To my fellow players, how do you handle raids with tons of activity? I’m struggling with keeping up with the on-screen action and not over focusing on the casting bar and timers. Does it just take time to figure out the cadence of the actions?

  • esa@discuss.tchncs.de
    2·
    13 days ago

    Yeah, spell effects are full for myself and minimal for everyone else. I’ll give it a try to just turn everyone else’s off.

    Depending on the roles you play, you may want to stick to minimal for your party, since there are some party effects that are nice to be able to see. And I think no matter which role you play it’s nice to be able to see stuff like healer circles.

    I need to dig into macros more, just difficult with limited buttons. I have a bunch (mainly social) on my other bars.

    Macros are generally not recommended for combat purposes, as you’ll get timing issues and registration issues. The one exception is Holmgang, where it’s useful to have a very stupid-looking macro to target oneself so it doesn’t fall off early.

    it’s all controller based.

    Controller shouldn’t be an issue here. Some statements and recommendations:

    1. All the combat jobs I’ve tried so far need at most two full controller keysets, as in, only R1+triangle and R1+circle really need to be job-specific. R1+X just holds some low-lever healer keysets for me, since healers have kind of weird upgrade paths that turns your default keyset useless in low-level duties.
    2. That means that you can pick which you prefer of the double-tap style and the R2>L2 style and
      • use the one-trigger and whatever option you prefer for your job actions, and
      • use the remaining third option for some common things across jobs, like sprint, LB, teleport, etc.
    3. If you use the double-tap style, set it to show the full keyset. You’ll need that by level 100.
    4. If you use the R2>L2 style, you may want to add some hotbars with the otherwise invisible buttons, but you don’t need to keep the R2>R2 stuff always visible.
    5. Make some system that makes sense to you and arrange the buttons that way. E.g:
      • Keep the abilities you want to be able to use on the move on the opposite side of the controller as the stick you use to move. Having to take your thumb off the stick to cast and then get moving again, or reaching with the other hand, is clunky.
      • Role actions should be on the same spot for all roles, and some similar actions like forward dash, a “use once at start of duty” ability (tank stance, kardia, summon), zero-cast-time ranged attack, etc.
      • I generally also keep single-target actions on R2, and AOEs and defensives on L2
      • I prefer the R2>L2 style, and I have continuations for some jobs “under” the main buttons, so I can keep e.g. R2 down, press triangle, add L2, press triangle again, and release L2. That generally works for DPS and tanks where you want to keep the attack GCDs easily available for your Always Be Casting.
      • For healers I generally put the OGCD heals on the top level and the infallible GCD heals at the sub-level. This means that the OGCDs are almost always visible, and I have to go through them to get at the GCD heals, as in, it’s less pressing to use the free heals. For the healers I also generally put the attacks on R2 and heals on L2, as in hopefully I can Always Be Casting from R2, and intermittently weave a free heal from L2.

    Finally, a lot of it really comes down to just personal experience, both with the job, the fights, and with the game. You’ll internalize the timing more, and you can train yourself towards just glancing at the timers. And if you pick up more jobs and organize abilities according to some pattern, your muscle memory will mostly keep working.

    • Maudelix@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      11 days ago

      Depending on the roles you play, you may want to stick to minimal for your party, since there are some party effects that are nice to be able to see. And I think no matter which role you play it’s nice to be able to see stuff like healer circles.

      Noted, I learned that the hard way. I was wondering where healing circles went. Minimal seems to be working fine, now that I pushed a lot more of the HUD to focus on what’s important for a DPS

      Macros are generally not recommended for combat purposes, as you’ll get timing issues and registration issues. The one exception is Holmgang, where it’s useful to have a very stupid-looking macro to target oneself so it doesn’t fall off early.

      Thanks for that insight, I saw some videos of players showing their macros and it kinda went over my head.

      All the combat jobs I’ve tried so far need at most two full controller keysets, as in, only R1+triangle and R1+circle really need to be job-specific. R1+X just holds some low-lever healer keysets for me, since healers have kind of weird upgrade paths that turns your default keyset useless in low-level duties.

      That makes sense. I have LT and RT to H1. LT-RT or RT-LT to H2, and RB to H3. Then H3, which holds a lot of daily used menus or chat macros are assigned to H4 which requires the RB+X. I do have RT/LT showing the same thing so I don’t have to remember what combo, but now I see your comment about amount of spells for level 100. So I might need to reconsider.

