FFXIV Keybinds & Hotbar Layout Guide for Beginners 

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!

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.

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.

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!

As a brand new sprout this video is like music to my ears ❤🎉

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

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'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! 👏

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.

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!!! 🙂

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

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 was searching for a guide to keybind the skills of my WAR at the time I start to become a heavy player in FFXIV. After one year I'm here to leave my thanks. Your hotbar layout is very similar as one I found for red mage in a blog when I begin to play FFXIV for the first time and I can say yours is very comfortable to use. Thank you very much!

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.

Simply brilliant, I have been looking for something like this. Thank you!

WOW this is exactly what I’ve been looking for! Absolutely killer video. Thanks!!!

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!

Thank you very much sir. I have been running your set up and it has made things so much easier in FFXIV. It is rocky as you said in the beginning but it works so well once you get the muscle memory down. So once again thank you very much :)

Excellent video, changing my hotbar and keybinds was a pretty daunting task but watching this video made me take the leap, already getting very comfortable with the setup i have and now my fingers wont be sore trying to reach for buttons :) thanks!

such a helpful video along with those pictures of your set up for each job !! 10/10 tysm (:

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 !

This has helped me a TON! Thank you so much, have a blessed day! ❤

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

After a while of struggling with tab target MMOs for the longest time, this here is a godsend. Thank you for the very helpful pointers, my friend.

This helped a lot, recently got back into the game and I can't believe I never thought of this. Except I'm swapping it to where the number keys are on the end.

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.

This video was amazingly helpful. I'm sure other people have said something similar in other comments but I want to reiterate it because it was a game changer for me. If you have a gaming mouse with at least 2 additional buttons which can be remapped, remap them to your modifier keys (shift & ctrl, or you can make them keys which are even farther out of the way since you'll never actually click them on the keyboard). Using my pinky finger to hit the modifier keys and still hitting my other keys was a struggle for me. Holding down a mouse button instead so I don't have to change anything with my left hand is so much easier.

just started playing and have been wondering whether it was better to keybind everything or just click, so this is really useful to me. thank you!

I just finished End Walker and wanted to start getting more into raiding but I knew I had developed bad habits in terms of my key binds. This video is really useful information!!

An excellent guide! Thank you so much for sharing this helpful information for those of us who are accustomed to WASD gaming.

Thank god for this video! I'm started the game for like 2 months ago from now and its like you said the eye in the bar always tend to be a mess. I was thinking to myself i need to redo these keybinds in order to do a proper rotation, proper opening and THANK GOD you made this video, i will definetelly master this keybinds because i have a feeling that i will feel way more comfy with this buttons than the default ones.

The biggest game changer for me was purchasing an MMO mouse. Went with the Logitech G600. Definitely worth the money. Align my abilities in 3 3x4 groups and modifying the 2nd and 3rd groups with ctrl and shift respectively. Took a little while to get used to, but now I'd be lost without it.

I started off playing the game with the default keybinds and just clicking the farthest abilities from 12345 with the mouse, and this vid finally gave me the motivation to set up proper keybinds for everything I used in the game. a month later, content plays so much more smoothly for me with the new keybind setup, and I really have this vid to thank for getting me to finally play smarter. for a tip, if you have trouble hitting Ctrl for certain casts (hand injury, pinky can't reach easily, or you just really don't like having to hit Ctrl for your third hotbar) and you play on a keyboard that allows you to remap individual keys (custom mechanical keyboards, a USB translator that can remap your keys on a non-customizable keyboard, etc), rebind Caps Lock to Ctrl. it will allow you to cast your Ctrl abilities without having to pretzel your pinky to do so. This was a great QoL change for me when I was setting up my keybinds, and I never use Caps Lock very often either, so nothing was lost for my use case.

Your guide so much help for beginners like me,much appreciate for you dude👌🏼

This was incredibly helpful. I'm just getting to mid-30s on my main job, and the hotbar situation was starting to seem like a looming problem.

I just recently started playing this game again. I've had it for over 4 years but only last night did I get my first Soul Stone. I got White Mage and Pali and both due to watching so many other FF14 videos in the last month and me playing MMOs for probably 15+ yaers I'm glad to know that I have a very similar layout by deafault that you do. My mitigation is all on C top row, Shift 2nd row is mostly for heals and other support actions, and Bottom row is obviously instants and default combos. I'm gonna have to show my friend this video because he's new to MMOs only ever playing SWOTR and it physically hurt me to see how he ended up laying out his hotbars accross his screen. He tunred them into 6x2s and put about an inch between each one and placed them across the bottom of his screen like a trifold for a presentation. But seeing as though he was level 1-10 he had like 5-6 skills all smooshed up on the far left 6x2 and was individually clicking most of the skills.

