"Command the elements, they said! Summon across the world, they said!" - Unknown Elementalist (long deceased)
So, you wanna be an Elementalist? Well, hopefully, this guide will give you all the knowledge you need to know to be successful. By the end of this guide, your tiny little elemental guy can grow up big and strong, and maybe one day look like this:
And, if it turns out adventure isn't for you, there's always a medical career in your future!
CAS, I AM NOT A NURSE! -Goner, Prince of Air, 3,562nd in line for royal succession.
Now, for the basics. This class is listed as a magic dps, pet class. But they don't really like being called pets. If you want to be respectful, and by all accounts you should, it is heavily advised to refer to them as companions, but it's easy to slip up and go back to the pet word. You'll be spending a lot of time together, so work together with your companion to come up with a suitable name. This is very important, as they will more likely be remembered than you. In fact, if you are so fortunate, they may even end up becoming your guild mascot! They're also quite useful as a rally point for a group, or for multiple groups in your guild, since they can be seen from so far away.
You need to understand, your pet is not disposable. Well, sometimes they are, but most of the time they are not, and in fact, they will often end up contributing far more to any encounter than you could ever dream of. Still got those bandages?
CAS! YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT THE P WORD! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! -Goner, Prince of Air, 3,121st in line for royal succession.
Starting Stats: Put all your points into Intelligence, and the leftover into Stamina. To be clear, most of your attacks do not scale very well with Intelligence, so largely gear does not matter that much to you. But you do gain mana regen from Intelligence, so that's the primary benefit of this stat for you. Your pet doesn't scale off of anything you have directly, though when you cast Empowerment, he gets a portion of your Intelligence which affects Companion Strike. Companion Strike seems to get about 1 damage per 1 point of Intelligence.
Stamina is important because your pet will always be your highest source of damage, and the most important thing you can keep in the fight. If you die, it does.
Traits: Until they change the traits, Magic Resistant is the only one worth getting. Using it removes fear, mez and root.
Races: This is mostly a play what you like, but with one exception. Ogre. Ogres have a stun, or at least they currently do until the trait reworks come out. This is important, because your class does not have any CC or interrupts without using specific pets. This means, if you use the earth pet, you will not have a way to interrupt gate. Ogre solves this problem. Of course, when the trait reworks roll out, who knows how this will change.
Bandages
Now, the main strength of every successful elementalist, as everyone knows, is their bandages. These bad boys have a level requirement on them, which you will always meet the requirement for when you get the rank to summon them, but do check the tooltip information on the bandage itself to see if the person you're handing them to can even use them. The Bind Wound skill does not factor into who can use bandages, only the level of the person. Check your bandage tooltip for the level requirement.
Bandages have a 1 minute cooldown on the person you use them on. This debuff is called "Recently Bandaged" and if you have sense magic going, it'll be highlighted in red for you when you consider the person, making it helpful to see at a glance when the debuff wears off. It will only be highlighted in red if you were the one to apply the bandage, however.
Bandages are a channeled healing with a distance of about two-three character lengths, so while a person can take a few steps in combat, if they step too far away from you, they will interrupt the channel and apply "Recently Bandaged," so make sure your group mates know not to run off when you're healing them. You can sit and then use a bandage, and it will not interrupt your meditate tics for mana regen.
TRICKS: You can bandage someone while they are actively getting hit. A common tactic is to sit near whoever is tanking and bandage them for some extra healing.
The Bind Wound skill is rather unimportant. You will max it out rather quickly, but overall, it is only a small increase (something like 5%) in healing done. We're talking 1 Bind Wound skill on Heavy Linen bandages will net you 540 healing, versus 300 Bind Wound skill getting you 600 healing. It's inconsequential in the scheme of things. I didn't make the rules - complain to the god of bandages.
When you first gain the spell rank, you will only summon a single bandage at a time, adding an additional bandage for each extra level you get and capping out at 4. I'm not sure why it works this way - something to do with inflation and market rates in the Outer Planar Realm of Textiles, or some nonsense. But needless to say, this is super tedious. Just tell that wizard to hold the fuck on, the bandages are coming. Some time. Eventually. Soon.
