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My forearm starts killing me if I try to play the game for any prolonged time using a mouse. Then it takes several days to recover from that.

I found playing with a pen and stylus is actually pretty decent. Saves my arm and the Intuos I use has four convenient buttons for the skills so I don't really have to touch the keyboard either. Anyone else have to do tricks to play the game? Wrist supports, different input devices, herbal treatments, salves and ointments, etc?

I have to assume that means you were already close to getting something like carpal tunnel, probably from your job, and Diablo just pushed it over the edge.  If so I would suggest spending some money on a nice ergonomic keyboard and a good mouse since most workplaces have cheap crappy ones.  If you wanted to risk becoming disliked you could also complain about it at work and most sensible places would even buy a nice swivel mount for under the desk so that you can vertically align the keyboad/mouse.  Not out of any concern for you, just because it would be cheaper than workman's comp type stuff.

You can also get one of those braces that limits "bad" positions.

Belkin n52te is a must for me nowadays whenever I play any games since I don't have to move my left arm at all with it and my wrist rests comfortably (except to chat really). Also a mouse that has a button to change sensitivity saves my other wrist alot since I can set it on high and move my hand less whenever precision isn't that important.

WASD movement would be nice.

My mouse hand is fine, it's my left hand that has started to cramp a little. I mapped all of my hotkeys to the mouse (back/forward buttons and scroll up/down) but my brain just can't get used to it.

Protip 1: pushing the mouse buttons harder don't make you hit harder :awesome_for_real:
Protip 2: pushing the left mouse button as fast as you can doesn't make you attack faster than just holding the button down :drill:
Protip 3: you can hold the mouse button down to move :why_so_serious:

But seriously, there's a lot of aspects to mouse ergonomics, one or more of which if not adjusted properly could be causing you pain.

If the pen helps you might want to consider a "vertical" mouse like this (http://www.evoluent.com/). Using a mouse in a vertical position is a more neutral position for your forearm. E.g. if you stick your arms straight out from your body with your palms perpendicular to the ground (palms facing each other) and then turn your palms pointing down at the ground (parallel to the ground) you can feel the added tension in your forearms just from doing that.

I get wrist and forearm pain if my mouse is too low relatively to my sitting height. That's one of the many reasons I hate underdesk keyboard and mouse trays -- they always put the keyboard and mouse too low assuming the desk top itself is at the proper height.

Another thing to examine is your mouse grip. The three basic styles are described here (http://www.razerzone.com/mouseguide/ergonomic/advantage). Using a grip that requires more forearm movement to move the mouse is going to cause your forearm pain if it's already hurting from moving the mouse around.

Finally you should consider increasing the sensitivity of your mouse so it requires less movement to move the cursor around your character and the screen. You do lose some precision by doing this but it can make a big difference in comfort. I play with a "claw grip" and my arm is essentially locked into place by use of a bean bag wrist rest for my mouse arm and I use my arm very little for moving my mouse around -- it's almost all in the wrist and fingers. This of course puts more stress on my wrist and fingers but for me that's okay as my forearms were ruined by spending a year typing on an incredibly crappy DEC keyboard back in my youth.

I tried using a graphics tablet (I play on a MacBook) but found that it wasn't very convenient so I plugged in the trackball from my PC and that's a whole lot nicer to use. My wrist rests on a gel bag and it's only my fingers and thumb that actually move.

This is an extreme option and one I have only turned to due to my back injury, but I now sit on a fit-ball for using the PC. It keeps my leg & back muscles engaged and stops me slouching but it also has the added bonus of having completely eliminated all the mouse arm aches I used to get.

I've adjusted the height of the desk so that when I'm sat on the fit-ball and using the mouse my forearm is at 90^o, i.e. parallel to the floor, and it's just brilliant ergonomically. The only problem is I have to stand my monitors on something to raise them up to the right height. Oh, and a really good fit-ball is only about £25, which is a fuck of a lot cheaper than a shitty office chair!

Bind move to spacebar and then rebind abilities to either asdf or qwer so while holding spacebar your left hand isn't stressed that badly while also reaching for ability keys.

Still need to move the mouse to where you want to walk towards and use your rmb/lmb abilities, but saves on holding lmb the entire time to a much easier, less stressful place.

I've got the beginnings of a pressure sore on my right elbow where it rests on my chair. I'll try to change my arm position but it always just goes back to that spot.

Tried convincing a friend of these two after listening to him spam mouseclick through Skype for hours last night.  I had zero luck.

Wow, really? I don't think there's any way I could play this game at this advanced age if I couldn't hold down to attack.

It's not about being more efficient. It's about tradition. And also, it trains your finger-muscles :P

I didn't know you could hold down the mouse button to attack.  :oh_i_see: