Guild Wars 2

The Elementalist is my favorite class, I’ve been playing mine since release, as well as during the BWEs. I like the majority of their skills, each one has its place/situational use. The only thing I can honestly say I don’t particularly like about this class is the elite skills.
Including race specific (Sylvari) elite skills, I have 4 Pet elite skills (skills that summon an object that can be targeted and killed) and 2 Non-Pet elite skills (Tornado and Fiery Greatsword). In dungeons, my pet type elites tend to get killed in moments, before they can do anything effective, outside of dungeons they’re alright, but using pets really isn’t my play style. Even so, for the most part I end up using Take Root (sylvari racial) or Glyph of Elementals.
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The Tornado elite skill is the icon skill of elementalists. Yet, when using it, it feels limited in functionality. It grants stability while in use, and lets you knock back nearby enemies every few seconds, but it renders you unable to heal yourself while transformed. Being an PBAoe elite, it should most effective when used on multiple enemies, but you end up pushing enemies in different directions, spreading them out, and ranged enemies can easily pick you off from a distance without you being able to do anything about it. Using it in dungeons, you’re more likely to push enemies out of your allies aoes, or cause allies’ projectiles to miss by moving the target out of the way. It has no place in a boss fight as it limits your mobility, and has no utility benefit on bosses as blinds are significantly less effective, and being in range to deal damage with it is often suicidal.

I suggest adding the ability to use your heal skill during tornado, as well as a 4th skill to the Tornado skill bar that causes you to block projectiles for a few seconds in place of the effects of the other 3 skills, as you are a tornado after all, and that would give the skill the utility it needed to be useful in dungeons with high damage ranged attacks.
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Another suggestion I have is a change to the Conjure Fiery Greatsword. I enjoy the conjured weapons. As a primarily Dagger/Dagger elementalist, I’ve found the Frost Bow very useful as it makes up for the fact that using daggers in a fight means you’re committed to short range abilities. We have 4 conjured weapons in the utility set, one for each element, yet an extra fire type conjure in the elite skill.

What I propose is to make the Conjure Fiery Greatsword skill similar to the Glyph of Elementals in that it conjures a Greatsword of the element the player is attuned to when it is cast, with appropriate stat bonuses for the conjure. This is how I feel the greatsword was intended to be. Being only a single element doesn’t feel right for an elite, much the same as if the glyph of elementals were a fixed element.

the greatsword consistently annoys me in that it locks the player into one element, so i would love that change (or have it switch elements along with the player – with fire being the default for any non ele that picks it up)

Good suggestions, and I would like to add that for the tornado elite, it really should have a “hurricane” mode in which it does the opposite of a tornado. Instead of a high pressure zone, become a low pressure zone that pulls mobs towards you, effectively making it must more useful as one big crowd control skill. Obviously this would need to be balanced somehow to prevent it bring OP.

In regards to the Greatsword conjure, I do not feel it is such an issue as you can still swap attunements while wielding it, though it would add that extra “oomph” an elite skill should possess.