Four Points of Flask Feedback

One of the few things that Diablo 3 did right, or at least mostly right, was the Discipline system/skills for Demon Hunters (DHs).

See, DHs in that game had two resource pools. The first, Hatred, was pretty much just mana; it regenerated pretty fast, you used it to fuel the attacks you spammed all the time. The second, Discipline, barely regenerated at all (OP set items notwithstanding), regenerated when you killed monsters (if you took a no-brainer passive skill), and was used to fuel "panic buttons" — defensive skills which were specifically designed to not be spammed all of the time.

This was actually a great system; it's a shame only one class in the game had it. You had access to this toolkit of emergency options, and for the most part the limitation was how often you killed enemies.

In its own way, Path of Exile has this system too; Flask Charges also barely recharge at all, unless you're killing things. And they also, in their own limited way, allow you access to panic buttons in the form of heals, mana regeneration, elemental resistances, and armour.

However, it's a system that's really been neglected in PoE. Discipline let you do some crazy things for brief periods of time in D3; there's not a lot of "wow factor" in PoE. Maybe we can find some inspiration there...

D3 Discipline Ability: Caltrops — Create an AoE where you stand that lasts 6 seconds and reduces enemy movespeed within that AoE by 60%. Low Discipline cost.
This could easily be made into Flask of Tar or some such. Activate the flask, and some tarry ground appears below you, just like when you kill that one type of zombie; you'd be immune, but monsters would be slowed coming through. Could be an interesting option for ranged classes in terms of keeping monsters a decent distance from them.

D3 Discipline Ability: Smoke Screen — Become invisible and invulnerable for 1 second. High Discipline cost.
A Flask of Invisibility/Invulnerability would actually be pretty darn cool. Just tune the numbers such that it doesn't last too long, and that you can't activate it too often, and you'd have the ability to essentially cancel out a single Kole ground slam with the timely press of a button.

D3 Discipline Ability: Shadow Power — Gain 15% life leech for 5 seconds (works with all damage types). High Discipline cost.
The one thing we already have in PoE is flasks that grant healing power. However, this is an interesting variation on that because it's leech-based. I played my DH extensively back in the day, and there were Reflects Damage mobs in Diablo 3, too... and as a result I fell in love with Shadow Power, my go-to ability whenever I came across nefarious Reflects Damage types. It led to all sorts of cool tense gameplay moments, such as realizing I only have about a second of Shadow Power left, the Reflects mob might survive, and I don't have enough Discipline for a re-up. Adding a flask with this kind of functionality would be a huge boon to build diversity, allowing builds to mitigate their weakness to reflected damage temporarily with this flask, but also having to deal with the consequences of their reliance on the flask to overcome such challenges.

D3 Discipline Ability: Vault — Short-range teleport followed by increased movement speed for 2 seconds. Moderate Discipline cost.
Hey, we already have this one! It's called Quicksilver Flask.

My point isn't necessarily that we need to steal all our flask ideas from Diablo 3 (although that might still be a good idea). My point is that there is a lot of unexplored design space with flasks that the game should really capitalize on. I'm sure there's plenty of other effects which are similar, yet at the same time completely different from the ones I've listed here which would all make great candidates for new flasks.

One thing that frustrates me is how underused the elemental flasks are — Ruby, Sapphire, Topaz. The only time I've seen any end-game build using them was back in the pre-Zealot's-Oath days of life-based Righteous Fire, where it granted temporary burning relief to self-inflicted burning damage.

Why don't players use these? Well one reason is that the best anti-cold affix, the real killer app of anti-cold flask use, is available without using a Sapphire Flask at all. Just get the Thawing affix on whatever flask you happen to use — life, mana, Granite, doesn't matter — and that's just about all the cold protection you need.

This is wrong. The best cold protection should be a Sapphire Flask exclusive.

What we need to do is get rid of the Dousing, Heat, and Grounding flask suffixes and instead add them to the base effect of Ruby, Sapphire, and Topaz flasks respectively. After all, if you've just been frozen, chances are that a little bit of extra cold resistance would be a timely boon. Or maybe don't replace those affixes so much as nerf them: Dousing might not remove the Ignite status, but it might reduce burning damage; Heat might not remove the Frozen status, but it might give you more movement speed while you're chilled; Grounded might not remove Shock stacks, but it might reduce extra damage from Shocked status, much like the Marauder-area passive nodes reduce extra damage from criticals.

Make some changes like that, and players will have to seriously consider elemental flasks again, and you might see some more interesting flask gear swaps before and after challenging content.

There are 9 different sizes of life and mana flasks, and 6 different sizes of hybrid flasks. Level progression ranges from level 1 to level 60. This makes a lot of sense, because the bonus provided by life/mana/hybrid flasks is a flat bonus; since it's not a percentage of anything, you need to upgrade your flasks as you progress.

Now let's look at Granite Flask. Flat bonus of +3000 Armour. Exactly one version, available at level 27.

Now that just doesn't work out well. +3000 Armour is a number balanced around the endgame for the most part, but it's available before you even get out of Normal. Why isn't it also available in some kind of size spread? Maybe not 9 sizes like Life flasks, but couldn't we manage the six-size program that Hybrid Flasks have?

Utility Flasks should be available in more sizes than they are currently. A small, early-game quicksilver flask might only grant 20% increased movement speed, but only require 10 charges to activate; a later endgame version might grant 60% increased movement speed but use up 30 charges per use. Give us some more variety so that players can decide what size of flask is right for them.

Additionally, just because there are nine sizes of life and mana flasks doesn't mean that's enough. Hallowed Flasks are ilvl 53, and not well well suited for the current endgame due to having their numbers balanced according to early Merciless standards; this is true of life flasks in particular. We need an additional flask type beyond Hallowed for life and mana flasks, becoming available somewhere between ilvl 60 and ilvl 68 (tuned for Act 3 Merciless and low maps). This would help encourage better flask diversity because life builds wouldn't feel like they need 3 life flasks in their belt to get by, instead relying on two (or perhaps even one, if they feel like living dangerously) and using the other slots for increased diversity.

Here's another example of how deep flask design can be...

Liquor Flask
Duration: 12.5 seconds
Consumes 10 of 30 charges on use
10% reduced Light Radius

That's right, the only thing this flask seems to do is emulate the effects of being drunk and by impairing the character. It's a nice, flavorful way of reminding the player that not everyone in Wraeclast is into the whole self-preservation thing; some push themselves closer to oblivion.

But is that really the only thing it does? For example, imagine a Liquor Flask of Warding, or of Iron Skin... Now you have up to 15 seconds (at 20% quality) of curse immunity or extra armour or whatnot, much better than the standard 5 seconds or so you'd get from a Granite. In races, the poor man's Quicksilver Flask could be a Liquor Flask of Adrenaline.

The Liquor Flask's secret weapon would be its extremely long duration, allowing magical booze to be actually be a potent weapon, providing the affixes are right. Of course, most Liquor Flasks would be joke/flavor drops, but every now and then, or with the help of some orbs, you could make one that your character might actually want to use.

Additionally, since it's pretty weak on its own and mostly flavorful, it could be available from ilvl 1, and would make a great ingredient in various vendor recipes.

When a flask that does nothing is actually a possibly usable item, that's an indicator of a lot of untapped design space.