Change up your HUD in FFXIV!! Mini-Guide!
Since a lot of people seem to be getting into FFXIV with the new trial, I figure I should take the time to say above all else, play with your HUD settings and learn how to use them. FFXIV has such a good HUD system that you can customize to your absolute liking. It looks more daunting than it is, but it's pretty simple and forgivable since you get FOUR HUDS to play with, so you can just decide to experiment with one of the others while keeping you main one.
I'll give a crash course in it, just to show what it's capable of.
For example, this is my default HUD for most stuff I do or HUD 1 as it's saved under-
I've marked it up to show my thought process on why I put stuff where they are.
Basic info like server, time and MSQ progress.
Chat window that's adjustable, 'E' is 'Events' or NPC dialogue and actions, while 'P' is a tab dedicated to party chat. Quick and easy.
My buffs on the left and debuffs on the right.
Hotbars with a buncha hotkeys (also, abuse hotkeys as much as you can). I find three are enough for all the actions of pretty much all Jobs. I even have extra spaces for future actions.
My health, mana bar, XP bar, and 'permanent buffs' like mounts, foods, status, special buffs etc.
Job gauges, and I have a hidden hotbar there for other actions like summoning carbuncles, fairies, hide for ninja etc.
Where my 'Duty Notification' pops up, money, and menu. Out of the way, but accessible.
My two hotbars dedicated to random buttons I want, and for the hotkeys I use to manipulate my HUD further. As you can see I heavily use keybinds. They are your friend. Alt+E is a godsend for Sprint as I've found. You can change keybinds in your Keybinds menu and whatever hotbars you chose to use.
Minimap and Duty List, simple and out of the way.
Me :D
Now this is what I've settled on after years of tinkering, it's what suits me. You can add or change stuff very easily, and get this, you get FOUR sets of HUD to play around with that you can switch to on the fly, and is what I use for something very important.
As you can see, I don't have any Job stones up there or keybinds for them. Now I don't go to gearsets every time I want to change it no- I've used one of those four HUDS you get as a 'Job and Duty hub'-
The little blue crystal with the Keybind Alt+ M3 (Mouse Scoll Wheel)
Which brings you to this! HUD 4 for me!
As you can see, all of my Jobs, battle or crafting, and some emotes I use often! Clicking on any of those Jobstones switches me automatically to that Job, while also taking me back to HUD 1. Basically letting me switch on the fly quickly and having a neat AFK screen if I want. I learned this in a video I sadly can not find anymore, but I'll pass on that knowledge!
Now this also requires a minimum of two hotbars that are not 'Shared', now this is a setting that looks more scary than it is. It's located in 'Character Configuration' under 'Hotbar Settings'
This is the first tab and as you can see, you can change the orientation of the hotbars from horizontal, bunched up, or vertical, just standard look. It's the next tab that' important, 'Sharing'
Basically this tab controls if your buttons change when you switch Jobs. Checked boxes means that it's shared across all Jobs, like #8 in the picture at the start is the same for both my Dragoon, Monk, Fisher etc. While the unchecked boxes change with it, see #4 and 6 in the picture at the start that have my Job actions on it.
Hotbar 5 and 7 are what I use for those (I dunno why I just chose those) and as you can see they're shared across all Jobs. Now this is because when they are shared, it means you can't change move something on on Job, without all Jobs having it moved. I.e I move my Teleport button in #8 (the mini person) as a Dragoon and it will also be moved on my Monk. So it limits you unlike the hotbars that aren't shared, which change and won't affect other jobs.
Now Cross Hotbar is the same, but it's for people who use controller. I don't really use it so I'm not really experienced with it, but I do use it as an extra Hotbar to use for my Crafter Jobs, it's the Hotbar that looks like a D-Pad in the third picture.
That's the Hotbars settings I use, which is honestly the most complicated part. The last part is the macros which are really easy.
This is the macro I use to change to HUD 4, very simple and it's keybinded to Alt+ Middle Mouse Button for speed.
Once I'm at HUD 4, The macro I use is the same for all of them, just change "Soul of the Dragoon" to whatever jobstone you need like "Soul of the White Mage" to change the Icon, then whatever gearset you have that Job saved to, (Lancer was my starting class) and then the most important thing, /hudlayout 1 which is what will take you back to to the default HUD 1 I have up at the start. Very quick and simple.
Now if you accidently switch HUDS and can't or don't want to switch Jobs, you can just click Dragoon again and it will switch you back with the little swap animation.
This is purely QoL for me, but if you don't like switching and seeing 'glamour assigned' every time you switch Jobs, you can just make a mini macro to switch back.
This, I just use the Auto Attack Icon since I like the way it looks. But you can see it in my HUD 4. It's purely just for me. All the icons I use are just what I liked, you can look them up and change them to your preference.
And that's about it! I figured I just put it out to show that you can customize the HUD layout to your preference as much as you want. The sky is the limit and you get four HUD set's to use. I don't even use my HUD 3 and HUD 2 is just on that's minimalist for when I do raid and need to see the screen better.
ALSO TO ADD: Hotbars are HUD wide changing a hotbar button on HUD 4 will change it for HUD 1 if it’s shared!
IMPORTANT EXTRA TIDBIT TOO! HUD IS SYSTEM SIDE! NOT SERVER SIDE! IF YOU CHANGE COMPUTERS OR CONSOLES YOU WILL LOSE HUD SETTINGS UNLESS YOU BACK IT UP!
YOU CAN BACK IT UP TO DOWNLOAD ON OTHER SYSTEMS ON THE CHARACTER START SCREEN!
Click the gears, then 'Upload' and it will save it to the servers.
To add more, the official Square Enix FFXIV website has a whole guide on HUD layout. Check it out!
Anyway that's all! Good luck Sprouts!
