My two cents after playing 1000 hours of Elementalist and both elite specs over the last 6 years:
Elementalist is a very squishy, relatively hard to learn (with all the elements and such) and support reliant class.
If you want to deal damage you die if someone looks at you weird. If you want to be tanky your damage suffers greatly.
And playing support feels weak. Theres better options.
Tempest (Mid to close range): While being aimed as a support class it feels outmatched with others like druid or chronomancer.
Not quite enough boon giving skills to be effective on their own. Decent with a team.
Weaver (All ranges, Melee most effective): Very complex rotation of elements, High Risk, High Reward. If you can catch something off-guard it dies. If it notices you halfway through your combo and sneezes in your general direction... You die. Also most fun I had playing elementalist when I WASN'T dead lol.
Now, seeing just ANOTHER melee oriented DPS (taken from the press post earlier in this topic) elite spec is breaking my heart.
It seemed full of potential. Slinging orbs like Lacrosse or playing tricks with the ball like a Kendama, which honestly would've been culturally apropriate with the asian theme of Cantha. Give us either ranged hammer or more survivability in melee.