As far as relation to guardians, ele’s have less healing and area boons, but better combo fields (water, fire, and static).
Why do I always see people say guardians have more healing?
Attuning to water on my ele nets
1,805 + 1,052 (over 10 seconds) + 1,158 (over 6 seconds) = 4015
2 conditions are removed
range is 240
Let’s even say the cooldown is 20 seconds (a longer cooldown than it usually has)
The most similar thing guardians have is virtue of resolve. My guardian, which has more healing power than my ele, gets
2,240 + 1628 (over 7 second) = 3868
3 conditions are removed
range is 1200
46 second cooldown (almost never going to be used that frequently)
That’s only comparing two things, but there is only one healing option guardians have that is obviously superior to eles. Guardians have healing breeze, which beats eles by virtue of eles not having a supportive heal and for actually healing a lot. Ele can heal allies for way more than a guardian can, and they can do it more frequently. The only thing is eles have a harder time positioning themselves to support allies because of shorter ranges. The difference between guardian and ele support is that guardian support is generally weaker, but it is more reliable and easier to use. Also, eles don’t have stand your ground and other forms of aoe stability, which is pretty overpowered.
It can be argued that larger ranges make it more likely to hit multiple targets, and that can allow guardians to net more healing. However, I find that I can pretty much always heal allies for more overall on my ele than guardian. Eles can do a healing rotation in about a second or two and can leave water almost immediately, so it’s less of a commitment than what guardians have to do to heal.
To answer the op, I’ve always seen ele as primarily a support profession. Eles don’t provide many, if any unique, advantages in terms of dealing damage. Ele has some unique advantages for support. I don’t go full bunker, but I don’t see much point in using a glass ele over a glass anything else.
The biggest contributor’s to Guardian healing are through traits.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Altruistic_Healing
70 healing at every application to every player. For instance, Empower on the staff has an 1800 heal from the skill as you channel 10 might into nearby enemies. AH then can add an additional 4200 healing if you are in a group of 5+. That is 6000 healing and 10 might for 5 friends every 20s.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Selfless_Daring
This is 180 healing on EVERY dodge roll, regardless of weapon. Compare that to EA, which in pvp is 50% effective, giving 600 healing every 10s. You will roll more than 3 times/10s, making this minor trait as good as water EA (also shared).
Also, shelter: a block WHILE you heal meaning that when you are under-pressure you get to continue moving and heal while standing up to that pressure. That keeps you alive much longer. Compare that to ether renewal. When you are under heavy pressure and use ether renewal, you will often not even out-heal the pressure on you b/c it is such a long channel, and you will often be interrupted, putting it on a full CD.
Their elite gives the invuln and recharges their virtues, which by the way are traited for 5 points to apply more boons to allies, each healing you 60 on top of the healing on virtue of resolve (~2000).
You can build selfishly and have your elite be a full condi wipe + all boons (lyssa runes) on a 90s CD or you can trait for groups and have every one of your shouts (short CD, also shares boons, so heals you) remove 1 condi from you and allies (soldier runes) and convert 1 condi to a boon (pure of voice, which doesn’t have a terrible ICD like cleansing water does, btw).
Put all of that together, on top of “stand your ground” (best util in the game) and you have a juggernaut that ele can’t stack up with in healing, survival (cleansing and blocks), or team support.
