Elementalist Skill Tweak suggestions.

Air Magic -

Air Attunement - 10en, 2 cast, 20 recharge
Enchantment Spell
For the next 8+(5X/2) seconds, you gain 30% of the Energy cost back upon successful completion of a Air Magic skill.

Ennervating Charge - 10en, 1 cast, 8 recharge
Spell
Target foe is struck for 10+(3X) lightning damage and suffers from weakness for 5+(X) seconds. This spell has 25% armor penetration.

Lightning Javelin - 10en, 1 cast, 2 recharge
Spell
Send out a Lightning Javelin that strikes target foe for 8+(3X) lightning damage and interrupts attacking foes if it strikes. This spell has 25% armor penetration.

Lightning Orb- 15en, 2 cast, 5 recharge
Spell
Send out a lightning orb that strikes target foe for 10+(6X) lightning damage and interrupts any actions that foe is performing. This spell has 25% armor penetration.*

*Note; Also, it is suggested that this spell's projectile be made slightly faster to reduce the ease with which it is evaded. It is incredibly easy, at this time, to avoid the projectile entirely with consistency.

Lightning Strike - 5en, 1 cast, 5 recharge
Spell
Target foe takes 10+(3X) lightning damage. This spell has 25% armor penetration.

Lightning Touch - 5en, 3/4th cast, 8 recharge
Skill
Target touched foe and adjacent foes are struck for 5+(8X/3) lightning damage. Foes suffering from Water Magic hexes are struck for an additional 5+(8X/3) lightning damage. This skill has 25% armor penetration.

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Air Elites -

Glimmering Mark {E} - 5 en, 2 cast, 10 recharge
Elite Hex Spell
Target foe and adjacent foes are hexed with Glimmering Mark for the next 1+(X) seconds. Whenever a foe suffering from Glimmering Mark is struck with lightning damage, that foe and adjacent foes are blinded for 3 seconds.

or

Glimmering Mark {E} - 10en, 2 cast, 8 recharge
Elite Hex Spell
For the next 1+(X) seconds, whenever you strike target foe with lightning damage, that foe and nearby foes are blinded for 3 seconds.

As it is now, Glimmering Mark is a bit too unreliable and inflexible to use to pass up an elite energy management and simply using Blinding Flash periodically. Option one makes it more difficult to remove, and even when foes spread apart, you can still blind whichever one you want.
Option 2 makes the blindness closer to that which you can already achieve easily while running something like Fevered Dreams, without the reliance on additional skills, but it doesn't perform quite as well.


Lightning Surge {E} - 10en, 2 cast, 10 recharge
Elite Hex Spell
After 3 seconds, target foe takes 10+(6X) lightning damage and that foe and adjacent foes are knocked down. This spell has 25% armor penetration and causes exhaustion.

or

Lightning Surge {E} - 10en, 2 cast, 10 recharge
Elite Hex Spell
Target foe takes 10+(3X) lightning damage. After 3 seconds, target foe takes 10+(6X) lightning damage and is knocked down. This spell causes exhaustion.

The days when people didn't know about Protective Spirit are gone. Lightning Surge is a telegraph that says, "Hey, cast Protective Spirit on me, I'm about to be spiked!", and because of this, the only times it's really of any use are to attempt to throw off another team's anti-spike attempts, or to spike in the random arena. Option 1 adds on a little extra damage by way of armor penetration, and an AoE knockdown aspect.
Option 2 adds on a little front-ended damage instead, splitting it, removing the chance of it becoming too powerful a spike.


Mind Shock {E} - 5en, 1 cast, 12 recharge
Elite Spell
Target foe takes 15+(8X/3) lightning damage. If you have more energy than that foe, that foe takes an additional 15+(8X/3) lightning damage and is knocked down. This spell causes exhaustion.

or

Mind Shock {E} - 5en, 1 cast, 15 recharge
Elite Spell
Target foe takes 5+(3X) lightning damage. If you have more energy than that foe, that foe takes an additional 5+(3X) lightning damage and is knocked down.

Option 1 ups the damage only slightly, and drops the cost slightly as well. It's most often used in spiking projectile spells (orb), so I didn't think too large a damage buff would be a good idea.
Option 2 halves the previous cost of Mind Shock and makes it a non-exhausting conditional knockdown. The recharge is faster than before, but not so fast that it can become an effective replacement for gale, for knocklocking.