Bandages are a significant advantage for this class that you can then hand away to other people so they can have the significant advantage, while keeping whatever significant advantage they had all on their own. Understand that because these things are so good, that anyone can make from things they are killing, you will never win an argument on the internet about anything you think would improve your class. Ever. Heavy Hangs The Weight, so they say. No really. You're carrying like a thousand of these fucking things! No wonder you're encumbered.
Do Note That people absolutely lose their minds over bandages. They will ask you for them constantly. They will ask you to summon 100 of them, even 200 of them, and they'll sit and stare at you until you do. It's fine. Everything's fine. Don't give in to the madness. The voices. The linens. Breathe. Click the button. Click.
Remember your ABBs. Always Be Bandaging. Coffee is for medics.
TRICKS: You can trade these things with other groups. See that soloing enchanter over there killing fifteen reds at once? That guy probably wants some bandages, and he'll likely be more than happy to give you Enlightenment in trade. I always carried around about 100 of them in my bags just for this occasion.
Crushed Malachite
This is your reagent for summoning your pets, and early on this will be expensive. It's not uncommon to have your pets last for quite a while, and then other days you're going through them like crazy. I always used to carry around 80 at a time when I was 60.
Reclaim Essence
This kills your pet for 8 mana, to restore 25% of its life total in mana. Mostly, this is used for not losing mana when you change your pets, but changing pets costs 15 seconds to do plus any memorization time, that this isn't something you can ever do on the fly in combat to pull off that sick no scope aura trick you thought you read about in the tomes of old once. Those legends are false, and they never happened. This skill can be used to regain mana if you're low -- please refer to the Earth Pet tricks below to learn how.
PETS Companions
Ah, yes, the second most powerful thing an Elementalist can do. Summon elementals! These guys don't work for free, and they'll cost you a crushed malachite for your troubles, which can be bought from the vendor. You now receive these at different leveled tiers, and the pets scale up with you in levels over a large range for each particular rank. But it doesn't happen automatically. Each time you level, you'll need to send your friend home and resummon him just to have the level updated. Consider him to make sure he's white con.
Some facts:
Pet Chat Tab: I recommend setting up a new chat tab and showing only stuff related to your pet in there, and nothing else. Add this to your combat window. This will be a very big help in monitoring your pet's attacks and determining if they are indeed hitting for the max damage they can hit for at their level.
Behavior Defensive: Defensive will cause your pet to attack anything that attacks you, and anything that attacks it. If your pet kills something without any input from you or someone else, the body will disappear. You must give your pet a command, even if it is only just "Pet Attack," sometime before the mob dies. I recommend never keeping your pet on Defensive, as it will continuously break crowd control effects and make the enchanter mad at you. You don't want them mad at you, because they might start getting bandages from someone else. When you summon a pet, this is the default selected option, so you must be quick to swap over to passive if it is in the middle of combat.
Behavior Passive: Passive means your pet will not attack at all, unless you specifically tell them to do so. This is the preferred option to keep your pet on, so that your pet does not run amok and get you or someone else killed.
TRICKS: You can use this to help your low level friends if there is a significant level difference. Have your pet taunt, or maybe even taunt and hit once, before backing off, and the mob will simply wail on your pet while your lower level friends kill it.
Pet Attack, Pet Back Off, Pet Follow: If you hold left click on any of these buttons on your pet window, it will turn into a button that you can drag down to your bar. I recommend putting each of these on a button, and you can even make a macro combining Pet Back Off and Pet Follow so that it does both at the same time. There is no disadvantage to this, and spamming this multiple times to make sure your pet truly backs off and stops attacking is something you should get into the practice of doing.
If you use the assist key (default to F) there can be a bug with sticky targeting, and I'm not sure if they ever fixed it. You will be targeting something, but your game is actually targeting something else, and so using Pet Attack will make your pet attack the wrong target, possibly breaking a mez and getting someone killed. In order to fix this, you need to type /reloadui and I recommend making a macro of /reloadui and putting it somewhere on your bar, as you will likely run into this problem a lot. It persisted for 8 months, so perhaps it is fixed, but I wouldn't count on it.
