Keybindings and Hotbar Setup for Monk — Endwalker 6.55

This example is my personal setup, utilising an MMO mouse with 12 side buttons and a normal qwerty keyboard. The hotbars are split into three main sections; 1 - =, Ctrl+ 1 - =, and Shift + 1 - =, with a small divider between the former two comprised of the additional buttons behind the scroll wheel of the mouse. With this setup, absolutely everything is accesible via my thumb, leaving my left hand free to only worry about movement and pressing modifier keys.

The reasoning behind the keys placement is likely apparent at a glance - the core GCDs are all bound to 1-9 with no modifier, for ease of access. Our most frequent oGCD, The Forbidden Chakra has no modifier and is bound to a key behind the scroll wheel, so I can easily spam it with my index finger while continuing to execute the normal rotation with my thumb.

The GCDs are also placed in form order, from left to right. They are also vertically ordered by positional - before most of our positionals were removed, Bootshine, True Strike, and Demolish were all rear positionals, with Dragon Kick, Twin Snakes, and Snap Punch all being flank positionals. Alternatively, some people choose to order them by effect, having Bootshine, True Strike, and Snap Punch on one row as they are all purely damaging skills, and Dragon Kick, Twin Snakes, and Demolish together as they all have some form of secondary effect.

This example of a keyboard layout demonstrates just how many keybindings you are able to fit onto a relatively small amount of keys through the user of modifierss, as it contains not only all of our required skills but additionally a plethora of macros for various scenarios.

The main thing to note here is how skills that are used more often are bound to keys closer to WASD, whereas less used skills are either physically further away on the keyboard or involve the use of a modifier key.

This example of a controller hotbar follows the general principles outlined below to try and keep all of our skills in spots that make sense. The 6 core GCDs of our rotation are all accessible to our right thumb, allowing us to easily swap between combos with the right and left triggers. Utility skills and oGCDs are assigned to the D-Pad, as we need to press these skills less often.

Situational skills and AoE GCDs are assigned to the expanded hotbar, as they are generally the buttons we need to access the least frequently.