Guild Wars 2

Hi. My name is Battery and i’ve waited for GW 2 ever since the first game granted me many hours of fun and enjoyment many years ago. Although i am far from dissapointed by the wonderful game that is GW 2 i feel that instead of getting progressivly better, moving toward a point of balance between fun and challange where it should be. Instead the fun of the game seems to be getting toned down as these patches keep rolling in and that makes me very concerned indeed.

Take the elementalist as an example. I personally never played the beta but from what i heard elementalist was a blast to play and maybe even somewhat OP. Now move on to the release of the game, i myself did not roll an elementalist at the very beginning but soon enough i decided to try out the class and even though it took some effort so understand i really enjoyed the profession.

At that point i was satisfied but i did not spend all my hours playing GW 2 since while elementalist was my prefered profession to spend time in the game with i felt it being lackluster in many aspects where the problem often did not concern any intended mechanic but instead the many unintended bugs happening ever so often when fighting in both the PvE and PvP environments.

Moving on into the present i must confess i have not played very much in quite some time since i have been waiting for a patch with bug fixed to atleast some of the major issues which were ruining my fun but instead it seems focus is on nerfing any mechanic which could be “OP” or in other views just pure awesome. Instead of nerfing anything buffs should be handed out to balance the professions, everyone wants to feel like an awesome all-powerful deathdealer when playing their character and the way things are going it just seems we will all just be foot-soldiers in the end.

Elementalists DO rock unless you compair it to the rest of the professions avalible, ignorence is bliss…

What in kittens name? That was one of my favourite things to do when going somewhere far ahead and starting out on a cliff or something. I never did anything useful with it and only had fun. ANet, you just kittened some of my fun.

What game making company would possible be so stupid not to listen to the community? Its making everybody happy thats the problem

Why you ask, let me tell you why! Because… wait for it… it hasnt been fixed! Really dude, what are you getting at asking such a question? Perhaps its really hard to fix, perhaps its in motion but hasnt reached the finish line quite yet. Whatever reason its painfully obvious that the devs are aware of it and are getting to it as fast as they can.

I dont get what you are on about, nothing is to blame for everything. Attunement swapping is how the elementalists is designed, in practice all it really means are having 4 weapons in one. It is not to much to manage at all, sure it takes time to get used to and has a steep learning curve but its not hard once youve got it.

But i wont say its perfect, far from it in reality. Right now the most general approvement i can wish for is a smoother flow while going through your spells, being able to manage it all benefits alot from getting the expected response from skills and not being left idle in any situation, this is what bothers me most right now and this is what i would like to see fixed.

Love the male asura ones. Love the asura dodge aswell. Love the small all-powerful guy thing i’ve got going as well. Just wish elementalists were as buff as warriors.

This has been brought up before and the conclusion is no different from back then. Weapon swapping is not for elementalists, this has been decided, this is how it is made to work. It will not happen, accept it.

I wish Fiery Greatsword worked like this: Instantly spawn a greatsword in your hand and leap + minor firedamage target. We already have a summon and give to friend spell for every element, make the elite one different!

Why are you asking? If no patch has been implemented nothing has changed except yourself. Get some sleep, take a walk, go out with friends, get yourself in balance again.

Bsquared.3421:

I really don’t like this playstyle as it doesn’t fit with situational awareness. You may need those other cooldowns shortly thereafter, and by mindlessly switching attunements and blowing all the cooldowns you may find yourself without the one you need at the right time.

I am talking PvE here. Besides if the only usage of the skill is to fire it for one dmg tick and a burn effect its seems to lack something.

Risen are fast but weak mobs, nuke them down.

Vanillea.5764:

Isn’t it one of the most powerful skills of ele across all weapons?
The dmg is pretty high and the burning is ridiculous even with 0 condition dmg. 6s cd cone damg too. I wouldn’t complain about it. It is one reason that D/D is desirable for me.

Yes, you are absolutely right, the skill itself, its damage and its burn is compleatly fine. But what i think is wrong with it is the very long channel time which interupts my fast playstyle.

Arc.9374:

Initiate with burning speed, pop one tick of drakes breath for the burn duration, melt them immediately after with fire grab.

With decent power/crit that’s still pretty respectable damage in a very small window.

MindlessRuff.1948:

It is extremely useful for applying burning to multiple foes in a cone then quickly following with Fire Grab for huge AOE damage in front of you.