Hit Points: All pets have the same hit points, except for Earth, which has more, the significance of which is greater the higher level you get. See below.
Damage: All pets do the same autoattack damage, and have the same offhand swings.
Dual Wield: Pets do not dual wield until level 36. They do not need to be equipped with weapons to do this. Your pets will hold weapons in both hands starting at level 1, but it is purely cosmetic. They will not get offhand swings until level 36. If, for some reason, this has changed in EA, I will update this.
I WAS BORN DUAL-WIELDING! -Goner, Prince of Air, 2,986th in line for royal succession.
You were not. -Casindra Embrewright, Scholar and Adequately Competent Elementalist.
Mitigation: Your earth pet has more mitigation due to its AC buff.
Aura: None of the auras stack with themselves, so if you have two or more elementalists in a group, figure out who is doing what.
Provoke: Works like the same version that tanks have, but probably worse. Does not break mez, as it does no damage. Your pet must be facing the target in order to use this ability, and trying to use it does not force your pet to face the target. If you wish to pull your pet back to taunt off a group member, you will need to run over the top of them to get your pet to follow you so it will be facing them.
Here are the differences between your friends.
Fire: It has an toggleable autocast spell that does 1-120 damage from 1 to 60, on an 8 second cooldown. It has an aura that adds 10% casting speed to your group, as well as a 1-15 damage shield from 1-60. This damage shield stacks with the damage shield you can already cast (your Flame Shield line.)
Honestly, this guy is not particularly useful. He tends to get use in the 1-16 game, but eventually you'll almost certainly find yourself bringing him out less and less.
TRICKS: This is a lightsource.
Water: It has a toggleable Chilling Bolt that does 1-120 damage from 1 to 60, on an 8 second cooldown. Chilling Bolt is a snare that lasts for 6 seconds. Water provides a mana regen that stacks with everything. It is 1mp at 1, 2mp at 10, 3mp at 20, 4mp at 30, 5mp at 40, and tops out at 6mp at 50.
This sounds amazing on paper, but for comparison, an enchanter gets you 2/4/6/12 always effectively doubling whatever you can do. And yours has a scaling effect, where the air aura does not, and it also comes with a stun. There is an opportunity cost with using this pet versus just using air or earth. Of course, that's up to you to make that judgement call.
Earth: It has a toggleable self-only HP and AC buff. It has a toggleable Root, which does no damage and is on a 10 second cooldown. If you try to root another target while one is already rooted from this spell, the previous one will be removed. You may only root one target at a time with this ability. It's aura is a stamina buff to your party, capping out at 30 stamina at level 60.
This pet has a significant boost in hit points compared to your other pets, and not just because of its HP buff. It just has more hit points regardless. At level 60, it has around 3600 unbuffed, and 4100ish when it applies its own buffs plus the stamina increase. Your other pets have 2100 hit points at this level.
TRICKS: This pet is your only form of CC (Crowd Control), via Root. AGAIN, YOUR ONLY FORM OF CC! You also have no way to interrupt spells if you use this pet, and so every single enemy that casts Gate you will get to watch helplessly as they return with a train of mobs. Root often breaks on damage. Rooted targets always attack whatever is closest to them, so you can manipulate who the target is attacking this way. With some run speed and some practice, you can potentially juggle rooting two things by cycling through them, but all this really does is help stagger out enemies.
TRICKS: As this pet has significantly more hit points, it can be used to go net positive on mana whenever you cast Reclaim Essence. Reclaim Essence is a 3 second cast time spell that kills your pet and restores 25% of its health in mana. You want your pet to be full health when you do this, so if you are using the earth pet, make sure to bandage it to full after it uses its HP buff. You will have to test for yourself at what level this starts getting noticeable for you by viewing your mana pool. Something else to consider is the rank of the spell and what it scales to, as these have different mana values, which makes it more efficient. For example, at level 60, your Earth Pet scales to 60, however, the spell itself is a level 50 spell (IIRC), which means it only costs 600 mana, compared to the level 57 air which costs 720. Because of this, you cans spend 600 mana to summon the earth pet, bandage it to full, cast reclaim essence, and regain 1000 mana, netting you 400. Reclaim Essence costs 8 mana, so as long as you have 600 mana left at level 60, you can be full mana in about 40 seconds and 4-5 casts. At lower levels, you'll want to check and see when this is beneficial to you. THIS IS NOT BENEFICIAL IN COMBAT IN A GROUP! You'll spend a lot of time just losing out on pet dps while your group is still pulling, over a long period of time. This is a solo tactic when you are low on mana and safe.
