[POST EDITED: ADDED SUGGESTIONS AT THE VERY END]

Let me tell you that I'm solely making this post to illustrate the use of Viper Sting together with Chimera Shot in Arenas. If you want to discuss it in another setting than Arenas, don't do it in this thread.

First off, lets read the description of the two abilities mentioned.

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Viper Sting Rank 5:
5 - 35 yd range. Instant cast. 15 sec cooldown.
Stings the target, draining 3092 mana over 8 sec. Only one Sting per Hunter can be active on any one target.
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This is an effective 773 mana drained from the target every two seconds. With 720 resilience (my current value) this amount is reduced down to 624 mana. Therefore 624 is the value I will use in my example posted below.

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Chimera Shot Rank 1:
5 - 35 yd range. Instant cast. 10 sec cooldown.
You deal 125% weapon damage, refreshing the current Sting on your target and triggering an effect:
· Viper Sting - Instantly restores mana to you equal to 60% of the total amount drained by your Viper Sting.
---

I did not include what Chimera Shot does with other stings than Viper Sting, since we are focusing on the triggered effect of Chimera Shot on Viper Sting and nothing else.

Now when we have all read what the two abilities in question actually do, lets illustrate this in an example below. But first, let me explain to you what the **** I mean by what I have written in my example.


The numbers on the far left will illustrate seconds, counting the duration of a Viper Sting on you in an arena game. The numbers (in paranthesis) will try to illustrate the renewed seconds of said Viper Sting by a Chimaera Shot or a new Viper Sting.

Now, read that again so you fully understand my retarded explanation of what I'm trying to illustrate with this post.

Done? Good! Here we go:

00 You are effected by Viper Sting.
01
02 Viper Sting drains 624 mana from you.
03
04 Viper Sting drains 624 mana from you.
05
06 Viper Sting drains 624 mana from you.
07 (0) You are effected by Chimera Shot. Viper Sting is renewed.
08 (1)
09 (2) Viper Sting drains 624 mana from you.
10 (3)
11 (4) Viper Sting drains 624 mana from you.
12 (5)
13 (6) Viper Sting drains 624 mana from you.
14 (7)
15 (8) Viper Sting drains 624 mana from you. Viper Sting fades from you. Hunter's Viper Sting is ready.
16 (0) You are effected by Viper Sting.
17 (1) Chimera Shot is Ready.
18 (2) Viper Sting drains 624 mana from you.
19 (3)
20 (4)Viper Sting drains 624 mana from you.
21 (5)
22 (6) Viper Sting drains 624 mana from you.
23 (7) You are effected by Chimera Shot.

624 x 10 = 6240 mana drained in 22 seconds. Lets roughen out these numbers a bit and say 5000 mana is drained in 20 seconds. That is a stunning 15000 mana drained per minute.

Most of you are probably thinking "but Viper Sting is a poison, just cure it!"
One problem. I'm a Priest, if I were any other healer I could, but I can't.


Everything up to now have been facts. Now I'll share my own ideas about this:

I don't know how this will turn out in Arenas. Every Hunter in his right mind atm is BM specced, so we probably won't see the peak of MM Hunters in a while. But when they start showing up in arenas, when BM is hit by the nerfbat, what are setups without the ability to cure poisons going to do? Any caster will hands down be drained to zero in one minute, taking into consideration you actually need cast any of you own spells in that timeframe.

The obvious problem to me is... the timeframe of drains never ends.

------- -- - ----- ---- ------ - -- --- -------- --- -- ----- -- - -----------------
[Edit: Oh and since someone very special to me so profoundly pointed out to me that I should actually give a suggestion to the problem as well, as to not merely presenting the problem at hand, I will.]

Giving priests a protection vs. this type of problem might be possible through various ways.

1. The first thing that comes to mind, would simply be to give Priests a type of poison cleanse. And since we currently are the only class ingame without this ability, at first sight it doesn't seem to much to ask for. But then we might be to strong vs. Rogues. So maybe option two would be better.

2. Giving us a self buff / spell to reduce effectiveness of poison effects on ourselves. This would reduce drain effects, but also effect other poisons such as wound / cripple / mind numbing. Since we would still not be able to completely cleanse a poison, or even reduce its effectiveness on others, only on ourselves, this seems like a viable option, if not more viable. Stone Skin comes to mind (dwarf racial), but I understand copying is out of the question.

I can't come up with more at this instant. Start giving more examples for Blizzard to work with. If they even consider this an issue, who knows?

Viper sting is already such an insanely strong ability against priests that you can basically expect a very fast loss due to OOM against any hunter team where the hunter has half a brain. With chimaira shot it's going to be even worse and there will basically be no way to beat any hunter team.

My first question to you is; where is the suggestion part of this post? While what you write is entirely true I can't see any suggestions working towards a solution to this "problem". As as for the "what are setups without the ability to cure poisons going to do? Any caster will hands down be drained to zero in one minute", I could say the same while facing a priest-team with no means to avoid getting burned. Even though it's not as "OP" as the sting you get my idea. Suggestions would be nice, instead of just stating what is already very obvious :). My 2c on the matter.

EDIT: My question being asked due to the fact of the location of the post, despite the title! :)

Asking game masters where to post these kinds of things gave me the answer to post it under the Suggestions forum. Hence, I posted it in the suggestions forum.

If the information I was given was somehow wrong or that I somehow missunderstood him, please tell me where this should be posted and maybe we can correct my, if so, very messy misstake.

Also, this post is not about Mana Burns as I clearly stated. If you want to show me or the community as a whole that Mana Burns are in some way imbalanced, too good, or very hard to avoid (lols), please make a similiar post as mine and show us how and why. Thank you.


Edit: [Re: Faaw]

I merely gave a simple example, it's not a post about manaburn and I'm very well aware of it. My bad. And it's not "lols" not being able to avoid a burn while sheeped vs a RMP ;) But that's not what we're here talking about :). As you said, copying Stoneskin is a nono, but the reduction of the poison effect/strength sounded interesting, perhaps a passive talent? As you also already stated, it would be too powerful to have a class that could dispell everything ingame, as well as having a massdispell.

Another suggestion being that priests could get a talent that evenly spread out the manadrain in the party? So the drain would affect the whole party, but only with one thirds effect on the priest (RMP), one third on the mage and nothing on the rogue. Might be a very non-viable solution but it's just a suggestion :).

I haven't played arenas at 80 yet, but if they're anything like arenas at 70 no hunter will be able to keep viper+chimera rotation on a mana user because of LoS issues. Chimera on Viper would just be a nice bonus of having an opponent in LoS for once.

Like I said though, I haven't played 80 arenas.

Ring of Valor, the joy.

ye gl with that blizzard have no clue

"Priest r OP!"

the passive talent that reduces the duration sounds like a great idea

I just realised Paladins have something in their Holy Tree that could be reworked for Priests. It should be put in the Discipline Tree though, for obvious reasons.

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Pure of Heart Rank 2:
Requires 20 points in Holy Talents.
(2/2) Reduces the duration of Curse and Disease effects by 50%.
---

Something similiar but for poisons? Maybe reduce effectiveness instead of duration? At least it's a thought.