The burning + fire grab thingy i am aware of but if thats the best usage drakes breath have i say make it an instant cast aoe damage and burn instead.

Hello masters of magic and campions of the elements!

Im going to try to keep this short. In D/D weapon setup there is a skill called "Drake´s Breath. It is the second skill of fire attunement and it works by channeling flames in a breath-like manner for a few seconds which both damages foes and sets them on fire.

What bothers me about this skill is how it neglects the fast playstyle of a D/D elementalist and locks me into casting this one spell for what feels like a long time until i can move on and do other awesome stuff to kill whatever is infront of me.

I play in such a way that i “deplete” whatever a certain attunement has to offer then move on to the next one for more high cooldown whoppass skills. I feel that Drake´s Breath breaks that appart and locks me into fire for far too long.

So, i dont know. Do you guys have any thoughts about in what situation a Drake’s Breath really is good to use? Or do you like me have doubts about its presence in the D/D skills at all?

What kind of discussion is this supposed to be? Whatever your opinion is you cant argue that our spells are situational and so in turn is attunement swapping. Wanna deal maximum damage in staff? Looks like the best way to go is to stay in fire.

I agree that in a PvP environment all skills ranging from heavy nukes to long ccs will aid you in every situation so if that is your goal, to be a top pvper, you cannot stay in one attunement and still use the profession to its full potential.

I would if one thing wish for better syncronisation across our trait trees, and to be a little tankier by default so going heavy into water and arcane wont always be the best choice.

Bad game design coming from last minute changes and/or decisionmaking.

The only valid elite in most situations seems to be the elemental one. So i must say it feels like we have a right to complain and i would like to see the current list of elites scrapped in favor for new more thought through ones, sure the elemental one works but it ruins it for me. I want to be all powerful on my own, not using some crappy entity summoned from the ether of magic.

This should be on the toplist of priority fixes for the elementalist. Ride the lightning bugs out in some many ways and in such ways that it might just get you killed.

People go creating elementalists, doesnt learn how to play the class and instead instantly judges is as extremely underpowered and then goes here to make a thread. Its pathetic really.

The elementalist in normal PvE and storyline doesnt have the least of problems, if you play it right you will have a really fun time without much frustration going through the worlds hearts and your own missions.

In the end i can agree that elementalists are lacking if we will look at the competitive side of the game but so are many other professions. In any case, anyone claiming that they have trouble when doing normal PvE because the profession is underpowered needs to learn how to play.

Warrior: 5-7 secs
Ele: 20-25 secs

Say what?

You are playing it wrong if that is true, on my elementalist where i also run S/D i kill mobs in 5-7 seconds in both single fight and multiple mob situations, most of the damage comes from aoe spells anyways. Glad you left elementalist cause sounds to me like you are giving the profession bad rep just by being one.

I disagree with OP. An elementalist to me is an all powerful dude which can take on his army using only himself and his magic. A pet/familiar ruins that for me and i hate that the only really useful elite is elemental summon.

They are working on it, they know it all and they are working on it. One could wish for more updates to the community about work in progress etc but in the end its not like they are just ignoring the problems which the forums are on fire with.

The focus is in all regards an defensive weapon and is very situational. I would probably never go for a S/F combination in PvE myself but it has alot of interesting potential in PvP gameplay.

If you wish to use scepter for PvE gameplay i would strongly recommend the S/D setup which brings alot of offensive skills to the table while still allowing you to stay away from enemies if needed. I have used S/D ever since lvl 5 and do not see me changing that until lvl 80, its a very effective setup with lots of damage potential thanks to the might stacking allowed by ring of fire and the many finishers avalible (dragon tooth, phoenix, earthquake, churning earth). It also brings many fast self heals to the table through water attunement and defensive/control skills such as frost aura, updraft, blinding flash, dust devil, rock barrier and earthquake. Overall its not much to complain about and the potential is there to make it out of most fights alive if played correctly.

But do note that this is for normal PvE gameplay and not for dungeons, myself i havent ran any dungeons on my elementalist yet but judging from what i know the staff seems to be a prefered weapon for the ability to always stay at range.

S/D does not allow for the most ranged control but it does allow for the fastest burst aoe damage with skills like dragons tooth, ring of fire, pheonix, churning earth, ride the lightning, earthquake and if sequenced correctly (making use of combofields) gives you a great potential to stack might even further increasing this damage. It also gets you a decent amount of survival mainly from the two blinds, lightning flash and dust devil, but skills like rock barrier and frost aura help out alot aswell, i do also find the many heals you get access too in water attunement to be of use from time to time.