Air: It has a toggleable Staggering Winds on an 8 second cooldown, which does 1-120 damage on an 8 second cooldown, with a 2 second stun attached to it. It has an air aura that hits your entire party and gives them a 10% chance to get an extra swing, and your pet is affected by their own aura. This is a noticeable force multiplier, and what props up the entire class and makes it wanted in groups. This aura is incredible, and should be the baseline for which all other pet auras are balanced by. This and bandages entirely prop up this class.
This is the pet you will use in 95% of situations, and in almost every group. In every situation, even if you don't have a tank, as long as someone is able to hold agro and kite with a snare or some other thing, it's almost always to just use the air pet. The damage reduction over time provided by the 2 second stun is not to be discounted. Classes that benefit most from this aura will be Archer, Beastmaster, Ranger, Rogue, Necro pets, Elementalist pets. It is extremely noticeable, especially as gear gets better.
I HAVE THE MOST HIT POINTS OF ALL ELEMENTS! -Goner, Prince of Air, 2,677th in line for royal succession.
This is not true. -Casindra Embrewright, Scholar and Completely Average Elementalist.
TRICKS: This pet is your only form of an interrupt, via the stun which you can right click to untoggle and manually use. AGAIN, YOUR ONLY FORM OF INTERRUPTING SPELLS! Weigh very carefully what you are fighting or soloing, because some mobs will cast Gate which not only brings them back to where they spawned (sometimes very far away) but will also cause rather large trains as they make their way back to you. Also, Gate heals the mob a significant amount.
Summoned Weapons
With the recent change to these weapons, they're now tiered in such a way that Earth Mallet is always the best choice, if that matters to you. You can simply buy each rank of Earth Mallet, and skip the others, and never be worse off. Currently, it is the only one that gets Exceptional at level 60, and the others cap out at Greater. Why? I don't know. Something to do with the Elemental Unions and some sort of Commercial Zoning Regulations with the off-plane production facilities that manufacture these things. Maybe a bad contract deal. I don't know. Whatever the case, hopefully it all gets worked out.
These weapons all do the same thing, mostly. The thing you care about is that they have a low chance to proc damage, which hits for 5, 10, 15, and topping out at 20. The damage and delay of these weapons do not matter to your pet at all -- you are using it for the proc damage only. Your pet will not actually use two weapons in combat, even if they are holding them, until they are level 36. Pay attention to the tooltip for the weapon when you summon it, as it will tell you the minimum level required to proc the damage, and your pet does care about that.
Heal the Elements
This is your pet healing line, and now it has ranks all the way up to 52. Overall, this is a good heal and it only works on your own pet. You can't use it to heal other pets. It seems to scale with Intelligence. I believe it is possible, with good enough gear, to get this to reach 1,200 HP or so on the top end, which is pretty good. At 60, I was healing for 950. Necromancers have the same exact skill as this, so don't think you're unique.
Elemental Fury
This buff lasts an hour, and this is your staple pet buff. It gives your pet strength and haste, the two most important things to give to pets. Any time that you are able to cast this, an enchanter or shaman will be able to give more haste and more strength than you can provide. Ask them to buff your pet, if it's appropriate, but generally, your own buff is good enough in most situations except for the hardest fights. Your pets will have a max hit damage cap based on their level. Check your combat lots and see if you're hitting it. This is a primary haste effect, and does not stack with other primary hastes. Necromancers get the exact same spell, so don't go thinking you're special.
