Joystick in left hand, mouse in the right.

Me and my wife are trying to avoid carpal tunnel while still being addicted to PoE2. I’ve been trying to make a layout work using a controller in my left hand and a mouse in my right, but I was surprised I couldn’t get it to feel right.

There are obvious downsides to a full controller layout, and pure WASD or mouse movement each have their own flaws. I got close to making it all work, but the last issue is that movement still feels chunky. When I play with WASD, the hard directions don’t feel bad, but when the stick is tilted in a direction the character isn’t moving, it just throws me off.

I’m wondering if I’m missing something. If I could stay in Controller Mode but add new hotkeys based on mouse inputs, I could probably make this setup work. I tried JoyToKey and Steam Input, but couldn’t get either to behave the way I wanted.

I can live with WASD, mouse move, or pure controller, but anyone who plays PoE knows this isn’t a short-term thing. If I’m going to put hundreds or even thousands of hours into the game, I want the smoothest possible experience. It also takes time to retrain muscle memory for big control changes, so I might hold off fully committing to PoE2 until I know whether this can be resolved. It would be great to see more support for gamepads, controllers, or other devices that make hybrid setups viable. I even returned my Razer Tartarus because the joystick (the main reason I bought it) doesn’t add anything without proper support.

Maybe I’ll get used to the offset. Maybe I’ll end up using the D-pad. Maybe I’ll just go back to WASD or mouse move. But I really want to explore this option. If anyone knows a solution, or if a dev happens to see this, I’d really appreciate the help.