But if you really want control i would suggest the staff since it does not only have the longest range of any elementalist weapon but also the most cc/protective/escape spells in total.

Its all a matter of preference really, but imo the S/D or D/D is ideal for normal PvE content since it isnt really that hard and they allow for the fastest kills which gives you faster progression. I find the staff lackluster since most of its abilities are fairly slow casts and as i said more oriented toward support, kiting, survival, then just pure damage. Staff is ideal in a dungeon i would say but for PvE, S/D|D/D all the way.

When leveling elementalist i contantly find myself in fights where burst damage is the key to my victory. Pick up a S/D setup and start attunement dancing, also pick up armor of earth, arcane shield, lightning flash for survival. IMO elementalist is not harder to lvl then for instance a ranger and its more fun with the ele.

Creslin.1758:

Gotta disagree with yah Battery and I basically have proof. Engineer is designed so that their “kits” function at essentially weapons, AND a bonus utility skill, AND you can switch to them whenever you want, with no cool down.

Listen, i dont know anything about engineers and whatnot but as im playing right now im using all my damaging skills as often as possible, if i could get 5 more skills and switch between them and my normal skillset at will i would. Instead of doing this you can just add another attunement.

Btw wouldnt that be a fancy eliteskill? For x seconds you can attune to the element of pure magic, arcane attunement and gain the option to use another 5 skills for the duration.

Foof.4761:

1. How often do you use earth/water for DPSing?
2. Any tips for DPS in water with S/D?
3. Any tips for DPS in earth with S/D?
4. Would it be worth it for me to carry and utilize another set of weapons for alternate skills or specific situations? I built for party support DPS through boons and AoE damage

Im going to assume we are talking about normal in-world PvE and personal storyline here since you didnt specify anything.

1. I use earth as often as i can with the main purpose of getting up my rock armor and getting off a churning earth. Churning earth is amazing and deals more damage then anything else. Often when switching into earth i try to do something like this: Blind -> rock armor -> knockdown -> churning earth.

2. Water is never used for dps in any way, all the skills in water with the S/D setup is support in one way or another, except the autoattack ofcourse. Instead water should be used in situations where you are losing a fight, meaning you are losing hp faster then your opponent. Just go into water pop all the heals you have and apply frost aura while kiting.

3. See nr 1 for this.

4. If running dungeons most people seem to recommend staff since it has the most damage while still keeping you away from the mobs. I havent done any dungeons myself so far but the logic behind this is sound. Although outside of dungeons the game is easy enough for you to choose what fits you best.

Edit: Seems you are talking about dungeons afterall (saw your last reply). In that case i would recommend staff as i said above because the entire earth element of S/D seems nullified because of the fact that you should never be in melee range if at all possible. Running a weapon set in a situation where you cannot benifit from all it attunements seems like a waste to me and a nerf of your overall damage. But im not at all that home in the staff universe either and do not really know if the case is the same with the skills avalible from it.

What this would result in is elementalists always getting conjure weapon since they now get 5 extra skills from it. This wont happen since we already have 4 different elements with a total of 20 skills on them compared to the standard 2 weapon sets with a total of 10 skills.

IMO conjure weapons should be reimagined since it is useless as it is now unless you have a friend who picks up and uses the other one. But that also seems kinda lame to me, why would anyone want to switch out of the weapon sets they have chosen into a weapon that they probably have no experience with?

Its just a lame set of skills designed badly.

IMO all summoned weapons have no way of fitting with our playstyle at all, its more of a cool idea someone had and didnt think through when it came to gameplay. Never once during playing and dancing through my attunements have i though “Oh hey, this would be the perfect time to change my range to melee and start hitting these mobs with a sword/axe/whatever”. Why would any elementalist want to be in melee range seeing how squishy we are? Also Why would any elementalist want to lock himself into one weapons skills when he can have 4 times one weapons skills when he is playing normally?

Just remove summoned weapons from the game and replace them with another useful concept. Really, anything would be better, just make them normal skills which summon a greatsword which does one attack and then goes away, that would be much more useful.

Its very simple really, all you have to do is read your skills, figure out how to get the most boons while dealing the most damage utilizing combo fields and finishers. After doing that you will never use the exact same rotation every fight and there is no senceble way to do so either since after every fight some ability in some element will still be on cooldown while you are ready to engage the next mob.

