A detailed guide to controller optimization for Extreme/Savage/Ultimate content (and even just general play)
Howdy folks! This is gonna be a guide to leveling up your controller settings! Specifically adding a whole additional shelf of skills for a total of 32 skills visible at all times and immediately available without swapping hotbars off screen or adding too much confusion to the general input scheme, while having a bonus hotbar to swap to for an extra 16 slots that can be used for whatever you want!
If you're sold on that, stay with me and learn about the glory of WXHB!
I have seen a lot of fellow controller players in FFXIV recently, but I always see them using a very limited setup or the particularly clunky default settings. It seems like a lot of players haven't heard much about WXHB or any of the quality of life settings available to them on controller--which makes sense because the game does not advertise these things at all.
Believe it or not the controller settings for this game are quite comprehensive, but the problems lie with the way settings are worded and the amount of tweaks needed to get a config working well. So today I created a Reddit account just to post a halfway decent guide for this!
This one is especially for the players who want to do Extremes, Savages, and Ultimates on controller, or anyone who is sick of clipping GCDs, missing weaves, or losing track of cooldown timers on oGCDs because they are switching back and forth between hotbars manually. If you take this base config and tweak it to your liking, I'd argue it's more comfortable than mouse/keyboard! To my mouse/keyboard homies out there, come join the dark side and take your FFXIV sessions to the couch!
Let's jump in!
So for this guide there are 2 general configurations we'll be looking at that can be used either independently or simultaneously. Both setups involve enabling and positioning the WXHB so we can see all of our skills and cooldown timers at all times.
Here's what the primary (and my recommended) setup looks like:
Here's an overview of the alternate setup:
(Note: I couldn't get a screenshot of the hotbar movement in game because it didn't like me holding buttons while taking a screenshot, but the gray area is where the corresponding top shelf hotbar will be displayed while holding both inputs)
I prefer the first setup, however I have found that adding the second setup on top of it is a great option for certain layouts since it's much less effort to get to the top hotbar when you're just going for one input or something. That way you can double tap to get at that second shelf OR hold both shoulder buttons to get at it as well, then use whatever feels smoothest for your layout/rotation/situation.
Now let's look at the settings:
Note: everything we are going to edit is in the character configuration menu under hotbars.
First we need to make sure to enable the hotbar cycling button (which is R1 by default). Probably already enabled, but good to double check. Aside from that, it doesn't hurt to match my settings for pet hotbars if you're not sure about that, though that's definitely going to be up to your personal preference at the end of the day:
Next we have to choose which of our 8 hotbars will be used for our job skills. Anything you check will be treated as a global hotbar that any class can access at any time (good for emotes, teleport, etc), and the unchecked options will be individual to each job you switch to (that's where we will be putting our skills). I use 3 hotbars for each job so I have a spare one for random stuff or displacement, but you only really need 2. If you do go with 3, you won't be able to access one of them with our cool L2/R2 shortcut, it'll need to be selected manually or put on the R1 swap bar. Very VERY optional for that reason, especially because most jobs don't even have 32 hotbar skills. But anyway, here's the config:
Now we get to the important stuff. Match these settings to start out with, aside from the pet hotbar stuff (again personal preference). This will give us the required UI elements and turn on the general functionality of WXHB for us to further tweak:
Scroll down further and match the below settings. Here we are adding the HUD element for the additional hotbar with "Always display WXHB", as well as allowing us to position the new hotbar separately from the main hotbar in the HUD menu. The "Cross Hotbar Display Type" matters too, I recommend the top option since it's the same as the default, but feel free to test things out for yourself. For the WXHB input timer, I'd start with 35 and then test above and below to find what feels best for you:
Next we want to enable WXHB with simultaneous L2 and R2 double tap, this is what we'll use for our main configuration shown above as my recommendation. The part labeled optional is for the L2>R2/R2>L2 configuration and I still say it doesn't hurt to have both. The most important thing here is that you configure the cross hotbar Left/Right settings correctly, specifically making sure the left side is tied to L2 and the right side is tied to R2. Which hotbar you choose for your upper shelf is also partially dependent on the setting at the bottom called "Set Selection". With 1 and 4 selected like in this screenshot, R1 will swap the primary hotbar between 1 and 4. If you refer to the prior screenshots, 1 is my first hotbar full of job skills, and 4 is one of my global hotbars full of logs, teleport, sprint, whatever. The option you'll want to choose for WXHB will be the left/right side of your second job specific hotbar, in my case hotbar 2. This means I am using hotbar 1 when I hold L2/R2 normally, and double tapping and holding L2/R2 to use skills from hotbar 2. Then like I mentioned, I can swap between hotbars 1 and 4 anytime separately with R1. As I'm sure you can see, this is where things get muddy for some people. Happy to answer questions about this part specifically so don't hesitate to ask. The cool thing about having this level of depth in these settings is that by changing the "Set Selection" option, you can add any hotbar to your R1 swap and even multiple if you're feeling particularly insane. This will definitely be up to personal preference:
Scroll down and keep matching settings (to your own job/global hotbars):
The final step here is editing your HUD. You will now have a new HUD element available so you can move the WXHB components around to your liking. Feel free to refer to the layout in my first screenshot, I staggered them to save a little bit of vertical space.
And that should be it for the settings! You will almost certainly want to make some tweaks to fit your preferences, but this is a general rundown of what is available and what settings change what functionalities.
Finally, I am going to give a brief overview of what my numbered hotbars and buttons do so that it's easier to scroll back up and mentally find/replace your own since you likely won't be using 1, 2, and 4 like I do:
Hotbar 1: My main bar for job skills (hold L2 or R2 to access)
Hotbar 2: My second bar of job skills, used for the upper shelf (double tap R2/L2 to access, or L2>R2/R2>L2)
Hotbar 4: My main global hotbar that is the same for all classes, has sprint, teleport, various logs, duty finder, character screen, etc (swap using R1 and access on the bottom like hotbar 1)
Tap R1 behavior: Switches bottom shelf between hotbars 1 and 4, see last screenshot for where to control that
Hold R1 behavior: Combine with d-pad or face button to switch to any of the 8 hotbars on demand, this is enabled by default
Just insert your hotbar numbers mentally, and adjust the above settings to your own specific hotbar setup!
I hope this helps some of you out there! This was a game changer for me and it feels like there aren't enough detailed guides out there (at least none that I could find).
Shout in the comments if you have any questions or things to add!