Elemental Empowerment
Ah, yes, the new thing all Elementalists have to deal with. This spell gives your pet a good amount of secondary haste, as well as a ticking regen effect that scales off your Intelligence. It also passes off some of your own Intelligence to your pet, specifically for use with Companion Smite. This is one of your strongest things you can spend your mana on, and it is quite costly, costing over 400 mana at level 60, and lasting for only 90 seconds. Everything you do in combat is going to revolve around keeping this up. And bandages. Remember your ABBs! You want that coffee, don't ya? At level 60, the heal was ticking for 76, and the damage output increase was noticeable. This skill is unique to Elementalist, so you're allowed to feel a little special.
THESE NECROMANCERS MUST BE DETHRONED! -Goner, Prince of Air, 2,625th in line for royal succession.
Please settle down and let me finish this. -Casindra Embrewright, Scholar and Increasingly Agitated Elementalist.
Heal the Elements
This is your pet healing line, and now it has ranks all the way up to 52. Overall, this is a good heal and it only works on your own pet. You can't use it to heal other pets. It seems to scale with Intelligence. I believe it is possible, with good enough gear, to get this to reach 1,200 HP or so on the top end, which is pretty good. At 60, I was healing for 950. Necromancers have the same exact skill as this, so don't think you're unique.
Elemental Fury
This buff lasts an hour, and this is your staple pet buff. It gives your pet strength and haste, the two most important things to give to pets. Any time that you are able to cast this, an enchanter or shaman will be able to give more haste and more strength than you can provide. Ask them to buff your pet, if it's appropriate, but generally, your own buff is good enough in most situations except for the hardest fights. Your pets will have a max hit damage cap based on their level. Check your combat lots and see if you're hitting it. This is a primary haste effect, and does not stack with other primary hastes. Necromancers get the exact same spell, so don't go thinking you're special.
Elemental Empowerment
Ah, yes, the new thing all Elementalists have to deal with. This spell gives your pet a good amount of secondary haste, as well as a ticking regen effect that scales off your Intelligence. It also passes off some of your own Intelligence to your pet, specifically for use with Companion Smite. This is one of your strongest things you can spend your mana on, and it is quite costly, costing over 400 mana at level 60, and lasting for only 90 seconds. Everything you do in combat is going to revolve around keeping this up. And bandages. Remember your ABBs! You want that coffee, don't ya? At level 60, the heal was ticking for 76, and the damage output increase was noticeable. This skill is unique to Elementalist, so you're allowed to feel a little special.
THESE NECROMANCERS MUST BE DETHRONED! -Goner, Prince of Air, 2,625th in line for royal succession.
Please settle down and let me finish this. -Casindra Embrewright, Scholar and Increasingly Agitated Elementalist.
Elemental Resurgence
This skill has a 30 minute cooldown which puts a 5 minute buff on you that makes your next pet spell summon 95% faster, and also cost 50% less mana. Except, that's not how it seems to work. It seems to refund 50% of the casting cost, and checks to make sure that you have the full mana value of the pet before you begin casting, otherwise you cannot cast. So, the usefulness of this ability is a bit questionable in its current incarnation with such a long cooldown. But hey! You don't have much else to put on your bar, so might as well throw this on there!
Master of Elements
This is a 20 minute cooldown ability that last 18 seconds, and transforms you into a random elemental with procs tied to your attacks. Sometimes, it doesn't do anything at all. Othertimes, after it wears off, you will be MEGA BIG and that will last until you open a trade window or zone or die, so that's funny. This ability is completely useless, there are no super special secret use cases for this at all. This ability has been reported and broken for over a year now, and at least it doesn't make you fall through the world every single time you use it anymore. The only reason I think we're taught this skill is due to some ancient, contractual obligation made by some Planar Advertisement Company, with a subsidiary named "Master of Elements" that sold elemental themed dresswear and formal wear to pompous casters. They used to be all over the place thousands of years ago, but then there was that whole cataclysm thing and now they're bankrupt. Wizards, of course, were the ones who usually shopped there.
Summon Companion
This is an innate skill that takes 12 seconds to cast and will summon your pet to your side for a trivial mana cost (40.) It will be interrupted by a level 18 skeleton kicking you, and by the time you start casting again, his kick will be off cooldown. You will never get this spell off in combat while something is hitting you. Just stop. I do not recommend spending 70% of your mana bar doing 350 damage per Elemental Bolt in order to kill him.