Being an elementalist is about being versitile and really knowing your way around your skills so that you can adapt to most if not every situation. Never even try to get a hold of some standard rotation instead figure out the combos which gives you might or other fancy things like that and use them when the time is right.

You cannot claim it is the “best” level experience since everyone has different definitions of best. However i do agree that elementalist are fun because of the pace in every battle, where you in just a few seconds will have blown lots of mayor cooldown while jumping through all your attunements and also the tactical approach you will have to take while facing a larger number of mobs or a veteran.

I feel much more in control of every situation with my elementalist then i ever did with my ranger, often when playing the ranger it would either be as easy as can be or i would die to fast to react. With the elementalist i am always on my toes and always have proper responses to out of hand situations, heals, escapes, etc.

Overall i would not call it in any way a better experience for everyone, but anyone who like tactical planning, fast paced action and a varaity of skills to get you out of any situation probably would enjoy the elementalist more then most other professions.

Canton.1028:

Eh…

I played my ele through to 80, and I have do admit we are very squishy. The best way to play is earth of course, and to not attempt to be a glass-cannon, but regardless we are very squishy.

The best way to play is not earth “ofcourse”… The best way to play is attunement dancing utilizing every single skill you have access to for maximum efficiency, any elementalist staying in one single attunement all the time is doing it wrong.

Hello, im here now to speak about the skill “Shatterstone” (from here on refered to as “SS”), how it breaks the flow of combat and also why it doesnt fit our current playstyle . Also my elementalist wields a S/D setup and that is the playstyle i will talk about in this post.

But first the good stuff about it. SS is a great skill because of the huge amount of vulnerability it can stack on a target in a relativly short time, but that alone does not really justify swapping into water attunement to get it off. So what does justify swapping in to water attunement? Well, in my opinion one single thing, dying. Or to be more specific the moment you realize “Oh kitten im dying here”, and in such a situation we are talking just a few moments to get it under control or die.

Now, im not a pro in any sence but i know how i like to handle it and it goes something like this. SS -> Frost Aura (applies chill on target) -> Trident (hit both me and enemy) -> Running/Dodging away from my enemy -> Cleansing Wave -> Glyph of Elemental Harmony -> SS -> Attunement swap.

This is the ideal way (ofcourse open to some alteration depending on the situation) i would prefer to use water to heal myself, get my enemy under control and apply some free vulnerability in the process. But this all breaks apart because the way my character acts during the animation and the way the skill is described does not indicate such a long cast time. When cast, SS first forms the crystal with a crackle sound then it grows with another crackle sound and at this point my elementalist by all visual means seems to have finished his cast and is ready to move on but instead he cannot cast until the final crackle blows the crystal apart.

What this does to me while playing is that my mind is set on the fact that my elementalist now is ready to cast another spell while the cruel reality is that he isnt and this is how it breaks the flow of combat. Its just a matter of control and freedom, i want to have compleate control of my character and the freedom to use him to his full potential and the way to do this is for me to go with my gut which in turn gets its feelings from the visual information on the screen. In other words this is not a post about how SS needs to cast faster although that would be the prefered solution and its not a big change, all that is needed is for my elementalist to regain his casting freedom at the second crackle instead of the third. But if this is for some reason out of the question i must stress the importance of casting animation and actual skill compleation to add up or else the flow of combat is broken and irritation is spawned in my brain because my character “ISNT DOING WHAT HE IS SUPPOSED TO, I CAN SEE THE LITTLE KITTEN IDLING AWAY BUT HE WONT CAST WHEN IM TELLING HIM TO, RAAAAGEEEE!”.

Also this break in the flow of combat compleatly contradicts the current playstyle (atleast mine) of the elementalist. Attunement dancing, casting as fast as possible, always doing something and very rarely auto attacking. Everything must add up when such a fast playstyle is the key to utilizing the potential of the class, my character must respond to every action i take unless he is already clearly performing one.

I am also quite sure that SS isnt the only skill suffering from this kind of problem and im also quite sure we elementalists cant be the only ones with skills like that. Im not blaming Anet for this because no game this huge is 100% at release although i would want to beg all the devs out there to deal with these kind of problems first before trying to balance the game, clunky combat will always be most responsible for less fun and more rage and needs to be trimmed to perfection IMO.

Leiloni.7951:

Except that the class is not supposed to be harder than the others. The classes were all designed to be of even difficulty, just different styles.