Thunderclap {E} - 10en, 2 cast, 20 recharge
Elite Enchantment Spell
For the next 8+(4X/5) seconds, whenever you cast an Air Magic spell that targets a foe, that foe and adjacent foes are knocked down, and you lose 15-(8X/15) energy or Thunderclap ends.

This is the best option I can really think of. As the caster, your pool is already being drained, but also being required to actually cast air magic spells would hurt a bit, to counter the flexibility it grants over a hex based version, ideally.

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Most of the altered air magic skills were changed to grant a very minor increase in damage, or otherwise grant them more flexibility with a secondary effect or more manageable costs. Not all that many skills were changed, as most of the utility skills are already great.

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Earth Magic -

Earth Attunement - 10en, 2 cast, 20 recharge
Enchantment Spell
For the next 8+(5X/2) seconds, you gain 30% of the Energy cost back upon successful completion of a Earth Magic skill.

Earthquake - 15en, 3 cast, 15 recharge
Spell
Target foe and foes in the area are struck for 20+(7X) earth damage and are knocked down. This spell causes exhaustion.

Eruption - 25en, 3 cast, 20 recharge
Spell
For the next 5 seconds, foes nearby target foe's current location take 5+(3X) earth damage each second. When Eruption ends, nearby foes are blinded for 10 seconds.

Magnetic Aura - 5en, 1/4th cast, 30 recharge
Enchantment Spell
For the next 5+(X) seconds, you have a 75% chance to block melee attacks.

Stone Daggers - 5en, 1 cast, 0 recharge
Spell
Send out 2 stone daggers that strike for 2+(2X) earth damage each if it hits.

Stoning - 10en, 1 cast, 5 recharge
Spell
Stoning strikes for 10+(6X) earth damage if it hits. If Stoning hits a foe suffering from Weakness, that foe is knocked down.

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Obsidian Flesh {E} - 10en, 1 cast, 30 recharge
Elite Enchantment Spell
For the next 8+(4X/5) seconds, you gain +24 AL and cannot be the target of foe spells, but you move 33% slower.

Except for farming, this skill isn't often used, as the self snare is a bit too hefty of a drawback in PvP; You're a sitting duck to defense-ignoring damage and attack-based disruption, which is pretty nasty. At least this way you could snare a foe with Grasping Earth and run for it at a slightly reduced speed.

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Earth is a very good utility line, with not many damage skills, but full of great choices, and thus, not many skills were altered.

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Energy Storage -

Aura of Restoration - 10en, 1/4th cast, 20 recharge
Enchantment Spell
For the next 60 seconds, whenever you cast a spell, you are healed for 200+(20X)% of the energy cost.

As it is now, Aura of Restoration is only a early game spell, before you have enough to really even fill a bar with the attributes you're using, and an enchantment cover or Ether Renewal fuel. Somehow, I doubt a simple health boost is going to change its use, but one can only try I suppose.

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Energy Storage Elites -

Ether Renewal - 5en, 1 cast, 25 recharge
Elite Enchantment Spell
For the next 10 seconds, whenever you cast a spell, you gain 1+(X/5) energy and 5+(X) health for each Elementalist enchantment on you.

Maybe this way it'll be used by Elementalists instead of just E/Mo smiters? ...
Most likely, you'll be running Ether Renewal, X Attunement, Aura of Restoration and possibly one other enchantment, netting you ~8-12 energy for each 5 cost spell you cast, and 2-6 energy for each 10 cost spell, while losing energy on 15+, or if running 4 elemental enchantments, only losing on 25 cost spells. With a resurrection signet, 4 enchantments is a bit much though.

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Fire Magic:

Fire Attunement - 10en, 2 cast, 20 recharge
Enchantment Spell
For the next 8+(5X/2) seconds, you gain 30% of the Energy cost back upon successful completion of a Fire Magic skill.

Fire Storm - 15en, 3 cast, 20 recharge
Spell
For the next 10 seconds, foes nearby target foe's current location are struck for 5+(5X/3) fire damage per second for 10 seconds.

Flare - 5en, 1 cast, 0 recharge
Spell
Send out a flare that strikes target foe for 4+(4X) fire damage if it hits.

Immolate - 10en, 1 cast, 5 recharge
Spell
Target foe is struck for 9+(5X) fire damage and is set on fire for 1+(X/6) seconds.

Incendiary Bonds - 15en, 2 cast, 10 recharge
Hex Spell
After 3 seconds, target foe and adjacent foes are struck for 20+(4X) fire damage and are set on fire for 1+(X/6) seconds.