TRICKS: Just use /stuck to bring your pet to you if this is happening to you. You will be at peace then. But don't forget! You MUST make your pet follow before you finish your /stuck, or else he will not teleport to you! Expect this to be fixed eventually. Remember! If you kept your pet on STAY, that as soon as you cast Summon Companion, he will immediately go wandering back to where you had him staying at. You need to make him follow you immediately! Another alternative is to put your pet on stay and then camp out to bring him to you.
I DO NOT WANDER! I TRAVEL WITH INTENT! IT IS LIKE YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND ANYTHING ABOUT ME! -Goner, Prince of Air, 1998th in line for royal succession.
Gate
Ah yeah, gate. This is the spell you use when you don't have a pet, and you just offered free bandages to anyone who opens trade. But should you have your friend around, Gate brings your pet with you, but the same rules as Summon Companion above apply. If you have them on Stay, they will immediately head back to that spot.
Chain Casting Pets
You know, a lot of people like to do this. You have to consider the total cost of resummoning your pet only to send him in to die again, versus the trade off what it costs you to buff him, or if it is even worth it to do so. Check your spell ranks. Your pets auto scale, so they will always be your level, but because they come at different tiers, they will vary in mana cost significantly so. The preferable pet to chain cast is almost always going to be the earth elemental, simply because it just has more hit points, and they all do the same damage anyway. Plus, it's safer, so that you can root the mob right before and if you mess up, at least the mob is rooted while you slowly recast your pet. This is the kind of tool you use for soloing, and typically only on hard pulls.
To chain cast, your spell takes 12 seconds to cast. You can begin casting, timing it so that your pet is about to die at the same time that your spell is almost finished casting. Click the Dismiss Pet button just as your spell is about to finish casting, and immediately sick your new boy on the angry, spurned, friendless and bandageless miscreant that is screaming and flailing wildly towards you like a person who sees a Blackened Girdle for sale. Congratulations! You did it! Or, well, you didn't, and you're dead, because now you can't do anything if you don't have a pet.
RUMORS OF MY UNTIMELY DEMISE HAVE BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED! YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT LIES, CAS! -Goner, Prince of Air, 1759th in line for royal succession.
Conjure Food and Water
You eat it. Clerics also get this exact same thing, but people will still ask you instead of them. Whatever.
Manastone
This rock restores mana at the cost of health, and it is unique, so you can only hold one of them at a time. It has no cooldown, unlike Healthstones which do have a cooldown. This is a highly useful, highly powerful ability.
TRICKS: You can carry around different ranks of manastones, as they are only unique to the rank of spell.
TRICKS: THE MANA STACK. You can manage a manastone stack on the ground if you really want to, and don't plan on moving any time soon, though this can be highly tedious. This can be useful if you are soloing and plan to try to break up a hard camp, and need more mana to be able to heal your pet as it tanks everything, and you can prepare this stack in advance. It's also useful in a group, if you find a good spot and you plan to be there for a few hours.
Dropped items disappear after 5 minutes. Set a timer for four minutes, and summon a manastone and drop it, and continue to do this until you are empty of mana (or perhaps 50%, if you're in a group). When your timer is up, position your mouse over the stack of dropped stones, so that it is towards the middle of the screen, just where "Yes" would appear on the confirmation box that pops up when you are asked if you want to drop an item. If you do it correctly, you should be able to rapidly left click, picking up a stone, clicking yes, and picking up another stone, all in rapid succession. In this way, you can refresh your entire pile of stones in a very short amount of time, and then reset your timer. With some care and juggling, it is trivial to create a pile of 50+ stones. Expect this to get nerfed, because it is incredibly tedious and boring super fun!
