"Piano flasking" and the effect on balance.

To start, this is intended as a discussion and not a complaint - as I don't really know if this is something worth complaining about.

I came back to POE after playing several years ago, before many of the current utility/offensive flasks were introduced. Looking at my old characters, they mostly just had health and Quicksilver flasks equipped.

This question popped into my mind while playing my Toxic Rain Pathfinder - a main perk of the build being the 100% uptime on flasks (at least to the extent you manually activate all of them).

See new pack - press 3-4-5 to boost damage 40% (or whatever it is), become curse immune and move 40% faster. Repeat in 5 seconds.

Get in trouble - press 1-2 to instantly regain health and reduce damage taken by 20% (or whatever it is).

Flask charges are regained so quickly there is no strategic choice involved as to when to activate them.

Playing the "piano flask" game is a sub-game in itself that more resembles Guitar Hero than an ARPG.

Maybe I'm harking back too much to old-school ARPG like Diablo 2 where your flasks gave you health and not much else, and were reserved for emergencies only. Now constant use of flasks is a core game mechanic.

What it means for balance -- because a skilled player will have their flasks almost always up, and have top-tier flasks, GGG has to design content around that. If you don't want to play Piano Flasks then you are severely behind the difficulty curve.

I think maybe the "utility flask" (used for offense, not defense) is a box that should never have been opened, but now that it has, what effect does it have on design?

Put more specifically, if Sulfur Flask said "40% increased damage, uses one of your flask slots" would that be significantly different for play compared to now, with the advantage of not wearing out my keyboard?

There are some longer Boss fights where you DO have to choose when to use a flask. But for the 'normal' play experience, it is strange that each flask seems to be a 'permanent buff'.

Also shit like this is dumb af

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uses one of your flask slots

I really like this idea.

I'm happy for the piano key players to get better damage and defences - they certainly earn it! But this very simple idea still offers something for the rest of us, and it would open up flask animations to the MTX juggernaut.


Hmm. Genius idea, Everybody can win, simple to implement ... I'd get excited if I weren't so cynical.

Yeah, it seems way more intuitive, easy, and new-player friendly to just make flask effects permanent. Flask-boosting nodes and effects could just boost the impact of the flasks you equip.

POE flasks remind me of Starcraft 2, playing Zerg - you have to inject your hatcheries every few seconds to keep up unit production. Otherwise you fall behind. Consistently doing that manually is a mark of mechanical skill but it's also boring and not fun, detracting from the core game experience. I think SC2 tried automatic injects for awhile but I haven't followed closely enough to recall the results.

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MoLoK13 wrote:

POE flasks remind me of Starcraft 2, playing Zerg - you have to inject your hatcheries every few seconds to keep up unit production. Otherwise you fall behind. Consistently doing that manually is a mark of mechanical skill but it's also boring and not fun, detracting from the core game experience. I think SC2 tried automatic injects for awhile but I haven't followed closely enough to recall the results.

They kept it, with the caveat that injects only provide 3 larva instead of 4. As long as the queen is not being actively controlled, it will inject automatically. It has made life much better for basically every zerg.

I'd go for a POE version where utility flasks trigger automatically at 75% effectiveness, comparable to the Zerg changes in SC2. Maybe others feel the same way?

Could always do what Wolcen did, limit flasks to two slots, and if people argue that's too much have a passive or two in the tree to increase your count by 1 each.

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ZACHWILDCAT wrote:

Could always do what Wolcen did, limit flasks to two slots, and if people argue that's too much have a passive or two in the tree to increase your count by 1 each.

and then introduce what? because CI/ES builds dont need hp and some resistances flasks are very situational..

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Xystre wrote:

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ZACHWILDCAT wrote:

Could always do what Wolcen did, limit flasks to two slots, and if people argue that's too much have a passive or two in the tree to increase your count by 1 each.

and then introduce what? because CI/ES builds dont need hp and some resistances flasks are very situational..

I'm confused by your comment, are you asking do what as if they did limit it to two flasks?

Great idea bro, let's wait and see if ggg change this