paceboys Fairly sure that potions have a steep drop-off dependent on range? Just using a splash will almost always cut off the time/potency of a potion. This makes speed and poison potions (which have very short timers) fairly difficult to get extended use out of.
Something to include may be a 'milk' potion. Regular milk is all well and good, but rarely practical for combat. If a fairly difficult to obtain milk potion was included it might balance out the potions, especially the longer ones. If you can get close, you could even hit both players at once, balancing out the fight completely.
yo jivvi, not shooting at you for this, just talking in general so don't take this as i hate you and all that you stand for
generally for splash poisons though, you only need like 20seconds to dribble them down low enough and then a few hits and they're gone
the regular duration of an extended poison I is about 1:30 so you only need to graze a target to get your money's worth
as for a milk potion, that's just a milk bucket, i dont get what you're trying to get at (like a nullification splash potion?)
i don't think that's really balance still, that's still who's better equipped and doesn't really allow for an under-equipped by more skilled player to even win
let's say
player 1 has 4 splash nullification potions in their hotbar and a sharpness 4 sword and some iron armour, whereas
player b is clad in protection I diamond armour
player b can chug his setup (swiftness, strength, regen, whatever he has) whereas
player 1 might have just 1 set of those potions
player a splashes a nullification potion and accidentally hits both of them, or we could go with the other side of the coin and say it only hits
player b
player b can switch to a knockback sword (which most players usually carry anyways) bat him away and chug a second set of potions or even tank sword hits and just chug potions
player a really has no way of winning against
player b due to an extensive stock despite
player b being a better player and is forced to retreat and grind his own set of armour and potions, adding another player to the "top tier" list of players
(player a = player 1, player b = player 2, i just started typing and forgot whether i used letters or numbers, woops)
this just leads to power creep where balance is based upon the top tier of gear and how to deal with the enchanted diamond/potion carrying players and it just makes it so the bottom tier of players has a taller mountain to climb up before they can reach the same point
you see it time and time again in popular MMOs and RPGs
path of exile, powercreep towards low life and all the things that add to that (LL windripper builds, adding CoE, making ambusher crafting easy af). it's still a hella fun game, but those builds are just so incredibly strong that nothing can rival them in dueling and thus the only thing to do is to get on that level if you want to even contest against those builds
guild wars 2 saw the introduction of ascended and legendary items getting higher stat bonuses. this went from legendaries having the same amount of damage as exotics, to legendaries having a pinch more damage, but in a mainly PvE game that makes a world of difference so ANet (developer) has to add substantial amounts of content to introduce them in all aspects of the game (WvW, PvP, PvE) so everyone can get it
BUT the gear grind for ascended materials and legendaries takes so long that it makes it nearly impossible for a casual/regular player to achieve that level. the first legendary in guild wars 2 was made
an entire month after the game released, and that was through a guild funneling resources to 1 person and player non-stop since release. introducing that gear into a competitive setting like pvp meant that regular players who did not have access to that gear were at a severe disadvantage
now obviously minecraft isn't as big of a climb as that, but a lot of players just can't put the time into the game so gearing isn't as easy and thus want a balanced pvp environment where they can all be on level ground and give the players at the bottom a good stepping stone so that they can achieve the same level or at least have a chance with the gear they're at