FFXIV Keybinds & Hotbar Layout Guide for Beginners

The biggest change I ever made in this game in terms of control settings was binding the side buttons on my mouse to ctrl and alt, so that I could use those as modifiers for my skills. That way I never really have to stretch and press two buttons at the same time with the same hand while also moving around with WASD. It was a huge game-changer for me.

I hope you end up updating your hotbars for dawntrail, ive been shamelessly ripping off your hotbars since they're so intuitive, and frankly have too smol brain to make my own with the new actions and picto/viper. Thanks for the video!

As someone who just started playing the game 2 weeks ago this video couldn't have come at a better time. Thanks so much for providing resources like this to new players!!

I have the corsair scimitar(mmo mouse) but for anyone out there I strongly advise every so many levels just going to a dummy and completely redoing your keybinds and playing around with them until you find them comfortable. Doing it on the fly has never been as comfortable for me as breaking down what I want grouped together, to be the most accessible, the most comfortable and have a pretty comfortable flow between combos and buffs or ranged pulls, aoes, and mitigation. Even looking at the setups other people use online initially always felt weird and served little more than a reference for what I found to be best for myself.

As a controller player I was mostly watching this because I was curious what playing on keyboard was like. I didn’t get a whole lot out of this except for noticing you’ve set up Shirk as a macro. That’s a really great idea, I can’t believe I’ve been manually selecting my cotank from the party list this whole time.

Sent this to some friends who are just starting, I love how concise this is, and also the mention of having similar buttons between classes to help with muscle memory. Really great video, thank you!

I recently tried controller because my hands started to hurt from all the clicking and holding shift/ctrl down with my pinky. While there's some negatives with controller too. The cross-hotbar system is a godsend! It makes weaving and doing long chains of abilities so much more intuitive!

I changed my hotbar to this exact system after seeing yours from an older video. This made progressing & learning jobs very smooth for me as a new player.

I've been playing FF14 for almost 10 years now and although I'm playing on Controller - and I think I've mastered it - I still learn something new every single day. This video is very informative! Keep the good work up! 👏

That is by far the best explanaition video for this topic i found. Great work Jolsn, keep this passion and quality up.

One of the best guides for keybinds, logical and practical. Very intuitive for keyboard players who don’t have an mmo mouse

Newbie here, making your recommended changes has helped me tremendously. Took some time to get used to the different keybinds but much more effective. Thanks so much for your input and tips!!! 🙂

Thank you! I'm new to the game and have been using the default keybinds for all of the 230h I have on the game, needless to say this has made playing much easier and comfortable! It is a bit confusing at first since my muscle memory still presses some of the old keybinds but it's an amazing and needed change, thanks!

Thank you so much for the video it has made my ff14 experience so much better now! went all the way thru Endwalker doing the normal keybinds and it was terrible. Been testing out the new keybinds and can say I'm honestly in love.

I've been playing for years but I always felt like some of my key bindings were weird but kept them for the habit, your video gave me a clear idea on how to improve it !

Just started back after a long hiatus, this info and the hotbar layout has helped a lot, cheers!

honestly this is an eye opener for me! I've been playing for quite a while and comfortable with my hotbars (some default some modified) but now I feel like my hotbars aren't effective anymore and I was wondering what can I do for it! This video came at the right time, thank you so much I'll definitely try this :)

I have played MMOs for decades now with a similar setup to what you described. The only tweak that I have made is this: I have 2 button on the L side of my mouse, I have rebound these buttons to Shift & Ctrl. This allows me to stop using my L pinky to awkwardly hit L-Ctrl. Instead I am using my R-Thumb to push Shift & Ctrl. This has been a game changer for my playstyle. Thanks for the video.

Thank you so much for this! Being a lazy DPS I used to click for a fair few actions, but trying healer opened my eyes 😅 Your pics were really helpful for inspiration too!

Amazing guide. I changed the buttons up a bit but I actually never thought of using something other than standard. It will take a while to get used to but this will make jobs a lot more comfortable during high level fights