      Essentially I use a modified version of https://www.xivbars.com/job/BRD/6188

      Do you have a possible layout like this to share?

      If you use the double-tap style, set it to show the full keyset. You’ll need that by level 100.

      Hmm, I use the double tab but only half of it, to allow for more space. I found having the full cross was too cluttered for my taste. I assume there are not some spells that can be ignored. Example of my setup below.

      • Keep the abilities you want to be able to use on the move on the opposite side of the controller as the stick you use to move. Having to take your thumb off the stick to cast and then get moving again, or reaching with the other hand, is clunky.
      • Role actions should be on the same spot for all roles, and some similar actions like forward dash, a “use once at start of duty” ability (tank stance, kardia, summon), zero-cast-time ranged attack, etc.
      • I generally also keep single-target actions on R2, and AOEs and defensives on L2
      • I prefer the R2>L2 style, and I have continuations for some jobs “under” the main buttons, so I can keep e.g. R2 down, press triangle, add L2, press triangle again, and release L2. That generally works for DPS and tanks where you want to keep the attack GCDs easily available for your Always Be Casting.
      • For healers I generally put the OGCD heals on the top level and the infallible GCD heals at the sub-level. This means that the OGCDs are almost always visible, and I have to go through them to get at the GCD heals, as in, it’s less pressing to use the free heals. For the healers I also generally put the attacks on R2 and heals on L2, as in hopefully I can Always Be Casting from R2, and intermittently weave a free heal from L2.

      This is extremely valuable advice, thank you so much. I’m going to have to rethink my controller setup now, especially if I ever play a different class.

      • esa@discuss.tchncs.de
        2·
        11 days ago

        If you use the double-tap style, set it to show the full keyset. You’ll need that by level 100.

        Hmm, I use the double tab but only half of it, to allow for more space.

        It’s just if you use it for your main combat abilities. If you use it for extras you’ll be fine and could even likely not having it showing all the time at all. I’ve been keeping mine on full display all the time and after this discussion I think I’ll turn it default-invisible.

        Do you have a possible layout like this to share?

        I kinda messed up my config and had to recreate it from memory and haven’t really had a chance to test it with all jobs yet, but I can show off the general idea. Don’t think too much about the utility buttons, e.g. the hunting log is just there because I’ve been leveling a job from level 1 (archer!), that’ll be replaced with the compass when that’s relevant, etc. The utility buttons are actually on set 8, I’m just too lazy to switch to it.

        Top layers

        SMN

        (sleep and physick are just there because I have room left over)

        WAR

        DRK

        Lower layers

        This is the same as what I’ve copied to the lower two button bars, in a left-top-bottom-right order.

        SMN

        WAR

        DRK

        It looks a bit better without the wxhb on:

        There are some things I figure I should change, e.g. make surecast and arm’s length be in the same position.

        But the similarities generally work: all the healers and the two casters with raise I can do L2>R2 down up to do a swiftcast+raise, the motion is always the same.

        Sometimes I find stuff that could be more systematic, like moving surecast Arm’s length, and mess up my muscle memory for a while. But I think the general rule should be to make some rules that make intuitive sense to you, and try to follow those. You’ll get it wrong from time to time, either not following a rule, or discovering that the rule was a bad idea.

        • Maudelix@lemmy.worldOP
          1·
          11 days ago

          This is the same as what I’ve copied to the lower two button bars, in a left-top-bottom-right order.

          Thank you so much for the images. So is the lower hot bar to identify when cooldowns are complete?

          • esa@discuss.tchncs.de
            2·
            10 days ago

            Yep, that’s the idea. I haven’t had it set up for a long while, so I don’t really know how well it works and if I should just have the OGCD stuff showing.

            I used to have a pretty similar thing off to the side, but it was kind of … annoying for how I had to use my eyes, and cluttered up the screen more.

        • Maudelix@lemmy.worldOP
          1·
          10 days ago

          Sometimes I find stuff that could be more systematic, like moving surecast Arm’s length, and mess up my muscle memory for a while. But I think the general rule should be to make some rules that make intuitive sense to you, and try to follow those. You’ll get it wrong from time to time, either not following a rule, or discovering that the rule was a bad idea.

          I took this to heart today and played around with different layouts and found one I loved, in unison with the button chord. Essentially all spells that are being used frequently are now always visible for easy access. The rest are a quick LT to RT or RT to LT away. Thanks! The non essentials are on a separate hot bar and I can switch real quick with the right bumper.