Inferno - 10en, 3/4th cast, 12 recharge
Spell
All adjacent foes are struck for 25+(7X) fire damage and are set on fire for 1+(X/6) seconds.

Lava Font - 10en, 2 cast, 4 recharge
Spell
For 5 seconds, foes adjacent to this location are struck for 5+(7X/3) fire damage each second.

Meteor Shower - 25en, 4 cast, 25 recharge
Spell
For 9 seconds, foes adjacent to target foe's location are struck for 7+(7X) fire damage and knocked down every 3 seconds. This spell causes exhaustion.*

*Note: Before cries of overpowered come up, this isn't going to change anything in PvE where echo nukers spam Meteor Shower every 15 seconds with Glyph of Renewal. PvP is where it'll be made more feasible for use, and where it's rarely used because people simply move out of its range.

Phoenix - 15en, 3 cast, 15 recharge
Spell
Foes nearby you take 7+(7X) fire damage. A ball of fire flies out to strike target foe and adjacent foes for 7+(7X) fire damage.

Rodgort's Invocation - 25en, 3 cast, 15 recharge
Spell
Target foe and nearby foes take 15+(7X) fire damage and are set on fire for 1+(X/6) seconds.

Searing Heat - 25en, 3 cast, 20 recharge
Spell
For the next 5 seconds, foes in the area of target foe's current location take 5+(7X/3) fire damage each second. When Searing Heat ends, foes in the area are set on fire for 1+(X/6) seconds.

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Fire Elites -

Mind Burn {E} - 5 cost, 1 cast, 12 recharge
Elite Spell
Target foe takes 15+(3X) fire damage. If you have more energy than that foe, that foe takes an additional 15+(3X) fire damage and is set on fire for 1+(2X/5) seconds. This spell causes exhaustion.

or

Mind Burn {E} - 5 cost, 1 cast, 6 recharge
Elite Spell
Target foe takes 6+(2X) fire damage. If you have more energy than that foe, that foe takes an additional 6+(2X) fire damage and is set on fire for 1+(X/4) seconds

This first version of Mind Burn is basically the old Mind Burn, but with a more reasonable cost considering the elite status and that it causes exhaustion. It recharges too slowly and causes exhaustion, so spamming it is not really an option, but it's an interestingly heavy damager for its cost that way.
The second version is meant to be like an equivalent of Word of Healing vs Heal Other, with Immolate as the basis. Cheaper, conditional trigger, with the larger part of the effect tied to the conditional.

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Overall Notes -
Fire's skills were modified with the idea in mind that more damage wasn't necessarily the goal, so much as creating enough threat in AoE skills that a Fire elementalist would be an invaluable asset for controlling the positioning of foes.
Theoretical max damage on some of the DoT skills are pretty high [Peak of 350 on a 60 Al target with Fire Storm and Glyph of Elemental Power, giving 18 attribute points, that stands in it the whole time, but 105 more realistically.], but most of them won't strike for more than a few seconds, even with a snare, sadly. However, they're enough that most targets wouldn't want to stand in them even if they weren't already going to walk out anyway, and they should take a bit of damage despite that.

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Glyph of Concentration - 5en, 1/4th cast, 3 recharge
Glyph
For the next 15 seconds, your next spell can not be interrupted and ignores the effects of dazed. If a spell is cast this way, you gain 2 energy.

Glyph of Elemental Power - 5en, 1/4th cast, 5
Glyph
For the next 15 seconds, your elemental attributes are boosted by 2 for your next Spell. If a spell is cast this way, you gain 2 energy.

Glyph of Lesser Energy - 5en, 1/4th cast, 30 recharge
Glyph
For the next 15 seconds, your next spell costs 15 less to cast. If a spell is cast this way, you gain 2 energy.

Glyph of Sacrifice - 5en, 1/4th cast, 15 recharge
Glyph
Your next Spell may be cast instantly, but takes an additional 45 seconds to recharge. If a spell is cast this way, you gain 2 energy.

As a note, since all of the skills are glyphs;
Glyphs frequently are not worth the 1 second cast and .75 second aftercast they take, in addition to 5 energy, for a meager effect. Thus the idea of a rebate on part of their cost upon completion of a successful spell, and the reduction in casting time to 1/4th second.
As to Glyph of Sacrifice specifically for concerns, consider this;
Fast Cast mesmers are the ones most commonly used to spam even Elementalist spells when speed is needed, not Elementalists with Glyph of Sacrifice... Including rez bots. Whether it's 45 or 90, I still don't think it'll see all that much use.
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Non-Attribute Elites-

Elemental Attunement {E} - 10en, 1 cast, 25 recharge
Elite Enchantment Spell
For 30 seconds, you are attuned to air, fire, water, and earth. You gain 50% of the Energy cost of the Spell each time you use magic associated with any of these elements.

