You can put multiple resource-requiring actions on the same button, giving yourself what is in effect as "spend resource" button. Personally, I like to do this with my tanks' generic mitigation abilities so that I have a "mitigation button".
  
  
• You can make a single button that does one action if you're targeting a teammate, and another action if not. For example, you could make an "enmity management" button that uses Shirk if you're targeting a party member, but uses Provoke if you're not.

You should absolutely not use macros like this. This is so bad, unbelievable.

[Zomkei]

Macros
You're using the WXHB because there are too many buttons to fit on your normal crosshotbars; thankfully, that's the problem that macros are the best at solving. A well-written macro generally will do a single action every time you press the button, but the action that it performs will be dependent upon context. In this way, you can reduce the amount of buttons you actually need to press by combining multiple Skills/Abilities into a single button. There are a few flavors of this:

• You can make a single button that does a Skill (like Keen Edge) if pressed within the GCD window, but instead does an Ability (like Danger Zone) if your GCD is on cooldown.
  
  
• You can make a single button that does a melee action (like Keen Edge) if you're within melee range, but instead does a ranged action (like Lightning Shot) if you're outside of melee range.
  
  
• You can make a single button that does a resource-requiring action (whether that resource is mana, some sort of charge, or the ability not being on cooldown), but if that resource isn't available it does a different action. For example, you could put Burst Strike and Keen Edge on the same button.
  
  
• You can put multiple resource-requiring actions on the same button, giving yourself what is in effect as "spend resource" button. Personally, I like to do this with my tanks' generic mitigation abilities so that I have a "mitigation button".
  
  
• You can make a single button that does one action if you're targeting a teammate, and another action if not. For example, you could make an "enmity management" button that uses Shirk if you're targeting a party member, but uses Provoke if you're not.

i cannot imagine trying to use macros like that on a weave heavy class like gnb, good lord. this is honestly really bad advice

do you use toggle for WXHB, or hold? if you use hold, toggle might help your hands more, otherwise, you can get rid of WXHB and swap between the crossbars.

[gllt]

Consider a controller with digital triggers like the Switch Pro Controller, it causes me much less strain than most other controllers.

As others have mentioned, try a different hotbar layout. Don't be afraid to explore what actions work best on double tap or dual hold and which ones need to be on your main bar. Try moving really rare actions to a bar you can swap to with R1 and set up your bars to allow you to toggle back and forth to it easily with a tap. I do this with things like tank stance or pet summons, food, etc.

Consider moving non rotation actions to your keyboard if it's in reach and using regular hotbars alongside your WXHB to reduce any bloat. Maybe food and pots, teleport, return, etc. can move to your keyboard.

Consider using macros responsibly, as others have mentioned there are major drawbacks to using them in battle because they do not queue like normal GCD actions. You can work around it a bit with certain tricks but it's generally best to use macros for non urgent actions. I've used them for pet placement options because I don't like the pet hotbar so I made my own, but even that probably isn't the best use for macros. So be wary.

I used to play a lot of fighting games and I started to mess up my hands real bad. Stretches are a must. So is listening to your body and playing in moderation. But if you find that you need to move away from a traditional controller, try it!

1) Look into a keyboard style controller with an attached analog stick. This can give you an experience somewhere between controller and mouse+kb.

2) Look into all keyboard gameplay, split or other kinds of ergonomic keyboards, MMO and trackball mice, etc. I've even played around with a drawing tablet.. it almost worked, was really fun to do ShB Monk rotations like I was playing Osu. Wouldn't recommend lmao. But look into kb+mouse but ~different~ basically.

3) Look into leverless arcade controllers, they come with way more buttons now and available on AliExpress and Amazon. Might be a jank experience but I almost made my leverless controller work for 14. It's comfortable for my hands but the Switch Pro is too so I settled for the latter.

4) Try accessibility controllers, there are official ones like the ones made by Microsoft but there are also things like the newest version of 8bitdo's accessibility controller. It lies flat on a surface and has very sensitive sticks and buttons, and things like L2/3/R2/3 moved to face buttons, etc.

Where there's a will, there's a way. I've improved my hotbar layouts many times over the years. Small optimizations can be easy to miss. Sit at the training dummy and try stuff, reprogramming your muscle memory is worth it to be good to your hands.

Edit: small settings make a difference too, like if your double tap WXHB actions return you to your previous hotbar or not. Mine do, so that I can do things like weave a mitigation from RTRT and then go straight back to my main hotbar for my rotation. Really look at what every option does! There are a lot of interesting interactions.

[Miki_L]

I see a lot of people providing alternatives, but not taking into consideration OP's original idea. Why do we even need to to double tap an input when there are other buttons available on the controller that can handle it in a single press? Currently, the shoulder buttons are used for hotbar switching (an outdated thing you shouldn't be using in combat), autorun, and for tab targeting in conjunction with the triggers. I would personally be fine all of those inputs were instead moved to double presses as they are either not necessary or don't come up as often. I feel like the game should at least allow for more customization for changing controller layouts. It just seems like they want to simplify anything related to consoles as much as possible to the player's detriment, even if playing on PC.

As for my personal recommendations to deal with hand fatigue. I think the Dualsense is a really uncomfortable controller (for my hand size at least). I would consider switching to another controller, maybe smaller and lighter. Third party controllers often have back buttons that may be useful as replacements for shoulder buttons. I also mostly stick to the single hotbar and expanded hotbar, leaving double inputs for more niche actions.

[gllt]

Oh I agree, more options is always better.

I've always thought the current options don't utilize the controller to its full potential. I'd really like L1 and R1 to be able to do more, I'd like L3 and R3 to be included in my hotbars (while still being able to accommodate for duty specific actions), and I'd like some common options to be added to the current L3/R3 options so I don't have to macro them. (Sprint, Autowalk)

I really dislike the default Autowalk L1+forward bind, it can get me in a heap of trouble. And Sprint on R3 has always been wonderful to me.

Edit: I'd REALLY REALLY love to be able to change the behavior of tab targeting on L1/R1 to toggling through enmity list instead once it spawns..

[Azurarok]

First time I hurt my hand playing this game was with MNK during ShB patches. At the time I often kept AoE sets on the L2 side and single target on R2, so Dragon Kick/Twin Snakes/Demolish was on the R2 WXHB while the bootshine set was in the R2 XHB. Things got much better after I put the Dragon Kick set on the L2 XHB and moved the AoE set to a separate XHB set, swapping between the two as needed with R1. I have noticed some players use the L2->R2/R2->L2 sets and set up regular hotbars to track their cooldowns, so I've also been considering setting things up like that sometime.

Also controller triggers with short travel distance make a huge difference too. Switch Pro's triggers are much more comfortable to use than XBox Series or DS4 and Dualsense to me, since their triggers work like digital buttons instead of analog and I don't need to press as hard on them. Controllers with adjustable trigger depths work great too. I also got a Vader 3 Pro recently and that's been treating me pretty well.