Exhaustion

for spells that cause exhaustion, how exactly does exhaustion effect your character?

-10 to total energy pool. Regens 1 total energy per 3 seconds, so takes 30 seconds to get rid of one case of exhaustion.

In reality having 1 wont affect an elementalist primary(with energy storage) 2 your may run into problems if you arent judical in your use and 3 you will only be able to use them sparingly. Using an exhastion skill on a character without energy storge gets a little more difficult but is possible. Don't fear exhastion skills just learn to use them correctly they are actully pretty good.

so i should stay away from them with a warrior primary?

I shouldn't think so, you never have 10+ energy in your pool once your in the middle of the battle - due to the amount of attack skill spamming you'll be doing. Provided you're using the one exhaustion skill sparingly, it shouldn't be a problem.