If you don't have Elemental Attunement on, you're pretty much screwed in a build that runs it. Considering it's still open to removal being an enchantment, I see no problem with it this way.


Glyph of Energy {E} - 5en, 1/4th cast, 15 recharge
Elite Glyph
For the next 15 seconds, your next Spell costs 20 less Energy to cast and does not cause Exhaustion. If a spell is cast this way, you gain 2 energy.

Assuming you actually cast a 25 cost spell (the only spells you get the full effect with), then the energy management would be amazing, and even if you opt to cast a cheaper spell, you'll still get a great energy management out of the deal.
But, because there're so few good 25 cost spells, most of the time you won't. Go figure.


Glyph of Renewal {E} - 5en, 1/4th cast, 15 recharge
Elite Glyph
For the next 15 seconds, your next spell recharges instantly. If a spell is cast this way, you gain 2 energy.

Already a nice skill, the +2 energy is not for any real reason another than maintaining uniformity among the other glyphs.

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Water Magic -

Armor of Frost - 5en, 1 cast, 45 recharge
Enchantment Spell
For 10+(8X/5) seconds, you take half damage from sources of physical damage, but have -24 AL vs fire damage.

Deep Freeze - 25en, 3 cast, 15 recharge
Hex Spell
Target foe and all foes in the area take 10+(6X) cold damage and move 66% slower for the next 10 seconds.

Frozen Burst - 15en, 3/4th cast, 20 recharge
Hex Spell
All nearby foes are struck for 20+(6X) cold damage and move 66% slower for the next 5+(2X/5) seconds.

Ice Prison - 10en, 2 cast, 20 recharge
Hex Spell
For the next 8+(4X/5), target foe moves 66% slower. This effect ends if that foe takes fire damage.

Ice Spear - 5en, 1 cast, 0 recharge
Spell
Ice Spear flies toward target foe, striking for 7+(5X) cold damage if it hits. Ice Spear has half the normal Spell range.

Ice Spikes - 15en, 2 cast, 12 recharge
Hex Spell
Target foe and adjacent foes are struck for 14+(5X) cold damage and move 66% slower for the next 2+(X/4) seconds.

Maelstrom - 25en, 3 cast, 20 recharge
Spell
For the next 10 seconds, target foe and foes nearby their current location are struck for 5+(3X/2) cold damage. Foes casting spells struck by damage this way are interrupted.

or

Maelstrom - 10en, 3 cast, 20 recharge
Spell
For the next 10 seconds, target foe and foes nearby their current location are struck for 5+(3X/2) cold damage. Foes casting spells struck by damage this way are interrupted. This spell causes Exhaustion.

Shard Storm - 10en, 1 cast, 8 recharge
Hex Spell
Shard Storm flies towards target foe, striking for 10+(5X) cold damage if it hits and causing them to move 66% slower for the next 1+(X/4) seconds.

Swirling Aura - 5en, 1/4th cast, 30 recharge
Enchantment Spell
For the next 5+(X) seconds, you have a 75% chance to block projectile attacks.

Water Attunement - 10en, 2 cast, 20 recharge
Enchantment Spell
For the next 8+(5X/2) seconds, you gain 30% of the energy cost back upon successful completion of a Water Magic skill.

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Water Elites -

Mind Freeze {E} - 5en, 1 cast, 12 recharge
Elite Hex Spell
Target foe suffers 5+(3X) cold damage. If you have more energy than that foe, that foe suffers an additional 5+(3X) cold damage and moves 90% slower for 2+(X/4) seconds. This Spell causes Exhaustion.

or

Mind Freeze {E} - 5en, 1 cast, 10 recharge
Elite Hex Spell
Target foe suffers 5+(2X) cold damage. If you have more energy than that foe, that foe suffers an additional 5+(2X) cold damage and moves 90% slower for 2+(X/4) seconds.

Option 1 ups the damage slightly, costs less, and is castable more often, but is still inhibited (balanced) by exhaustion.
Option 2 is similar to the second version proposal of Mind Burn in that it's a Word of Healing style take on Shard Storm. The damage is actually still worse, but the debuff is better.


Mist Form {E} - 10en, 1 cast, 30 recharge
Elite Enchantment Spell
For the next 8+(4X/5) seconds, all attacks made against you miss, and all attacks you make miss.

