Reason behind the change to elemental focus?

It's not all that different from the Paladin Illumination change. It's basically taking a "free" spell and having an actual cost in mana for it. Over time, the zero mana cost for spells can alter the total number of spells cast in a given amount of time. The devs felt that this was to large at one hundred percent, under current conditions, so they hemmed it in.

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Tseric, I thought paladins and shaman are available to both factions because we are supposed to now be designed seperately, instead of in comparison to one another?

Oh yeah, that was another pile of bull crap too eh?

Chew on that for a while.

It has to do with the similarity of clearcasting effects, not the classes themselves.

It's unfortunate that you can't make that connection.

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May I ask you to please pass along to the devs that the only Shamans who were seeing a significant change in the "number of spells cast in a given amount of time" were in the great minority of Shamans who have access to the gear necessary to see such a change.

Just looking for clarification. How do you know that it is a great minority? What are you basing that on? I personally knew a Shaman that had pretty standard gear, but cranked out a lot of damage at little cost, due to this talent. So, off of that, I could say that it doesn't require only the best gear to accomplish such a thing in the current game, merely focus of stats on the gear chosen.

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Essentially, as others have pointed out, the change reverts the "new" Elemental Focus much closer to the level of the "old" Elemental Focus without truly addressing any of our mana regeneration issues.

I will pass this sentiment on in hopes of hearing what the devs think in regards to mana efficiency and the classes progression.

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May I also ask why, then, instead of addressing such an issue by keeping the "new" Elemental Focus intact, the developers instead chose to give us *extremely* marginal gains on our Black Temple trinket?

Don't know, but I can ask.

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How was the Shaman you're describing cranking out any more damage in the same amount of time as any other Shaman?

This talent does not affect Elemental DPS. It affects their viability as a raid damage dealer, since most raid bosses require a whole lot of time to kill.

I didn't really mention time in my post, I mentioned cost.

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I would say that my claim of a "great minority" is largely based on anecdotal evidence; but then, so is the example of your Shaman friend in "pretty standard gear, but cranked out a lot of damage at little cost, due to this talent". Can you perhaps clarify what a "lot of damage" was? Note: I'm fairly sure you won't answer this question, as it would cause an uproar no matter what answer you gave, but maybe a generalized picture of what level of damage Elemental Shaman should bring to a raid would be better, if you have an idea.

In running 5-person dungeon with this shaman, he spec'ced his gear more into +dmg and crit. His damage was pretty high for a number of groups with differing composition. Any number that I throw out will probably get chewed up, but I recall seeing him, at least once, put out about 100k damage for a single encounter. He often had enough mana after fights that it merited comment. When I first saw this change, I thought of him. If he claimed to have excess mana and the idea that one hundred percent return played directly into this, it followed that this change was addressing that continued return of mana. That's what I took from it.

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Using a single encounter to judge that an ability needs nerfed shouldn't be done.

I didn't judge the ability. I didn't make the changes. All I did was relay my own experience about how this change did not seem confusing to me. You seem to be attaching a lot of causality to my comments and getting carried away that the devs are changing thing based on this one anecdotal post.

I'm just trying to talk things out. The emotional baggage being piled on in this thread simply detracts from that.

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What's even worse, Illumination isn't even a clearcast, it's a return of the spell's casting cost. It's pretty sad that a CM can't see the difference.

/sigh

They both allowed for the free casting of a next spell, or basically removing the cost of a next spell. Seems like the exact same end effect to me.