I apologize for the clickbait title, but that's just how the internet works these days since it was taken over by corporate interests. This little "trick" (a) is not actually limited to Path of Exile (PoE) from now on and (2) uses AutoHotkey (AHK) to help move some click actions from your mouse to your keyboard. Carpal tunnel ain't got shit on you now, baby!
One of the repeated complaints I've seen in many dozens of comments on my years browsing /r/pathofexile is that there's too much clicking. You click to move, you click to pick up items, you click to use certain skills, you click to interact with the game's systems, and so on. Claims of the game being one that wreaks havoc on hands and wrists are common.
Well, let me allay these concerns with a couple in-game settings changes and a tiny bit of technology. It's a simple three-step process that moves a lot of actions that would be done with clicks onto your keyboard.
The first step toward a safer wrist is to "waste" one of your skill slots used by the keyboard by setting it to "move only" instead of an actual skill. It's the little black-and-white footstep icon thing. Coming from shooter games into the ARPG genre, I use W for this. Hold that key and your character will follow your cursor with no clicking required.
Next, take your main skill and set it to a keyboard key as well. By default PoE wants you to left- or right-click (I can't remember which) for your main skill, but in a game of clicking this is simply too much to bear. I use the space bar for my main skill as its a natural resting point for one's left hand.
With these two small changes, we've already made significant reductions in the amount of clicking required: you move around with W and attack things with the space bar. Now we get to the "hard" stuff…
The final step is to install AHK if it's not already. Create a new script (or edit your existing scripts) and add the following:
*CapsLock::LButtonThis aliases your Caps Lock key to do what your left mouse button does. You can still click as normal, but now you can also "click" with your keyboard. The asterisk means it'll pass modifier keys (Ctrl, Alt, and Shift) through too, so you can now, for instance, hold Shift and hit Caps Lock to repeatedly use currency on an item.
How does one make a new AHK script? They're just text files with a .ahk extension, so make a new text file, name it poe.ahk or something like that, and drop the following into it:
#NoEnv
#SingleInstance force
; Delete or comment out the next line if you want to click with CapsLock everywhere.
#IfWinActive Path of Exile ahk_class POEWindowClass
*CapsLock::LButtonDouble-click the file to launch it. If you use the code above exactly as it is, AHK will poll for input while PoE is the active window, and when that's the case, any Caps Lock presses will become left mouse button clicks. Easy!