I’m really debating trying the game again, thanks for these tips!!

I used a similar layout when I first started and I used to click with mouse for stuff like buffs and defense, but after getting an MMO mouse, my life has been so much better. If anyone is inclined to try an MMO mouse, I highly recommend it. ( A tip for what I do is I fashion my hotbars into 3 square so that it mimics my mouse button layout, and then I use SHIFT and CTRL as modifiers :3 )

I'm going to be pretty honest bro, this guide of yours help so much, I'm new playing FFXIV and my problem was always how to set up my keybinds and I didn't have idea, but with your tips I can play more comfortable, you are great content creator I really appreciate it, greetings and new subscriber from Mexico. Peace.

been playing for a few months now and have basically been clicking the right half of my hotbars but this has convinced me to try using a similar setup, the troublr now will be getting my hand to actually press thr buttons correctly and not instinctively clicking

awesome guide I did mine a little different but this feels so much better

I've always used 1 thru = when playing wow but seeing vids of all the abilities each classes get later on was definitely an eye opener. Will definitely give this keybind a try since the best time to get used to something is early into a game than way in.

I thought I was an odd ball for setting up my Keys this way! Having someone with your skill level do the same, makes me feel WAY less crazy. I’ve had my layout nearly identical to yours for 3.5 years! I also have a Logitech mouse that has a M4.M5 button I use for Instant Casts, gap closers, or escapes. Thank you for sharing this!

thankyou so much! im only lvl 30 on my rogue but im already stuggling on my binds and im definitely going to give this a try!

Huge help - I’m new to the game and thought the settings would eventually kick me in the butt with how many abilities are in the game. Glad I found this while I’m still early on in leveling 😅

Great video! I use the F1/F2 etc etc a lot for buffs/dots/hots personally, and unless it's keys frequently used for other things I recommend putting such things and/or long CD abilities there, too :)

Just today I was changing the keybinds but was not convinced with how it turned out. I'm going to try this setup

this was so helpful thank you!!!

Thank you for this, I'm making the swap from console to PC and trying to setup all my bars on PC. This is a godsend.

I noticed I had been looking at my hotbar way too much and was missing mechs in raids, so this was extremely helpful! Only suggestion I might make is using alt instead of ctrl as it's far easier to hit by just moving your thumb from space

I've played this game for years and years, this will probably make my life a lot better. I had recently adjusted to clicking certain actions and adding more hotbars for lv90s, like click the hotbar and place the thing down for healing for example. I'm not sure why I was so afraid of making these changes, they make a lot of sense. I personally like my tank aoe buttons on Q and E since I think that's comfy, but that's just personal choice lol. I know dps aoe is probably going to have to be shift 123 or something I'll have to check your link. I do like the templates you gave but I definitely will be toying with it for my perfect fit, I thank you for your time and tips.

Thank you so much for this!

A simple mmo mouse is very comfortable. I wasn't used to using one, and at first couldn't think of ways to use it. But I gradually moved skills that were even the slightest bit uncomfortable to it. This also eased up how much my left hand was working. Can't imagine playing without it.

A year late, but THANK YOU! As someone who has always struggled with UI setups in MMOs, this video gave me tons of help figuring mine out. Now I'll just have to find a new excuse when I end up tanking the floor XD

This is an extremely helpful video, thank you.

I fully endorse this setup...it also helps that I use almost an exact keybind set up, so I feel validated :D Only thing I do differently is I use "v" instead of "t". Going even further, I bind non-combat commands like soothe, beckon, mount, potions to my F keys, and I go even further and have the various panes spearate into 3 different groups that I assign by rows: row 1: t,y,u,i,o,p - "info" panes like map, abilities, logs. Row 2: g,h,j,k,l,; - "social" panes like duty finder, party, free clan. Row 3: b,n,m,",","." - "item" panes like bag, character, collections. Yeah...I went a bit nuts but it all makes sense.

Thanks for this!

I am glad I had figured out most of this stuff on my own. But still, good video! Personally, I find Z, X and C a bit awkward in a pinch, especially with a modifier button. So I add 5, G, and M4 (my side mouse button). Other than that, my set up is pretty much identical.

I love your hud so much. I just watched a video and reorganized everything to be closer to the center of the screen, but now my screen is so cluttered in the center and the sides are bare. Not to mention it's really annoying to use just walking around in the world and doing fates/questing because everything is meant to be congested to make your eyes not strain. I really like how yours is just pretty much default with a few things moved around and an extra hotbar. It's really sleek.