TRICKS: EATING THE MANA STACK. Clerics can run through 10 to 15 of your manastones in rapid succession, refilling most of their mana pool in seconds. They need DA to be up, a 5 minute cooldown ability which makes them immune to damage for 15 seconds. They need to clear out their upper left most inventory slot, and make it a hotkey and drag it over to their bar. Then, they can set their cursor over top your manastone stack. Hit DA, and immediately left click to pick up a stone. The stone is now on your cursor. Hit your hotkey for your inventory slot, and it will move the manastone to the inventory slot. Hit the same hotkey again, and it will be used. Repeat as fast as you can, and you will be able to eat up to 15 stones before your immunity wears off, regaining 2,700 mana.
TRICKS: A REZZER'S BEST FRIEND. Recovering from a wipe? Cleric in your group rezzing people, or friendly cleric passing by and rezzing people? Be helpful! Start a manastone stack next to them! When they eat some manastones, be ready to bandage them back up!
Elemental Bolt
This spell is your castable damage spell. It hits twice if you have a pet out. It also applies a debuff that lasts for 12 seconds, and what it does depends on the pet you're using. Overall, this spell is terrible, and I would expect it to get boosted in numbers, as currently it only hits slightly harder than what a shaman can do. The current order of highest nuking classes in the game is:
Wizard > Druid >>>>>LARGE GAP >>>>> Cleric > Necromancer (lifetap) > Elementalist > Shaman > Enchanter
It is not enough to simply have a pet out to get the double hit. You must be within aura range of your pet to trigger it, or else it will only give you a single hit. Each hit of the attack can be resisted. When the debuff does not apply, you do not get a message, so you don't ever know if it worked or not. Currently, you need to have sense magic going and spam consider as you cast the spell to know whether your debuff applied or not.
This is your only offensive skill that you can use if you do not have a pet out. At level 60, this will hit for 350 damage with no pet. No other class in the game is so hindered, so be aware, and always have a pet. Yes, it sucks.
Each of these debuffs is -10 Resist.
Fire Pet debuff, Searing Wound:
As far as I can tell, this "burning" effect does basically nothing. At level 60, it did about 20 damage and then went away. Once again, this is a point against Fire Elemental ever having any use case at all.
Water Pet debuff, Numbing Chill:
This stands to be the most useful by a long shot, compared to the other debuffs. It seems to be around 30% from eyeballing it and comparing it to higher end attack speed slows. Attack Speed Slow is the most powerful debuff in the game, and Shaman gets the best one, followed by Enchanter. The problem with this one is getting this to apply consistently is an exercise in frustration, and you really need slow to be consistent as a debuff. If it would land consistently, there is a use case for only using the level 1 version of Elemental Bolt, and spamming it with a water pet out to apply this debuff for your group, as it will have a negligible mana cost for a very big benefit.
Earth Pet debuff, Encumbering Weight:
This seems to be the same value of snare as our old snare, which was good and enabled some new tricks, but now it is considerably less useful. As you gain levels, the cast time on Elemental Bolt increases. If you are kiting, you cannot kite if you spend 2 seconds or more casting a spell that needs to snare your opponent, only for it not to take. Once again, there may be a use case for this just using the rank 1 version of the spell, but as it stands now, this does not last long enough to be useful, and it's not reliable enough to be useful either. In its current incarnation, it is best to consider the fact that your class simply no longer has access to snare.
Air Pet debuff, Static Shock:
Unknown value on this, but guessing 25%. Honestly, this will never matter for any reason. Spell casting times are already long enough that they are not difficult to interrupt. If you have your air pet out, you should have no problems interrupting anything you need to, and if there are multiple people in your group, many classes get anywhere from 2-4 chainable interrupts, so it will never matter.
Companion Strike
A very cinematic, impressive looking ability that causes you to leap through the air, performing a combo with your pet that only someone with the skill to bind elementals could perform.
Actually, no, it doesn't do any of that. It just does damage. Get back to bandaging.
This is probably your best bet if you just want to convert mana to damage. It has a 10 second cooldown, and you must have your pet out to use it. Using it will stand you up from meditating. It is an instant cast ability, and you must be within range of the target, and your pet must be facing the target. Your pet will not face the target automatically. If your pet kills the target with this ability, and you never did anything else and nobody else interacted with the target, its body will disappear.
