I want to emphasize what others have said about a few ele’s skills.
Ride the Lightning
This skill currently feels like a monster contrained by iron bars. I think players feel that constraint in the skin. The conditional cooldown is clunky, and if it was meant to be used offensively more so than defensively, it is doing the opposite. For all intents and purposes, RTL is now a 40s escape skill. Players don’t want to use it offensively, because it checks if the skill successfully hits or not. Any block, miss or evade will put it at 40s cooldown. This should definitely be fixed, but I would probably go further, and also suggest a 15/ 30s cooldown. Why? From a d/d’s point of view, 15s was perfect for a leap skill. Anet could also consider a 900 range RTL with a global 20s cooldown. It’ll be easier to counter when fighting professions with 900-1200 ranged skills.
Also, please, and this is really important, but never – ever, have this skill auto-target, even when the option is ON. I like using auto-targetting, but this pretty much comes at the cost of almost never being able to use RTL as an escape skill. As it is, that option nerfs this skill.
Lava Font
Needs the Geyser treatment. This skill depends on Blasting Staff to be useful.
That being said, I love the 1s delay in damage, and I think all combo fields should be like that.
Auto-Attacks
Improving ele’s auto-attacks across the board would fix several issues with this profession, like the high skill floor (new players would have an easier time learning this profession), the lack of sustain damage, and more importantly, it would give players the option to hold within their attunements a little bit longer, toning down the over-reliance on arcana’s 60% attunement recharge rate. All should be on the level of Lightning Whip.
Here’s how I would buff them:
Dragon’s Claw: Hard to say, it’s a worse version of LW. Maybe should deal more damage than LW if the target gets hit by the 3 fire beams.
Vapor Blade: Fix the obstructing terrain bug, increase vulnerability to 8s-12s, and have it add 2 stacks. This would make it an interesting set-up skill. The duration needs to last long enough, so that an elementalist has enough time to switch to other attunements and make their rotations with the full benefit from vulnerability. Because doing so already comes at the cost of many precious seconds, I also recomment 2 stacks per hit. Or maybe just a faster animation.
Impale: First, this skill should have 600 range. It just feels more natural this way. Second, bleeding should be buffed somehow, maybe to 12s, so that condi-eles can maintain bleeding a bit easier.
Flame Strike: Slightly lower casting time. I believe there’s a bug with the casting bar, which fills faster than the actual duration. I’ve self-interrupted this skill so many times due to this. Also, more direct damage, because that’s what scepter needs.
Ice Shards: This skills wants to be the “Lightning Whip” of this weapon. Considering that arc lightning is great to proc critical effects, and the other two auto-attacks revolved around conditions, all this skill needs is a plain damage buff. It should literally deal as much damage as LW. Yes, yes, it is ranged, but it’s also single-target.
Stone Shards: Bleeding 6s->8s. This skill is slow, but that’s a fine drawback. perhaps a bit more direct damage as well, but I think it’s bleeding that should get buffed.
Fireball: I think this skill is almost fine, considering its 1200 ranged and aoe. But I would make a slight change: slightly bigger radius, doesn’t needs to be much. Fire attunement is the aoe attunement, right? Increase the radius, and make air the specialized single-target attunement.
Chain Lightning/ Lightning Surge: I’m going with a few posters here. Make the number #2 skill the staff’s auto-attack, remove its cooldown, and make it single-target. A hard-hitting auto-attack that can blind is pretty cool, and I think the casting time makes it balanced. Put a cooldown on chain lightning, and strengthen it with some vulnerability, faster animation or higher damage. Alternatively, make the first hit from CL hit twice as hard, the two following beams deal only half the damage. Both of those skills are currently a bit underwhelming, and they are the perfect opportunity to add to staff some extra single-target power.
Water Blast: Even though it is to get buffed, it was still one of the worst auto-attacks in a profession with weak auto-attacks. As posters have been saying here, please, add a reliable radius width. 180+ IMO.
Stoning: The weakness is cool, but slightly more damage please. Doesn’t needs to be much, but staff needs a bit more sustain across all non-fire skills, eruption is tricky, and other skills barely deal damage. Shockwave could get 3 stacks of bleeding too, though.
