Guild Wars 2

Absolutely love my Elementalist. Easily my favorite class.
Once i decided to go away from the traditional “glass cannon” style of spec/stats, it really opened my eyes.
Spec my points into earth, arcane, and water. Throw on some toughness/vitality and now it’s incredibly hard for things to kill me.

I spent last night sitting on points in SPvP and laughed as it took 2-3 guys to take me down. (Though there was a ranger that blew my mind with the amount of damage he kicked out 1v1 haha)

To each his own. Play what class you have fun with I say.

I must be in the minority here, because I absolutely love my staff elementalist.
I agree some small tweaks should be made here and there, but I honestly am happy with 99% of the abilities.

I don’t feel underpowered at all. Sure I don’t do as much damage as my friend’s ranger or warrior, but I feel like i can control the fight a lot easier than he can.
I also don’t see much of an issue with damage. When dealing with multiple mobs i just round them up, slow and aoe nuke them down. I can easily kill groups of guys faster than my gf’s engineer. (she doesn’t use the flamethrower though, so probably part of the reason why haha)

I agree with some of the OPs points, and commend you for laying them out so eloquently.
I would definitely like to see the cooldown when swapping between elements closer to typical weapon swap cooldowns. Until then, I just throw points into arcane. doesn’t bother me though, i absolutely love the attunement buffs when swapping, and the larger staff aoe areas have helped considerably with healing and slows/snares while grouping with friends.

I can’t comment on scepters and daggers though, as I rarely use them.
Staff is just more my style i guess. I’m having a blast with him.