Mist Form is nowhere near the equivalent of Obsidian Flesh for physical attacks at this time. Though you don't take any damage from them, their secondary effects still work completely, meaning you're still getting conditions, being interrupted, knocked down, and otherwise disrupted, probably the worst thing that can happen to an Elementalist. Thus, it'd be best if the attacks failed to hit entirely.


Water Trident {E} - 5en, 1 cast, 1 recharge
Elite Spell
Send out a Water Trident that strikes target foe for 5+(5X) cold damage and knocks that foe down if it strikes a moving foe.

Right now, without a movement debuff on a foe, you often don't even hit a moving foe in the first place. With the fix to the skill system where you used to be interrupted if you got knocked down or struck with an interrupted with a skill queued (but not casting), Water Trident has been made even worse.
This way, Water Trident deals marginally more damage and can be cast every 2 seconds (takes 1 second to cast, and has 1 second recharge), making it something interesting to take with your elite slot. If you want to hit a foe with consistency, you'll still need a movement debuff, and if you want to spam it constantly, well, you still can't without some other source of energy management (in addition to Water Attunement), or your energy consumption will still outpace your energy regeneration, not to mention if you mix in other spells.

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Mainly, the damage was slightly buffed, and the utility was slightly buffed on a handful of water skills. Facing things like the Henge of Denravi helmet, even post-nerf, it takes a large amount of effort just to kite a single warrior as it is now, something you can more readily emulate by simply debuffing multiple of them with a necromancer to reduce their effectiveness. [Not quite the same, but the point is that it's not even that great at movement debuffing a single target because of the cast and recharge times ]
Some defensive skills were simply ridiculous in their effects, to the point where they were run only in niche builds that want to be creative more than effective, and thus they were buffed or altered to a state of hopefully something that could be called 'desirable'.

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Edit: The main idea overall is to increase an Elementalist's utility and energy efficient damage (since too much spiking ability is a bit of a no-no), and make not just underused skills more usable, but to make used skills that are used because they're only comparitively better to the others actually decent.

Updates;
[3/19/06 - 2:18 PM CST | Fixed some typos]

I like most of your changes, though I think you could achieve 90% of the benefit just by shortening the recharge of attunements , lowering the cost of orb and the cast time of chain, and increasing the AoE on all the ranged fire spells except fireball. I don't see A.net doing a complete overhaul of the elementalist skill lines like you suggested.

That said I do have a few nitpicks:
Chain lightning needs a buff in air. It should have a 2s cast time
Lava font doesn't need more damage. It needs a shorter casting time or a bigger area of effect. I suggest:
Lava Font - 10en, 1 cast, 4 recharge
For 5 seconds all foes adjacent to your location are struck for 5...37 points of fire damage each second.

just to note i did read it all
and eh its not very good ideas you
brought up there for example

Lightning Orb- 15en, 2 cast, 5 recharge
Spell
Send out a lightning orb that strikes target foe for 10+(6X) lightning damage and interrupts any actions that foe is performing. This spell has 25% armor penetration.*

if you wanna interuppt your enemy wtf is up with 2 sec cast time
and orbs of lightning is just killing not agonizing

i dont have the reason or time to bring up them all but
very many of them is overpowering and silly
so why dont you let the programming to
gw staff instead (thats why they exist)

Yes, because everybody knows Searing Heat was great when it had exhaustion, and is still good in comparison to a spell like Rodgort's Invocation. The experience of a game developer with their own game can not compare to the experience of literally millions of people trying, testing, poking, and prodding at everything.

The interrupt aspect was a toss-on because I couldn't think of what secondary effect would be suitable to make Lightning Orb more comparable to Fireball;

Consider Fireball - 5 cheaper, hits for slightly less (119 vs 140 on a 60 AL target), but is AoE. Spells like Fireball were the golden mean for most other types of spells in my suggestions.
More damage would have opened the doorway to deadlier spikes, and spiking isn't really what the elementalist needs more of, and less energy wouldn't really have cut it. Thus it got that aspect. If you want to know what I was thinking... Ask the devs what they were thinking when they made Lightning Javelin -_- Or are they unquestionable?

Most are overpowered? Even at a range, just look at Ranger vs Elementalist for damage output on pure damage skills. Why should an Elementalist expend huge amounts of energy to output piddly flares, when a Ranger can do more damage with cheap initial investment every 24 seconds for Kindle Arrows?
Kindle Arrows is fine, in my opinion, it's the Elementalist that's gimped.

