This is strictly from a PVP perspective.
This is going to be pretty long and I don’t want to start a comparison war between the classes. I know all the classes have their issues somewhere but I am just here to add to the class I know most about. I’m no expert and I can be wrong. Please let’s constructively add to the conversation. Here goes:
What are the Elementalist meant to do? The way Ele offensive skills are designed suggests that they are meant to function as a power condi hybrid class. This is more evident if you use the new power condi amulets that were introduced. You may apply pressure with attack power and conditions mainly burning and bleeding (Drake’s breath and warhorn 5 skill for example). Air would be the main source of damage if built glass cannon or with crusader’s or paladin’s etc. The main problem comes from the fact that Eles can barely do any of both effectively (especially to a moving target). In trying to cover so many forms of damage, they end up not really being effective at any form of damage. Who is going to stand in place for the entire duration of drake’s breath, or any of the slow and telegraphed scepter and staff auto attacks (Air could or could not be useful depends on preference I guess), the slow animation of Dragon’s tooth, most damaging fields that you can walk out of, ice spike, lightning surge (I hope you get the point).
Everything or at least almost everything that allows the Ele to do damage is slow or hard to land and does less damage than pretty much every class for much more effort, precision and timing (with the exception of overloads which felt like a distracting way of answering the problem core eles face). Anyone just looking and taking their time with an interrupt equipped (which pretty much every class is bound to have) can just interrupt the overload before anything meaningful happens. Stability can be stripped or even converted into a condition with more ease now, thanks to the necro buff. Also, why make the squishy mage class have to go into melee range to be effective with these overloads? Sure we have protection but it suffers from the same issue. An Ele has at least one chance to do anything offensive (more chances if positioned right or goes in at the right time, which can be said for any class), after that they are likely burst down or now, condi bombed down, or at least dealt with enough to keep them out of the fight (which again can be said for all classes).
The reason that this is truly a problem however, is because those chances where we are on the offensive are barely noticeable. The most effective thing an ele can do right now, at least in my opinion, is land a crucial CC to aid the team. After that is wait 30-50 seconds for the chance to land another CC. The reason bunker Ele/ cele Ele was so effective was because it had the sustain for these skills to actually matter. They had enough sustain to return to fire/air and deal damage, they could just out sustain everything (the best offense is defense?). I hated the bunker meta, it was boring, slow and it was too easy to be an Ele, but with the removal of these amulets the problems of the Eles are all too clear. A buff to fresh air is not only, in my opinion, useless but also counterproductive.
The Elementalist was introduced around its four attunements and the proper rotation of those attunements. Why would I want a trait that allows me to do most of my damage in one attunement while sacrificing my other offensive and defensive attunements? For what? To still do less damage than almost any class ? It seems like almost every class, if not every class, can do anything better offensively than an Elementalist. Again, it seemed like the overload was meant to be the solution for the problems I mentioned above but they also suffer from the long period of time before they can actually be effective. To be fair, it was mentioned that an overload would have to be properly timed I’m not here to argue overloads, I’m just here to highlight some of the issues with a class that definitely needs some serious looking into and not just some number tweaks and shatterstone buffs.
All of these factors add up to the fact that it takes an Elementalist nearly 3 times the effort to be as effective as another class. Even if you are a good Ele, which there are and can do amazing things, it’s still not worth it to your team to be an Ele currently simply because you can be so much more effective with almost any other class for less effort. I’m sorry for this long essay and what seems like a rant, but I would really like to see some actual positive changes to the Elementalist that don’t make it absolutely broken and then nerfed to oblivion not long after.
Suggestion
Go back to the initial idea of the Elementalist (centered around proper attunement rotation, really look at the non-synergized trait lines and under used utilities (which I will admit pretty much every class suffers from) and allow the Elementalist to truly feel rewarded for proper attunement rotation. Make rotations feel more active and impactful by improving/reworking the offensive attunements or even allow each attunement to have a meaningful offensive skill/ meaningful synergized skills. As opposed to, if traited for it, you get a boon or some effect based on the attunement. The healing wave and even Electric discharge on switching attunements are on the right track but the others are pretty negligible, especially considering you have to have the traitlines for these effects to take place. (And please try to get some ideas from the Elementalist thread, some people have much better suggestions than I do).
Hopefully this gets read, thank you.
. Just thought I’d provide a different perspective.