Please, give me a link where ArenaNET themselves says this to be true. In my opinion the complexity and difficulty of playing different professions is naturally going to vary, and for a good reason. Diversity. Some people prefer easy to play professions, more straight forward ones like the warrior while others like bashing their keyboard with 100% focus for maximum efficiency. I have no problem with the elementalist being complex, infact the reason i play one is just that.

And now, responding to the OP.
I do believe that the elementalist is a class which can be played without problem through most of the games content, if you learn it and play it well. But the truth is that we are suffering from a long list of troublesome problems which come from how our skills work that naturally breaks the flow of combat and attunement dancing. Shatterstone for example. I cannot compare the class to other professions since i havent played them enough to see the real difference, all i can say is that i am enjoying my elementalist more then my original ranger even though having a fatass bear made it much easier to go through the game.

But in the end im not a big fan of just grinding, the elementalist provides more of a tactical approach to every situation where you need to know both your class and your enemies in order to come out on top. The potential sure is there, its all about unlocking it by using every aspect of the profession avalible. But ofcourse, in the end, when it all boils down to numbers, we might be underpowered as claimed by many, who knows. In any case i want the flow of combat one hundred times more then i want to see bigger numbers on my screen.

I agree. Many elementalist skills seem to break the natural flow you get into while casting. A perfect example of this outside the examples in this thread is “Shatterstone”, i really dont get this skill at all or how the devs thought it would work well with the elementalist playstyle.

Every time you cast it brings on a severe amount of downtime for a class where every second matters, i often find myself in situations when fighting veteran mobs where i have used up every heavy nuke on all other elements and are getting low on health, so i switch to water and heal up, get some cc and ofcourse land a shatterstone or two after switching back to the more damaging elements. But shatterstone works in such a way now that it instantly breaks the flow of my attunement dance, i cast it and then i have to wait while my guy does nothing until i finally can get off all those heals, because naturally i want to start with shatterstone so i can finish my watery rampage with another one thanks to its short cooldown.

I just do not understand, PvP games like this need a good flow in the gameplay to feel responsive enough to utilize knowledge and skill to the maximum.

Its refering to your character holding and then releasing the skill…

Meteor was on the fire staff but the community wanted a meteor shower so that is what we have now.

There is a sticky in existence which is named “Post a picture of your elementalist”. This kitten abviously belongs there and not here.

Bsquared.3421:

To be fair, what he said, that is:

anecdotal evidence by level 30 players demonstrates nothing on actual balance…

is 100% true (and what LordByron said).

When concerning normal PvE gameplay and story missions i have found that the difficulty stays the same throughout the game, i have a lvl 69 ranger and unless those last 10 levels really ramp the action up… In any case elementalists do absolutely fine in normal PvE and story missions.

I dont really see the problem here. First you level your character to lvl 80 and discover all different looks, or as many as possible along the way. Then once lvl 80 you pick your favorite set and transmute it with the stats you want and you are done until you feel like looking another way once again.

Since GW2 isnt about good items in pve but more about cool looks i can only say i have no problem whatsoever with the system being restrictive in certain ways.

I do not like this suggestion. Making mechanics too complicated will only effect the game badly.

I was certain a necro would be my first choice for Guild Wars 2 after having one as my main in Guild Wars 1 but after getting a hold of a beta and starting up the game i saw the first minion and well, it put me off. I have tried to play the class but never got into it, i have no problem with the topic of the post, i dont care if my character seems evil or not but conjuring life from dead tissue should result in more… Twisted minions, right now the hovering crap which sacrifices for a heal is more of a meat baloon then an actual entity under the necromancers control. I dont know too much about the other minions but none of them has made me go, “Oh kitten thats awesome!”.

Well, the game is really new still and this is certainly the time for kneejerk fixes to see the results. Never say never applies to everything in this world, and saying we will never do this ultimately leads to a position where it should be done but since they said never it wont happen.

Get off your high horse arenanet, we all know you have created a unique wonderful game which has the potential to be a pasttime for years to come but unless you admit its bugged, has problems, needs changes and doesnt hold back on changing things you wont get there.

For instance trying to balance PvP in this early stage of the game while professions arent even working as intended is just plain stupid. Also there is no way to balance a games PvP where fights still are determined by bugs and flaws in the game, fix those first then make the classes play as intended. When that is finished all the basic framework will be done and all that is left is tweaking of damage and such to implement balace in PvP.

