Engis are much close to the true jack of all trades.
Ele might have more base skills and also might be harder currently in pvp( my opinion) while it definately requires a good apm and awaraness but engis..
They got the amount of skills,fields,finishers more cc and access to forms of damage AND they also have no cooldowns to restrict them from it.They can purely react to situations as they arise !
You can see how important being able to react is when you run with fresh air on ele.
Before using that trait i would spam my blind on scepter or shocking aura on dagger on cooldown knowing that the fight might end before i get there again.
But with fresh air i can use those skills intelligently.Since i have access to air most of the time i can reactively blind or cc something while im doing my damage rotation in hte middle of another attunement phase! I can also escape with rtl the exact moment i need to and use updraft exactly the right time.
Thats a huge difference in gameplay there..