The PC UI was shown at PAX and with it came the realization that there are only 8 slots in the hotbar - the devs have confirmed since that there are only 8 abilities available for use during combat. This goes for both PC and all consoles - the radial menu on consoles no longer allows access to any "excess" abilities. The 8 can be changed when not in combat (so if we scout ahead and know that our upcoming enemy is immune to fire damage, we can slot in appropriate spells, etc). Question is if the tactics will take that into account, so if we've set up tactics to use that fire spell that we no longer have slotted, will it skip it, use it, or stop tactics altogether?

I'm following along with the discussions, but the devs haven't said one way or the other yet.

The limitation of 8 is different and may feel odd - but it may be that the spell/ability trees have more upgrades than anything so we won't lose out on many abilities toward end-game when we usually end up with more than we know what to do with. Also sustained abilities are always on so they don't need to be slotted at all. See the Skill Trees Discussion.

There are also the new spells/abilities that require "focus" and aren't usable all the time - no word on if those need to be slotted ahead of time or not.

On scouting ahead - we should be able to do this with the tactical cam or we'll have an actual scout that will report back to us (like in the Fallow Mire demo) and if we can see the mob and hover over it, we will see stats on it if we've run into it before. So if we've killed genlocks previously, we'll see their hp, immunities, etc. If we didn't try to use fire or ice the last time it may not show if they are immune to either, that's still unknown. Being able to see their stats or have a scout tell us what's up ahead will give us a hint or two on which abilities we need to swap to, if any.

My personal bet is.. tactics will skip over something that isn't currently slotted just like if it was on cooldown (in which case it would not be necessary to re-do our tactics every time we change our slotted 8 abilities), and hovering over a mob will show all info if we've fought it before, regardless of whether we personally tested any of their immunities the previous time(s). Definitely don't take my guesses as gospel - I'm usually wrong about these sorts of things :)