First off, a disclaimer. I do not play an Ele much. While I have a character of each class, only my ele and thief are not yet level 30 (and probably won’t be for some time). I primarily play necro.
But, I can see that there are a few things they really do need. I won’t be listing them in any particular order, so do not think this is some person’s warped priority.
1. Shorter weapon cooldowns
Right now, the trait and weapon design of eles conflict with each other. Eles have many traits that give benefits based on staying in a particular attunement, but the weapon cooldowns force frequent swaps just to keep up with combat. I advocate for shortening some of the weapon cooldowns slightly to make staying in one attunement a more viable option. This is a tough issue, though, as it can’t just be an “across the board” change. For example, Ring of Fire is perfect where it is on cooldown, but Ride the Lightning is not. Fire Grab is probably fine (very potent burst), but Updraft is, well, lackluster.
Also, could we please swap Churning Earth to the #4 slot and Earthquake to #5? Just makes more sense with the cooldowns the way they are.
2. Chill.
Eles need to be less susceptible to Chill. No other profession has their “weapon swap” so affected (well, Engineers do, but that extra .6 seconds doesn’t get noticed except in extremely rare circumstances). Granted, if Attunements were no longer affected by Chill, they would be the only profession mechanic to escape the condition. I feel this is a small tradeoff, however, that would, in the long run, lead to a more healthily balanced ele.
3. Trait reworks.
The big one is Diamond Skin. I know it’s already been reworked to its current functionality, but it needs another pass. No other trait in the game is this binary in function. It either all but guarantees you a win against some condition builds before even accounting for relative skill, or it means jack squat. Even Power builds use conditions (vulnerability, weakness, and cripples are most common, but also chills, fears and immobilize, and even poison in the case of D/X thieves), but as it works right now, Diamond Skin does nothing against them. Making it more meaningful against Power builds and giving opportunities for Condition builds to get past it would make this a much better trait. Depending on how it was implemented, it could also promote more skillful and active play.
If anyone has suggestions for other poorly designed traits, please say so.
4. Improved Utilities
Glyphs are pretty universally terrible and of the utility conjures, I only ever see Ice Bow. I don’t even know what the Earth Shield does because I never see it used. Truthfully, this point can actually be applied to all eight professions. Everyone has utility skills that are just bad. I’d love to see them get brought up in usefulness to generate more build variety.
5. Improved elites
Well, sorta. The main thing here is that ele elites all have one quirk about them that kinda ruins the skill. Tornado flings your enemies so far away that they really only fear you if they have Stability (go figure). Glyph of Elementals are generally easily kited and negated (and/or killed, in the case of Fire and Air). Firey Greatsword is great, but with how reliant Eles are on their weapon skills, it can very easily turn bad for them to keep using it. A couple of tweaks can help this problem.