Everyone claiming that the profession is the problem when it comes to them not being able to compleate normal PvE content. That is, only world PvE and personal story. Are dead wrong.

Im running an elementalist thats soon lvl 30 and so far, no problems at all, i can take on everything in my level range without feeling underpowered or dying and if you cant, you are playing it wrong.

Although the elementalist seems to need some changes that will bring it up to speed with other professions. But rest assured we are not the only profession suffering from many issues and when it comes to just casually playing the game we are NOT underpowered.

So, since the devs hardly ever answer anything or give away anything on the forums and all the recent patches havent changed anything about the elementalist in any significant way to improve upon the class and bringing it closer to its designated playstyle and role. I feel there is a need to keep your community in the loop about upcoming changes, what you are looking at as issues and what you consider balanced and in working order.

Just make a sticky “Work in Progress” and fill in up with stuff that is currently in the process of implementing, other stuff that isnt working well with the professions playstyle and is up for changes in the future, and also what you devs think is the problem with the profession as of now and how you will solve the problem in the future. Ofcourse you cannot put any details in such a post since it will cause whine among the community when they see an upcoming change they do not like, which will be the case many of times. Instead use terms as “Optimization of trait trees” or “Modifications of damage and casttime” etc.

So, why would this be needed? Well, i am not aware of how you devs make your patches and how you implement changes from “oh, this is wrong” to having it in a patch. But in any case the very low feedback on what we players feel are the problems with the elementalist is very unnerving and makes you wonder if anything positive is in the workings or if you devs even see this from our point of view when it comes to making the game as fun, smooth and exciting as possible. Also this would eliminate alot of threads that are all about issues you might already be adressing and working on, and it would also serve as a platform for players input in one single tread.

It sure would ease my mind…

So roll another profession if you feel this is not your style? A warrior perhaps, you seem to have some of the workings down already. On the other hand a elementalist is what you need if you want active gameplay, IMO.

I am not complaining of having to aim skills im complaining about skills missing when i have aimed them as best possible.

I agree and i am embracing it but in the end some situations no matter how attentive you are and how skilled you are you will miss by a fluke, im not a fan of random chance determining the outcome of a battle.

Hello everyone. Lets start of by me saying that i love my elementalist, and by saying that im refering to how the class plays and nothing else.

But regardless i have found a great many annoyences, many of which are already mentioned here on the forums and many which are not. These annoyences break the game for me in certain ways. For example, you know that feeling when you have set up a perfect combo and is just about to finish it all with the mighties nuke of them all “Fire Grab”? Well, i feel like im missing out on that awesome feeling when it doesnt hit like it should, or even better if the spider mob you are fighting goes around your character and even though you have registered this movement you already made the cast and it will just go off at nothing. I thought my Asura would be smarter then that?

Fire Grab really is the perfect example for my point since it messes itself up in a number of ways all equally annoying. This ability is fairly easy to use, mob in front of you -> put it on fire -> fire away. But there seem to be an excessive, extreme even, amount of situations in the game when this will fail in one way or another. Maybe the mob is moving around you, maybe the mob is a little to far to the right or the mob is higher up then you or further down and the cone itself seems more like a carrot then an actual cone in many situations, considering it does not often hit all the mobs you aimed it at. And in many, many cases this kitten will just miss without apparent reason and thats not fine at all. But the thing which without doubt annoys me the most and really makes me wonder is the first example i used with the spider moving around you. The spider starts out infront of you and it is on fire, so you cast fire grab but in that very moment the spider runs around you so its behind your back and your character just casts it away, hitting nothing and triggering the massive 45 second cooldown. Its not cool, at all.

Atleast to me it seems fair that if my asura is stupid enough to cast at nothing even though i told him specifically what to cast at he should, at the very least, try to make that cooldown a little less severe. Or even better, if the target cant be hit just dont cast it, tell me “i cant hit that kitten man” and do not use the ability at all.

Edit: Ofcourse i do understand that the whole cast when you press the button no matter what is a part of this game but my impression of this what that it would add to freedom and control? IMO when i have a mob targetet my character should use it spells on that target and nothing else, if he cant do that then no spell, simple really.

Tell him to pick up scepter/dagger and enter fights with lightning, firefielding and nuking in fire and then finished it off in earth with a knockdown and churning earth. This is basic and once he has gotten a hang of that he will understand at a much higher level how elementalists work.

Also tell him its kill or be killed out there, pulling many mobs means you need to nuke them down fast before its too late.