Coming back after a break from GW2
You will obtain mostly opinions to your question instead of actual facts. The most accurate way to answer your question is to read the small section of Elementalist from all the latest patch notes you missed.
Heidia- The elementalist is the #1 most OP profession in this game since beta!
(edited by LightningBlaze.4913)
The problem with patch notes is that not having played in a while, they lack context for me. Also, opinions are fine. Last I remember, most people used variations of the same skill rotation (depending on weapon) without very major differences in build anyways.
That said, I kind of assumed a bunch of things have changed while I was gone since there aren’t a mountain of threads about how underpowered Elementalists are, so I may be several balance patched behind any context for the new stuff. =p
(edited by dvanovik.4621)
TPvP – Ele’s got nerfed while all other classes surpassed them. Currently they struggle to find a role or a reason to exist.
WvW – Ele’s are fine, staff is quite effective albeit being a free kill in 1v1
PvE – Ele’s are mostly fine, the go-to max dps builds are Scepter/Focus + Lightning Hammer or Staff
Dec 10 changes – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/December-10th-Elementalist-changes/first
This patch’s goal for the Elementalist was to increase the power of the Earth, Air and Fire lines, while taking away some of the need to go into the Arcane line. This was done by bringing up the base cooldown of attunements so that Elementalists aren’t forced to go as deep into Arcane in order to get the old attunement cooldown %’s. In doing so, we decided put some of the most powerful Adept tier traits in Water magic and Arcane to the Master tier to avoid power creep that would have occurred by letting players gain powerful effects in Master and Grandmaster tier of Fire, Air, and Earth and still get the extremely powerful traits in Water and Arcane by only splashing in 10 points.
> Fire II – Burning Fire – This trait has a new effect. Use Cleansing Fire automatically when you have a number of conditions on you. 3 conditions. 40 second cooldown. Moved to Master tier.
> Fire VIII – Conjurer – Moved to Adept tier.
> Fire III – Ember’s Might. The effect of this trait has been changed to Burns you apply last longer. 25%.
> Burning Rage 25 – Increased damage dealt to burning foes from 5% to 10%.> Air V – Soothing Winds. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.
> Air XI – Tempest Defense. Decreased the cooldown from 60s to 25s.> Earth V – Stone Flesh – Increased toughness while attuned to Earth Magic to 1.5/level (120 at level 80).
> Earth VII – Strength of Stone. This trait is now Gain condition damage based on your Toughness. 10%.
> Earth XI – Diamond Skin. This trait has been redesigned. Conditions cannot be applied to you when your health is above the threshold. 90%.> Water I – Aquamancer’s Alacrity. Moved to Master tier.
> Water V – Cleansing Wave. Moved to Master tier.
> Water VIII – Arcane Abatement. Moved to Adept tier.
> Water X – Soothing Wave. Moved to Adept tier.> Arcane III – Arcane Retribution. Moved to Master tier. Decreased cooldown from 90 seconds to 45 seconds.
> Arcane IV – Final Shielding. Decreased cooldown from 90s to 75s.
> Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.
> Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.
> Arcane VII – Vigorous Scepter. Moved to Adept tier.
> Arcane VIII – Blasting Staff. Moved to Adept tier.
> Arcane IX – Windborne Dagger. Moved to Adept tier.The following changes were done to reduce the necessity of putting points into the Arcane trait line.
> The base cooldown of the attunement that you just left is now reduced from 16 seconds to 13 seconds. Attunement cooldown rate now increases by 1% per point in Arcane down from 2%. The end result is that now Attunements go from 13s to 10s instead of the old range of 16s to 10s.
> Base global attunement cooldown is now 1.625 seconds. Global attunement cooldown rate now decreases by 1% per point in Arcane down from 2%. The end result is that now global attunement cooldown goes from 1.625 to 1.25 instead of the old range of 2.0 to 1.25.
I recommend the threads from Neko and Zelyhn (in that order) to read up. I found them quite helpful to rekindle with my Elementalist.