Elementalist skills no one uses and why

Auras:

Swirling Aura = useless when only affects arrows and not all projectiles. Also it has a 60 recharge while when at 16 water it lasts for about 20 seconds. Compare this to Shields Up which has a 21sec duration at 16 tactics and 30 recharge. Not to mention it gives extra armor versus piercing and cannot be stripped once it is casted.

Magnetic Aura lasts for about 10 seconds at 16 earth magic with a 60 second recharge. It is an enchantment also.

Compare both of these to Sliver Armor. 30 second recharge 11 second duration at 16 earth magic. It also has the secondary effect of hurting nearby foes.

Mind Burn: doesn't need exhaustion for goodness sake. The damage pales as an elite (Basically one flare +immolate = Mind Burn). The only thing good is that it burns for the extended duration compared to immolate.

Lightning Javelin interrupts the attack of a foe, like Clumsiness but the damage does not depend on the interruption. It ought to have a 0 cast time and not be a projectile because there is no way you are going to interrupt any attack skills as attack skills have a maximum of 0.5 seconds . If they are going to have it interrupt, at least make it interrupt anything that is not a spell, not just attacks.
(What I mean is nobody uses it for the interrupt)

Smoldering Embers: Immolate with double the cast time, conditional burning, and half the energy...

w i have never seen anyone do whirwind or tenai's wind, they do the exact same thing, but its only good for a w/e and most people who do that use fire magic and no air magic

kinda of OT but the whirlwind/tenias wind thing made me think of it, why all the double skills? seems rather pointless to have 2 different skills do the exact same thing. It always seemed to me to be a cheap way to say "Hey we got 100 new skills!! (but really only 5 do something different suuuccckkerrs!!)"

The double skills are for those skill that is not in the core category but they want the Faction player without prophecie to have the skill, they want to make these skill availiable to Prophecie and faction player + any further chapter with these skill copied only(but i doubt it since they should put them as core skill if they want to copy these skill again on a later chapter).

Also, if you aren't e/me you can't arcane echo them.

i liked magnegtic aura before sliver armor, it rocked for a little while.

I use Lightning Javelin a lot >.>;

Javelin deals the same damage as Orb, altho in two casts. Not really used for an interrupt as is, but tossing it continously combined with few other fast spells inbetween annoys a warrior/ranger/assassin alot.. :b

The magnetic and swirling could use a buff. Also Glimmering mark and some other spells. Lava font also can have some boost. Also return a little of the Ether renewal effect, since now it is...well..
The strong point of mind burn is the 1 cast time. There are almost non 1 sec cast time STRUCK spells, thus this can be a descent combo finisher.

How is only affecting arrows useless? Theres Centaurs, Mantle, Charr(LDD), Undead Rangers, Forgotten Bows, forgetting a few, but I wouldnt say its useless.
How typical that a better skill is Factions only...
What damage would be good, 300-400? I dont like the exhaustion either, but dont see anything wrong with the damage.
I agree it should be changed, it should be like a lightning version of Flare, but with interrupt. I think maybe the interruping any non spell may be a bit much, as well as a 0 cast time, since it damages like Flare, but has secondary effects.
Another Factions comparison... From what Ive seen, mostly core/Prophecies skills seem to be better, but havent looked at all of them.

Swirling Aura
I'm not saying that the Aura's are useless, it is just that other skills like Sliver Armor make them look very bad as they affect everything that is projectile, not just arrows. Arrows come from only one class, evasion and blocking can shut down melee in addition to the rangers' arrows.

Lightning Javelin:
Of course if they made it (Lightning Javelin) all nonspell skills they would have to up the recharge.

Right now all it is good for is spamming for a higher energy cost than Lightning Strike due to the 2 second recharge versus Strike's 5 second recharge. Wow. If you're going to spam an air skill, let it be shock arrow because it is 5 energy and 1 recharge. 37 damage compared to 53 f Lightning Javelin at 16 air magic, but you don't waste your whole energy bar casting it.

Have you actually tested anything? Swirling Aura still blocks caster projectiles (as if that matters in the slightest) and Magnetic Aura's duration is 21 seconds at 16 earth, not 10. And there are way more important Elementalist spells to be buffing anyway.

What about the people that dont have Factions, and cant get Sliver Armor, or the other Factions skills?

Then they have a really crappy alternative, don't they? Which isn't good if you PvP. I say Swirling Aura needs a bit of a buff. It wasn't really worth much even before Factions. I've seen people complaining about this skill before we have even heard of Factions.

I don't think Anets equation of Game Balance includes making all skills simularly equal in effectiveness in one way or another, or even in general value, I think it just means that the maximum opportunity each class has is balanced with other classes and fair gameplay. They didn't even bother to supply a significant range of effective builds and techniques for these new classes to match the many effective techniques the core classes have. There are dozens and dozens of skills which are simply too weak, disfunctional or infrequent to be significant.

Hell, the new classes only have a fraction of the useful and compeatative builds that the core classes have, and they intend to just drop them and continue adding to the core classes.

Balance is alright, but I expect more in additional chapters, Unless Anet decides to recognize their players grievances, the players will become unsatisfied and leave. The number one attraction for exsisting gamers like us is fair and enjoyable gameplay, and the addition of our interests to the game. The number one selling point of this game for me is that Anet recognizes player outcry and provides for our interests, if they decide to overlook our interests then we are just playing the waiting game for the next good game with considerate developers.

There is a simple lie which customer service jobs accept, "The customer is always right". Obviously it is a lie, they are not always right and often they are stubborn and blaitently wrong. But the point behind that phrase is that making the customer happy is the most important feature of any retail organization. If Anet doesn't make its customers happy the consequence is obvious. They can tailor to a sect of gamers who accept what they choose and squeeze out sales, but if they don't meet and exceed the desires of their overall customers then eventually they woln't have any.

I like the idea of making Lightning Javelin quicker to cast. Let's make the "interrupts attacks" feature actually worth a damn.

How about this:
Lightning Javelin
10E, .25C, 2R

Spell. Send out a Lightning Javelin that strikes for 10...55 lightning damage if it hits. If Lightning Javelin strikes an attacking foe, that foe is interrupted. This Spell has 25% armor penetration.

Energy inefficient and very prone to missing, but still useful as a respectable source of dps and as an interrupt.