This ability does what it says, damage. It's reasonable efficient in that regard. It's damage is increased by intelligence, but it is based on your pet's intelligence, not yours. Empowerment does pass off some of your intelligence to your pet. You'll want an enchanter to cast Intelligence on your pet to increase the damage. The intelligence seems to increase it at 1 damage per 1 point of intelligence, so don't expect miracles.
I AM A MIRACLE, CAS! -Goner, Prince of Air, 1469th in line for royal succession.
Flame Shield
This is one of your unique features. Well, not really. Druids and Rangers can be do this the exact same as you. Still, damage shield is good, topping out at 5 points better than theirs.
A Damage Shield is an effect that you cast on a friendly player (or a pet) that lasts 10 minutes. Whenever the buffed character takes damage, the damage shield reflects a set amount of damage back. This will be listed in the tooltip for the buff itself. It starts out at 5, then goes to 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, and 35 at the end. This adds up to a lot of damage over a very long time, and it's one of the most efficient ways to do damage in the game. This damage is unresistable, and so it is one of the ways you can still participate and do damage in a fight where perhaps your opponents are red and you can't land any spells. This is also a very good spell to cast on lower levels, and is considered one of the strongest ways to power level.
If you are in a group with a ranger or a druid, you want to be the one taking over this job and monitoring it, as you have so little else to do, yours is slightly better, and both of those classes have far more things to keep track of and do. You only ever need to cast this spell on the tank, as it does cost a significant portion of mana, too much to constantly buff the entire group with it.
Element Break
This line debuffs the resists on fire and cold and generally will never be resisted themselves. It's worth, possibly, sticking it on an enemy depending on what you're doing, but if the target is dying too fast, it's completely not worth it. It's up to you to weigh that. Later on, with longer fights and tougher enemies, it's worth casting this at the beginning of the fight, unless the druid prefers to do it, as you both share the same skill here. This spell is not super important to pick up early on, and you can probably skip the first rank of it.
Dispel Magic and Abolish Magic
This spell removes a harmful magical effect from an ally only.
This is an important spell for you. Other classes generally have to make decisions about what sort of spells they want to put on their bar, because they have a lot of spells to use that are meaningful. You don't. You can afford to have this on your bar nearly permanently. When someone is affected by something that is magic dispellable, their bar turns Purple. Fear, Mez, Root, Snare, are all things that can be dispelled with dispel magic. I can tell you right now, this is the most fun you will ever have in the game in a grouping situation. Be ready to dispel that fear off the healer, and be the hero. Even better if you have Magic Resistant to break yourself out of fear, only to then dispel everyone else.
TRICKS: There are some key differences between Dispel Magic and Abolish Magic. First, Dispel Magic costs significantly less than Abolish Magic. Second, Abolish Magic dispels two things for the same casting time, and sometimes your dispel will get resisted and not actually dispel the effect. But there's the big one: Dispel Magic does not require your target to be in front of you, but Abolish magic does. What this means is that if someone gets feared and runs behind you while you are casting, Dispel Magic will complete, but Abolish Magic will fail. It is for this reason I never use Abolish Magic, and only use Dispel Magic.
Summon Dagger and Summon Arrows
Summon dagger summons 20 daggers at a time. In my 800+ hours of playing an Elementalist, I have been asked for summoned daggers a single time. This spell is useless, buy it later when money is no longer a problem.
Summon Arrows summons 20 arrows at a time. Archers make 100 arrows at a time, and they do it twice as fast as you can cast this spell. I grouped with many arrow using classes while leveling to 60, and never once did anyone ever ask me to make arrows. This is a terrible, useless spell. Once again, only buy it when money is no longer a problem.
Summon Water Ring
This lets you summon a ring that gives you the ability to breathe underwater. This is very low priority to get, and you will not need it for some time. Skip it until money is no longer a problem.
Closing Words:
Hopefully you find this work useful, and you have picked up some new tricks. I will update it as new information comes out. Thank you for reading, with enough hard work, you too can one day hope to kill a red dragon.
YOU KNOW I HAVE KILLED A RED DRAGON, CAS! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! -Goner, Prince of Air, 1,287th in line for royal succession.