Who was and still is the most powerful ranged spiker of the game? The Ranger. Necromancer is up there with defence ignoring damage though.

Elementalists are only going to get weaker, as well, by the way; Many of the new caster armors have easy to meet reqs for 70 AL, with more health as the alternative for anti-spikes.

There's a reason that Elementalists are primarily used in a utility role with support spikes, and it's not because they're a 'glass cannon'. If you want to point out specific overpowered skills, I'll offer comparisons or even tweak the suggestion if I agree.

If it's not because Elementalists are a glass cannon then what is it that warrants you suggesting they change just about every single skill on the elementalist lineup? I'll happily admit that eles aren't the best damage dealers in the game and never have been. Thats a fact. But I honestly think they were never meant to be. Now stepping back from the suggestions you have made for a moment, I'm going to offer the example of Water magic. The least used of the elementalist attributes and definitely the most underated. Now in PvP, Warrior Damage is King and no-one can deny that. But what if the warrior cant reach you to hit you with that massive hammer of his? Simple, an immobile warrior is a useless one if their build is designed for damage. This is what water excels at, you have lots of speed reducing hexes like ice spikes and deep freeze. Even Mind Freeze is a good skill at 16 water magic, as it's going to stop a warrior dead in their tracks for as long as it takes the hex to wear off or be removed. Now you can offer a comparison to crippling shot if you like, but crippling shot is just one skill and cripple is a condition, which can be removed just like a hex. Then, theres Water Trident, which is one of the other water elites. Now your point is valid, but you have to consider it as part of the water line, which is full of the speed debuffs needed to get a character to move. Besides, Kiting is one thing that can be shut down by water trident very easily. Problem is, in PvE the mobs wont usually move when theyre being pounded on, this is definitely not the case in PvP, where movement is much more dynamic and one 5 energy water trident can mean the difference between life and death for a caster being chased down by a warrior.

On the subject of other elements. Glyph of elemental power is a must for obsidian spike imo and would imbalance the exhaustion if you gained 2 energy from casting it. It's comparable to awaken the blood on blood spike in terms of necessity.

As much as I hate to contradict you, Elementalists are supposed to be some of the best damage dealers, I'm sure. Otherwise, why bother with Fire or Air Magic? Surely if they aren't meant to deal out heavy damage, these two skill lines are made obselete.

And yes, I do play as a Hydromancer, I find the skills interesting and varied. However, surely an Elementalist with points in Fire can deal about twice as much damage with one of their Spells than a Warrior can with one attack.

Please correct me if what I have said is a load of Poopy Pie

Few skills were really touched except in the Fire line, and their damage was often not affected, or upped minimally.
The fire line has NO utility skills, it's total damage. There's really only 2 interpretations for the fire line, and they are;
-Pure damage focus, single target and AoE, using burning condition degen to prevent it from gaining too much spike potential
-Position control using AoE's with support damage from single target spells

Fire does neither the first, nor the second well. The damage from investing in fire is so-so, and you get none of the support effects in the other lines, and the AoE's are mostly piddly adjacent range effects that people really could care less about.

Air, Earth, and Water have great utility spells, and so-so damaging spells.
Air is supposed to be the king of single-target elemental damage, but it's not used for pressure to bring a target down, really, it's used to add on spikes or support damage. The utility spells weren't touched, the damage spells were, though I suppose one could classify Ennervating Charge as a utility spell in a way...
Earth probably had the fewest spells altered. The damage increases were minimal, though Eruption is a beast that way, and Stone Daggers were upped about 50%, though its damage was hardly worth the investment previously. Stoning's damage wasn't increased much, 11 more damage at its peak, and the cost was dropped to put it more on par with the Fireball/Lightning Orb/Ice Spikes level (though comparing AoE damage, no clue what that's supposed to have done, and AoE utility hexing is probably not the best idea). Still, it's a projectile, prone to missing if a foe simply kites, and it has a conditional knockdown, so I don't think it'd be over-abused. Earthquake was minimally buffed, but the cost was reduced (come on, 25 AND exhaustion ? Exhaustion isn't a huge deal by itself, but you can only take so many exhaustion skills, and that's a limiting factor. Not sure why they tacked exhaustion on to so many AoE's.). The only utility spells touched in Earth were Obsidian Flesh (details given) and Magnetic Aura, which is bleh. It's like a tactics stance without the other half of the block type, in a line where you already have Ward Against Melee - In short, it's like Deflect Arrows vs Shield's Up, except Deflect Arrows has a much shorter recharge time.

