I don't think you ever used these potions because you don't know what you are talking about.
Actually, I main this kit. I also used to main the Wizard kit in FFA, and generally prefer speed-based fights.
Well, you can get a bow from chests
Yes, but by the time you have one it'll be too late to get cheap kills with it as most players would've geared up already. The strategy behind using the bow kit is to quickly kill somebody on an adjacent island, giving you twice the space and resources.
ores from mining, pickaxes from chests too
The pickaxe is better than most than you'll find in a chest, allowing you to harvest blocks and find all ores a lot quicker. Time is of the essence when you could be attacked at any moment. Plus, eight additional iron is quite significant, albeit also time consuming.
a diamond helmet really doesn't do that much and an anvil with a prot I-book neither.
It's one less diamond item to craft, and provides an extra point of defence over the chain and iron helmets, so in combination with other items (sayyyyy, a protection enchantment?), the difference can be quite noticeable. Though, the same argument could be made with any single armour upgrade.
They are totally not useless if you're fighting in a ranged battle lol.
But are far less useful, no? You may be able to strafe faster but it's probably not going to get you a kill, nor save your life unless you were playing recklessly anyways.
Since when is it just useful in mid
Most useful in mid, because you have more space to work with. Many maps have small islands that make strafing clunky and difficult. Suffice to say, you can't really fully embrace the perks that speed typically offers you when you have such little space to work with. You have to be far more cautious.
You'll get your first pearl after 3 minutes - 5 minutes - 10 minutes.
You can get less pearls from the kit, then from mid.
But when projectiles are enabled, getting to mid can be the most difficult part of the game, especially getting there before everybody else. Perhaps you're not a rusher, and prefer to let everybody else pick each other off first, because you're not a strong fighter yourself. It's a very viable strategy, but has the disadvantage of providing less supplies.
It's not like that piece of armour is going to make thé difference in a fight.
Throw Protection I on it and it very well could do. Being a diamond item, it reduces the damage of high-damaging hits. Anyways, at what point does an armour advantage become useful, exactly? Most would consider a change from iron chestplate to diamond chestplate to be significant, yet it provides only an extra point of armour over the helmet upgrade.
You get one diamond from your kit, and there are 2/3 on your island... You can barely make diamond boots.
You also receive eight iron, and a fast pickaxe that can be used to quickly excavate the ores on your island.
There are a lot of decent kits in Skywars. Simply being the best doesn't mean it's overpowered, especially when the potion effect is visible and lasts only thirty seconds. If somebody's speed effect is that troubling, you can stall them until it wears off by using the surplus of blocks/eggs/bows/enderpearls that are in almost every chest.
Here is what I would describe as overpowered:
A kit, item or strategy that has an overwhelming number of strengths, which compensate for its weaknesses. Speed has superior strength at close range, but in choosing it, you're making yourself susceptible to rushes at the start of the game by having no way of defending yourself. You're also predictable; if you've used speed, you're looking to get up close to make the most out of it before it's gone. You only get ninety seconds of speed a game, whereas all other kits can be used throughout its entirety. Unless your opponent has projectiles or doesn't see you, your speed effect is probably going to go to waste. That is, unless you throw it during the fight, in which case you risk giving the effect to your opponent as well.
Now compare it to something that
was overpowered, such as the Swordsman or Tank kits pre-nerf. The former offered the best-in-slot melee for both Basic and Normal chest types, and in maps like Rainbow was a death sentence for your surrounding islands, the only potential counter being the Tank kit if they managed to grab a weapon in time to defend themselves, or the Swordsman kit itself in which the first to land three hits would win. The latter provided the second-best armour set from the get-go, providing a stupid amount of defence early game in Normal chests or throughout in Basic chests. The Tank kit could soak up damage from arrows, making a long-range approach pointless, forcing you to fight in its own territory. However, the Swordsman has the advantage of being able to gather up gear as it goes along, eventually surpassing even the Tank kit's loadout so long as you can stay alive long enough. In conclusion, you'd be totally uncontested when using these kits in the early game,
unless going against somebody who was also using them. All the while, the only other kits worth picking were the archer and speed kits, which were used for totally different strategies at the time.
Though, 600 points is very cheap considering it's one of, if not the best kit in the game. The cost should at least be increased.