Keybindings and Hotbar Setup for Black Mage — Endwalker 6.58

Hotbar setups in any game tend to be very much personal preference. While the keybindings we have listed here would be considered well thought out, it's understandable that you may want to tweak things to your own liking. These hotbars are meant to be used as a template and give a baseline for you to create your own setup. However, if what we've provided works for you, don't let that stop you from just using these 1:1.

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Black Mage Hotbar Setup

Controller Keyboard and Mouse

For controller hotbar layouts, one common approach that has been adopted below is to place single-target skills on a primary hotbar used for most content, AoE skills on a secondary hotbar for dungeons or other multi-target situations as needed, and then additional/less frequently used spells and abilities on a third hotbar. The abilities on the third hotbar are duplicated so that the order between LT and RT does not matter. You can enable the double trigger hotbars via Character Configuration → Hotbar → Custom → Expanded Hold Controls. It is highly recommended to assign a macro for Sprint to an analog stick for comfort so you do not need to use a hotbar slot for it.

Keyboards and Mouse setups will vary wildly depending on which variation of a keyboard you use. The example below utilizes a QWERTY keyboard and used WASD for movement. This is purely player preference. If you prefer to move with mouse buttons, feel free to do so.

Keyboards and Mouse setups can vary drastically depending on variation of keyboard used, as well as other factors. The provided example uses a QWERTY keyboard, with WASD keys for movement. Using mouse or other keys for movement is just as fine, as it is purely player preference.

It is common to rebind keys around your movement keys for additional keybinds, like Q, E, R, F, etc. Modifiers such as CTRL and Shift are also an option as can be seen below, with Alt (and combinations of modifiers) being lesser used yet available options as well. Make sure to give frequently used spells easy to reach keybinds, particularly when moving. If you're running out of comfortable keybinds, feel free to place spells/abilities that have a longer cooldown or are otherwise see infrequent usage (such as Scathe) in a spot that you can click to use.

FFXIV has a unique problem in the fact the game wants you to play a multitude of different classes in order to fully enjoy its combat system. While all jobs will have differing hotbar setups to some varying degree, there's still some advice to give that will help with the muscle memory when swapping between classes and roles.

Comfort, ease of use, and reliability should be the driving principles for deciding how to arrange your hotbars. While the decisions and end-results will often vary from person to person, some key concepts can be used to help refine your hotbars to make them uniquely your own.

1. Group similar actions together in similar ways. For Black Mage in particular you can consider the following analogous spells:
   • Single-target spells vs their respective AoE counterparts, such as Despair vs Flare, Fire III vs High Fire II, Thunder III vs Thunder IV, Xenoglossy vs Foul.
   • Fire-aspected spells vs Blizzard-aspected spells, such as Fire III vs Blizzard III, Fire IV vs Blizzard IV.
2. Place commonly used spells and abilities such as your main Fire/Blizzard spells on easy to reach buttons, and longer cooldowns/less frequently used abilities elsewhere.
3. Your keybinds should help facilitate movement and be ergonomic. Don't place things that you'll use frequently somewhere that is difficult to hit while moving and/or otherwise uncomfortable to press.
4. Consider adding an additional hotbar near the center of your screen to help keep track of longer cooldowns mid-fight such as Amplifier and Ley Lines, and/or to keep track of Thundercloud/Firestarter procs.