Steam account linking

Hello, I've played PoE and PoE2 EA on my Xbox and have shifted to to pc recently (15 Jan 2025). I managed to add an email for primary login which is now alongside the saved Microsoft one. Now when I try to link my steam account it says "You cannot merge two accounts with the same login methods" I skimmed through the forums and it appears linking steam seems to be troublesome, so should I keep trying to link my steam account or rebuy early access via the standalone client? And if I login via my new primary login, will I be able to access my console's PoE2 characters? Thanks