Thank you for this!!

Don't know if this has been mentioned, but if you are going to use Legacy controls, the A/D = Strafe is even more important, because the normal Legacy movement actually makes a curve instead of going in a straight line. Also, Legacy has a slight advantage over default for moving away and attacking; Default will kind of make your character stutter step backwards but Legacy you just keep moving normally. This small change can be huge in content like solo Deep Dungeon because you can kite while using your ranged attacks without getting drawn backwards, but it can also let you greed mechanics more often without getting hit.

Thankyou, im new to the game and this is helpful!

For people who started with the standard keybinds and became clickers i can say that while the setup in this video is probably more comfortable, you can still play optimally by clicking your skills in savage and ultimate content and parse 90-99. Your personal skills are more important than your setup and if you struggle to change or you find yourself comfortable with clicking then you can stay the way you are without influencing your performance.

What is sticking with me most is that I should probably pick a main job. Right now I’m trying to level everything together. And sometimes my muscle memory has betrayed me when I switch to a job I haven’t used in a while. Still, great to hear many of my ideas about hotbar setup are shared by even more experienced players!

I have been running this style of set up for many years. Long enough I am getting arthritis in my fingers and carpel tunnel. I tried the MMO mice, but my hands are simply too big for them to work. So I went with a standard mouse with two thumb buttons I use for my control and shift. This gives me everything I need and all three rows are just as accessible as any of the others. You could also add a fourth row if you wanted to. Shift on your keyboard, ctrl and alt+ctrl on your mouse. I would highly recommend switching to the modifiers on your mouse and keyboard for all the functions.

This has helped me as a new player. Though i personall use alt instead of ctrl because it just feels more natural for me personally

Yeah, I also find that keeping certain types of abilities bound to the same grouping helps with remembering. Me personally, I like to bind my AOE abilities to T, F or G and I like to bind my sprint to Ctrl R. I also usually bind my long cooldown abilities to my number keys, whilst using Q E and R for the combos and abilities I use most in rotation.

I agree that when you said that just the thought gives you carpal tunnel. When I first started playing 14, I was mouse and keyboard, but I found it rough and moved to controller. I would like to get into the RP seen, but having to move with my controller, set it down and go to my key bord to type out my response, I just find that to be the reason I don't...

I'd like to suggest a next step to your suggested layout. I played a lot of Black Desert and obviously in an action combat PVP game keybinds are mega important. The way Black Desert sets up its keybinds is like how you do it but they also put keys in place that are logical. Examples: the Space key is normally Jump which is a form of movement so when you bind Shift+Space you make this another movement skill, something like a forward leap/engage skill (Tank leap, a dragoon jump, ninja teleport etc), you could also do Shift+W as a "forward" skill, either a movement skill or a ranged attack. A heal and a shield are both anti-damage so if you put a shield skill on Q, you put the next step after a shield (a heal) on Shift+Q. If E and R are attack skills then Shift+E and Shift+R should be augmented versions of those attacks (example the AoE version of those skills or the follow-on combos skills off those skills). What they are basically doing is to try and relate the binding to the natural use of the keys so for example when playing a particular class in BDO that had a "forward torpedo" attack where your character forward rolled through the enemy and often used this to dodge due to invuln frames this was bound to Shift+W because it was a natural extension of forward movement with W. So when you're binding keys don't just base it on finger distance but also create a sort of keyboard mnemonic, it makes gaining muscle memory 100x easier.

this is why I love my Razer Naga Pro with the 12 buttons on the side, it makes keybinds easy peasy

One thing instarted doing years and years ago back in WoW is using tilde for my "1" key. This adds one less modifier key bind to my rotation. Since you can press tilde through 4 with zero issues.

Everyone ends up eventually forming habits in their key binds. - Like a friend of mine has his movement re-bound from WASD to ESDF so he can put an extra three key binds between movement and shift. - He has big hands, so it's no big deal, but really, you gotta adapt this to your particular setup. Best advice for me is just to put your fingers on Shift, A, W and D like you would in a "ready" position, and see which keys on the keyboard you can reach without lifting more than one finger off those keys at a time. I can reach all the way to T and G comfortably with my index finger, while I still have my hand on Shift, A and W. And same for the 5 key. And my thumb can comfortably reach to the B key. - So that's a whole half a keyboard I have easy access to. Your hands will likely be different, or maybe you have a different keyboard layout, maybe you've got more spacing there, or you hold your keyboard at a slightly different angle. - If your mid and index finger are a bit longer, then your WASD position will come from a slightly different angle that might make it hard to even reach C with your thumb, or maybe you got longer fingers and can reach all the way to 6 Y and H. Feel around for what key combos you can comfortably reach by just making subtle motions of your fingers, while your hand is at rest, and work from there. Come up with the setup that feels best to you.

