Can ergonomic keyboards reduce the strain of playing PoE?

Try to relax your hands while playing. A big part of it can be the tension in your fingers/hands in order to *be ready* to spam stuff.

I sometimes find my mouse finger gets sore when its poised ready to strike. just need to chill a bit.

do some sport ...grip exercises and it will disappear

You Could :

Be bad like me an forget to flask.
Hate end game 'resource management' so much that you barely map so have no need for those pesky flasks.

Take the good forum advice and do grip related exercise activities if you can.

Rowing maching
Pullups
dicking around with medium to heavy kettlebells
those wacky 'grip trainers'

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Nephalim wrote:

I must be getting old because after 5 years on and off of poe, I've started to have issues with the joints in my fingers of my left hand from mashing flasks. I haven't been able to put much time into poe these last 2 weeks because the pain, while mild, is still so distracting.

Do ergonomic keyboards help with this or is it something I'm going to have to live with? If so, there a particular model that will help with pressing the ~ 1 2 3 4 keys?

I have 2 buttons on the key board, 2key binds on the mouse. Very easy to manage flasks that way, no piano at all.

I found that muscle strain was worse on mouse use than on keyboard use.

Use a mouse that is the right size and shape for your hand - try before you buy - if the side buttons are set up so that you have to grip the mouse too far forward or back to use them efficiently, you will pay later with RSI

A lot of gamer mice seem like they're configured for some sort of alien appendage. They look sleek and low-profile but after about 5 minutes of normal use your hand feels like it's been through a pie crust crimper. Or they're huge obnoxious Roomba-sized things with too much palm spread to reach all the secondary buttons and you correctly surmise it was built for use by Heptapods.

Movement skills on keyboard and direction finding on mouse seems more responsive than the other way around. 2- and 3-component skillsets (mines, ED/contagion, EE-processing brands and pre-conditioning with frostbomb) should be sequentially automated as much as possible so they don't compete with movement skills and hardcast-guard skills for your precious finger time. Otherwise you'll be in agony. Spending a pile of ex on a set of Cospri's might be worth it if only to avoid having to have carpal tunnel surgery.

Thanks for all the helpful replies, I did not expect so many people to have the same issue. I knew this would happen eventually but closer to age 40 rather 30.

For now I've limited my poe play to about 30-60 minutes a day at most and implemented a break/stretching routine for my finger joints and wrists. My work and hobby (lifting) both require my hands so poe has to take a back seat for now. If within 2 months its still painful to play I'll look into one of the two keyboards suggested so far.

I figured out the strain is mostly caused by my ring and middle finger being in a bent position and having to hit the 1 and 2 keys repeatedly and also that my hand has to be in a non neutral position in order to hover around the ~ 1 2 3 4 keys. I considered setting my flasks to f2 and f3 instead but feel like it would be a real pain to re learn my keys like that.

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Nephalim wrote:

Thanks for all the helpful replies, I did not expect so many people to have the same issue. I knew this would happen eventually but closer to age 40 rather 30.

You're not even old yet. Wait until your reaction times start to suffer :)

I'm much, much closer to 60 than 50. Been gaming for a long, long time.

When playing POE I have my skills all bound to my mouse and use a Logetec 510(?) keyboard with 18 programable key on the side. The keyboard is used for flask and alt etc.

Hopefully, you find a solution that works for you. Joint pain, whether it be knee, hip, back, neck or hands can be debilitating stopping you from doing things you enjoy. Perhaps talk to your doctor about it.

I crack my knuckles. It helps right?

*uses other hand to eat Vanilla Wafers*

Remap the skill keys to ASDFG and remap your flasks to QWERT so you don't have to reach as far to reduce strain on your hand. Keyboards are designed with the home keys in mind. I never understood why game companies insist on using screwy keybinds that don't take advantage of this fact.

You could try setting up a controller for poe, then setting up the flasks to r1/r2 and l1/l2. My biggest issue for a controller so far has been picking up items and inventory. Its a shame they havent allowed native controller support since the game plays quite well on console.