Back after 2 years

Okay not exactly two years, but I stopped playing in 2010 and been logging on and off, mostly off. I played a little bit with 7H but didn't do much. It may be a little weird, but recently I've been having dreams about playing again on an Ele that I don't have. I was spamming MB for energy and spamming skills. I guess it was because MB ele were op back then.

Anyways, I have some questions:

Is MB still good?

What's new in the past 2 years other than 7H?

I don't mind H+Hing the game, but is the game dead?

I read about Winds of Change updates. Does this update make Cantha confusing or do you have to finish the campaign first before doing any WoC stuff?

Is the hero meta still Discord + spirit spam?

I remember all this talk about ele's being bad because monsters in HM have high ele defense. Is this still true? Mainly Fire I think.

I think that's it for now. Sorry if these questions are asked repeatedly or if this is the wrong section. It's been so long, I'm really out of the loop

edit:wow post time 11:11 and I wasn't even going for that.

I am still relitivly a noob, only been playing the past year and a half, but I am pretty sure that Discord is still popular.

I still run discord and it works fine for me (highly modified one, though) as for the question about WoC, you have to complete factions first. The game is far from dead, you might not see a lot of people, but most are in areas or something. Join an active guild i would suggest. Lately, there has been a big update for ele's which reduced Al and increased hp of all HM mobs.

Hero meta is basically:
2 mes Panic + Esurge or Panic + Ineptitude (imo illusion mesmer is a bad choice overall)
2 nec MM and N\Rt Resto elite varies a lot from like icy veins, discord to pain of disenchantment to BiP
2 rit - SoS Resto and SoGM or ST
player

And for the last slot, insert either another mesmer (esurge), necro, monk (RoJ or UA) or ritualist (ST). I personally don't reccomend a third necro anymore though. But it does have it's uses in some situations

My current team build is:
AP caller
N/Rt Discord
N/Mo AoTL MM (sometimes discord MM, cant decide between those two)
Me/Rt Panic + Domi + Flesh of my flesh
2x Me/P Esurge with Fall Back
SoS Resto
SoGM

Sometimes switch N/Mo to Soul Twister, and this team is made for an AP caller.

Useable, but check out the other skills, eles just got a rebalance to elite skills

Apart from WoC, not much.

Unless you're in an active guild, GTOB or Kamadan, it may as well be.

Yeah, got to finish the campaign first.

Yeah, pretty much, but a lot of people don't use Discord as the elite anymore, Pain of Disenchantment and AtoL seems more popular. Discord is still perfectly viable though.

The problem was monsters had high AL in HM, and a lot of ele skills aren't armor ignoring, while a lot of necro and mesmer skills are. HM got a rebalance recently which bumped the monster HP and reduced their AL, so ele's are ok in HM.

Discord is still widely used, although 2 mesmer heroes have become very common,1 with Panic and the other with Ineptitude/Energy Surge. Most of the time both carry fallback, or one fallback is replaced with a hard res (Flesh of my Flesh).

Also SogM/SoS/ST rits are being used regularly, although 3 necro is still being used alot, it's not with discord as often as it was 2 years ago. Discord is usually replaced with Pain of Disenchantment, AotL/Jagged Bones, and the 3rd necro is either turned into a Xinrae's Weapon healer or half mm half heals.

Eles got quite a big buff recently, since they weren't as effective as other professions when it came to HM. Double Dragon, Gust, Stone Sheath and Mist Form where completely changed, so now you can cast them on an ally, it will also effect you. It's made missions like Tahnnaki temple quite challenging for relatively new players since theres a huge load of enemies with double dragon.

And enemies health in HM was boosted by 50% and reduced their AL!

Thank you all for the answers. Now I look forward to starting up again as an ele.