THANK YOU!!! I've only just been trying new classes and roles over my go-to Dragoon. Everywhere I looked for layout ideas, it was all controller layouts or noting to explain what keybinds people have been using. It's wonderful to have a better idea over what I was told by my FC of "Do what feels comfortable." Hard to be comfortable if your not used to a class/role.

I honestly figured this out within weeks of starting the game and it was such a game changer. I also use a reduced size mech keyboard, so I have no (easy) access to F keys, since they're bound under the top row number keys using the Fn modifier key. My fingers can't comfortably reach 7-0, nevermind - and =, so setting the hotbar keys around WASD made the most sense. (Having a mouse with even just two extra buttons can help with other kinds of keybinds, as well.) And same with the concept of keeping similar action buttons in the same spots on the hotbar(s) between jobs. In my opinion, healers are the odd ones out for this kind of set-up since, obviously, most of their skillset comprises healing actions. So you have to organize them completely differently as opposed to any of the attacking classes, which can all have the same (or similar) hotbar set-up.

I'm a clicker. Thanks for this video. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to change, but this is the most clear, understandable tutorial I've seen. I've listed as a fave - thanks again.

It seems obvious to put all tank mitigation spells on the same row but somehow it didnt occur to me. It's been very helpful so far. Thanks a lot.

I'm using a mouse that has 2 thumb buttons (which most mice have nowadays) and a dps control button. I usually map Ctrl and Shift on those buttons while the tab targeting function to the dps button, which to me is easier to press compared to pressing them on your keyboard. You just have to make sure that your mouse is compatible with mapping keyboard keys to its buttons.

Funny thing to counter one of your first points, you can turn the camera without the mouse, it's helping me in fights plenty of time to use A&D to rotate while using Q&E to strafe

While I haven't rebound my keys quite yet, I do want to suggest something extra heretical - Rebind your movement keys from WASD to ESDF. This will shift your fingers' position so that you have more readily available buttons (the lowest row of keys can be very awkward to use) without really limiting your accessible keys.

This is so awesome of you to post this. It took so long to figure out what layout works best for me.

I 100 recommend the mmo mouse. Also a pro tip, change your hotbar to the 3x4. It puts it in the same way it is set up on the mouse, giving you a visual cue where to put your finger.

The most useful thing i learned from this video is how to turn off direct chat, so I can actually put everything you taught me to use now 😄

I was waiting for this to pop up in my algorithm

Ty this help alot 😊

I'm hoping that you'll make an update to this when Dawntrail comes out for the job changes! I still reference the hotbars album often for setting up alts. 🙏

You can also add 5 and tilde(~) to the bindable keys. You use 5 which is around the same area as T and tilde is next to 1 so it's really easy access.

awesome bro

for my third hotbar at the top of your 3, i have that binded with "left alt" and pressed with my thumb, its worth a try out with people struggle with the control and shift

I enjoy my Razer Tartarus v2 Gaming Keypad. The great thing is that I have 57 binds the way I set it up. Took a while to get right, but now I can't live without it.

Something that I've done was binding my side mouse button as CTRL, that way I can use my pinky only for the SHIFT modifier and the side mouse button as another. I used to get massive hand pain from shifting in between CTRL and SHIFT with my pinky finger.

Definitely took some getting used to, but it was immediately noticeable not having to move one of my hands to press the further abilities

I've been feeling like I'm terrible at video games because I've been having the problems you're describing in the beginning. I'm glad to know it's not just me. Thank you so much for making this video!

I played like 3years. Now after a longer break i came back i rearranged my keybinds like you and i was like "wow i was messing up everything xD" So thank you so much for this

Wow this helped so much. Because Ihardly use the Q and E buttons.

Also lookup the 'collapsing hotbar' tricks to shrink the job change bars. I also use the trick of copying hotbars via macro to switch my single target and AoE rotations so they are always in the 'prime' button slots. functionally I use a modifier to switch the hotbar itself vs having to hold the modifier per button

I actually have most of my buttons on my ten-key section, with a few on 1-4 and F1-F4. It works pretty well for me, and I have the camera controls on keyboard binds as well.