Water, I'll go into each individual skill as well -

Armor of Frost - 5en, 1 cast, 45 recharge
Enchantment Spell
For 10+(8X/5) seconds, you take half damage from sources of physical damage, but have -24 AL vs fire damage.

Armor of Frost currently gives a pure AL bonus; One might consider it, except Armor of Mist is pretty much better in all ways. I realize that the physical AL bonus is bigger even vs 18 water Armor of Mist, but physical damage isn't a huge problem in and of itself; It's the defence ignoring +damage attack skills that come with it. The only way to differentiate Armor of Frost with Armor of Mist in a worthwhile way would be to address that aspect. The 'ends when you cast a fire spell' was a useless addition that rarely if ever impacted it. I just dropped it because it was meh.

Deep Freeze - 25en, 3 cast, 15 recharge
Hex Spell
Target foe and all foes in the area take 10+(6X) cold damage and move 66% slower for the next 10 seconds.

Deep Freeze was upped by 16 cold damage at 16 water. This was just part of a global damage increase to Elementalist spells to improve their damage to energy efficiency somewhat. Considering you run Deep Freeze for the 10 non-scaling movement debuff and the huge area, I don't think it matters much either way.

Frozen Burst - 15en, 3/4th cast, 20 recharge
Hex Spell
All nearby foes are struck for 20+(6X) cold damage and move 66% slower for the next 5+(2X/5) seconds.

The damage wasn't touched on this. The recharge was the only thing altered. 30 seconds has always been somewhat crippling for the effect - You stand around for 1.75 seconds of the movement debuff during the aftercast anyway, making it take 2.5 seconds if it's supposed to be an escape skill ; In the end, it's not all that much greater than your alternatives due to the 30 second recharge.

Ice Prison - 10en, 2 cast, 20 recharge
Hex Spell
For the next 8+(4X/5), target foe moves 66% slower. This effect ends if that foe takes fire damage.

Ice Prison is something someone might actually consider removing. Adding in the conditional ending, the single target debuff effect, and considering that Water is already filled with skills that keep a target debuffed for about 2/3rds their recharge time, why run Ice Prison other than because it's not Shard Storm and won't miss?

Ice Spear - 5en, 1 cast, 0 recharge
Spell
Ice Spear flies toward target foe, striking for 7+(5X) cold damage if it hits. Ice Spear has half the normal Spell range.

Ice Spear requires you to get up close and personal, in a line meant to keep foes away. The slight damage increase is meant to reflect that. Perhaps 10+(4X) would be a better choice though, or adding a 1 second recharge to it, or even both. Either way, most of the 5 cost single target spam skills are hardly worth their energy investment, and Ice Spear isn't really an exception.

Ice Spikes - 15en, 2 cast, 12 recharge
Hex Spell
Target foe and adjacent foes are struck for 14+(5X) cold damage and move 66% slower for the next 2+(X/4) seconds.

This Ice Spikes is running off of the 'fireball' effectiveness curve; The damage was upped by 10 at 16 water, which is minimal, but the important part was that the recharge was reduced by 3 seconds, enabling it to keep a foe snared about half the time. Taking in to account casting time, not really, but meh; That's what mixing in other spells is for I suppose.

Maelstrom - 25en, 3 cast, 20 recharge
Spell
For the next 10 seconds, target foe and foes nearby their current location are struck for 5+(3X/2) cold damage. Foes casting spells struck by damage this way are interrupted.

or

Maelstrom - 10en, 3 cast, 20 recharge
Spell
For the next 10 seconds, target foe and foes nearby their current location are struck for 5+(3X/2) cold damage. Foes casting spells struck by damage this way are interrupted. This spell causes Exhaustion.

Maelstrom is run only in cramped areas where you pretty much have to hold your ground, and that's it. Even snared, even spamming water trident on a target, they'll still walk out of it in very little time. The AoE increase is actually pretty small, the damage increase is by a mere 3 points per second at 16 water (which is actually 30 if the target stands inside it the whole time). The recharge is reduced by 1/3rd so you can use it often enough to add a little more AoE control to the line, and the cast time was reduced by 1 second because it was too much of interrupt fodder before.
The difference between the 2 options is energy cost vs exhaustion. Option 1 drops the exhaustion effect (It takes about 3-4 seconds to escape a nearby AoE under a 66% snare, and less as it is now; The theoretical effect is almost NEVER in play. The actual effect doesn't warrant the exhaustion.) but keeps the prohibitive cost (meaning you're probably going to need an elite energy management if you're going to run it).
Option 2 keeps the exhaustion and uses that as a factor to make it more affordable. If you're running an exhaustion-causing skill, that limits your options for others. You don't want to pack too many exhausts.

Shard Storm - 10en, 1 cast, 8 recharge
Hex Spell
Shard Storm flies towards target foe, striking for 10+(5X) cold damage if it hits and causing them to move 66% slower for the next 1+(X/4) seconds.

The damage was upped by 11 at 16 Water, and the recharge was reduced by 2. Shard Storm has a propensity for missing, and having to have a snare just to hit with consistency with your... snare... is a ridiculous notion. But, the snare effect is good when it hits, so I figure giving people a slightly faster retry in the even that their snare misses, and a meager damage bonus ought to make their time and effort more worthwhile.

Swirling Aura - 5en, 1/4th cast, 30 recharge
Enchantment Spell
For the next 5+(X) seconds, you have a 75% chance to block projectile attacks.

Swirling Aura is crappy as it is now. Very, very, few people run it, because even though the interrupt ranger is an ele's worst nightmare, it doesn't work with enough consistency, or often enough, to generally be worth the extra slot. Elementalists often have to pack 2 energy management skills just to afford their spells as it is, tossing in a rez signet and Swirling Aura would be rather crippling to your skill bar. This way, it'd at least block arrows enough to make taking it to counter interrupts worth it. (As it is now, I run Mantra of Concentration/Resolve if I'm worried about interrupts).


The energy cost really isn't the issue for obsidian flame spiking. Whether you're paying 10 (5 for obs flame + 5 for GoEP) to spike them or 8 (5 for obs flame + 5 for GoEP with a 2 energy rebate afterwards), the exhaustion you accumulate is a much more impacting factor in whether or not you can continue to spam it.
In most cases, the minimal boosts GoEP grants are rarely worth the 1.75 seconds and 5 energy it takes to use it with. Awaken the Blood, at least, provides a long sustained effect fairly cheaply.
The energy rebate on the glyphs was just to make them more cost effective in a way that fits Anet's current scheme of things ; they seem insistent on keeping costs at 5, 10, 15, and 25 only.

But, though it should go without saying, those're just my opinions, and these're just suggestions. In any case, thank you for your input.

The point is: Fireball=10 energy, Warrior Attack=0 energy. Warriors have a much higher DoT than any elementalist. Fire magic has a much lower DoT than any warrior with 16 points in weapon mastery and the math is there to back me up on this - The point is, no class is suposed to be dominant in damage dealing, but unfortunately it isnt the case - In PvE it's SS necros and in PvP it's warrior damage builds. Elementalists just cant keep up with these guys in the long run, but have they have a lot of variety. Eles CAN spike and it's not hard to do, but asking that their long term offence be at the same level as a melee class is asking a bit much, if you ask me. Now, about your 1 cast deals twice as much as one attack: All the really powerful Fire Skills take over a second to cast and at least a few seconds to cool off. In that time, a competent warrior can beat you into the ground: You can only cast a big spell every few seconds at best, while the warrior can keep beating on you for all the time it takes to prepare the spell to be cast again.

This has already been said enough times anyway. For sustained dps, nothing can keep up with the warrior. On the other hand, eles can always obsidian spike a warrior. I dont have GW on the PC im on atm, but Obsidian Spike @ 18 earth magic does A LOT of damage. This is something people fail to understand. Elementalists are exactly that. They are not 'Black Mages' who constantly rain death upon their foes. Yes they are a high damage class. But they are not a sustained damage class, simply because they are not melee fighters. One has to remember this is not a turn based game, where everyone takes one turn and then you see how it plays out. You honestly think us eles have it hard in PvE? Just look at the mesmers. Most people never even bother to look at the mesmer skills and yet they are easily a more powerful pure mage than the elementalist - a good mesmer can take on a drugged up tigers fury Axe war and win without a scratch on him. Same goes for casters, there is no casting class that can win against a competent mesmer. But alas, Mesmers are noobs in places like SF and tombs, where if you are anything other than the 'magic 5' people wont even speak to you. It's sad, but oh so very true.

In short, aside from all my contradicting nonsense, I dont think eles need any more buffs for the moment*. We will have to see how eles play out upon the release of factions to see what direction, if any, to go in.

*Well, apart from magnetic aura, maybe, I'd love for that to have a 45 second recharge, would make farming so much easier for me...

So wait, you think elementalists don't need to be changed because you can use obsidian spike?