My thoughts are from about 2h of trying it in a few different PvE environments with others and solo:
I like the compact UI for the energy, but it is not well telegraphed to a lot of people, and hard to track in combat due to its size. Maybe a slightly more prominent bar would help people recognise and track it.
I like the idea of the dynamic element combo field (plus the animations are fantastic), and that hammer has consistent blasts in the 5 slot, but the field itself doesn't really feel worth the entire profession mechanic. Duration feels difficult to build, and only managed to get it to feel semi-consistent using lightning storm utility and lightning hammer 4. Maybe that's fine if you want it to be more of a build-around, but the payoff does not feel worth it for a relatively small immobile field.
What I'd really like to see is GM traits that interact more directly with the field (think Scourge shade). One trait that improves AoE, maybe another that makes it cost less energy (therefore more duration), maybe one that makes it follow you but last less time? or perhaps causes energy to build to 50% out of combat. Or causes the field to drop at your new location when you switch elements. Just a few ideas.
The current trait lines that pair with Auras are nice for cross-class synergy, but feel a lot like Tempest, and the other lines that grant an all stats buff, while it may be potent, feels very... bland.
I like the hammer as a weapon, I like the slower more deliberate pace, I particularly like the jump back/leap in with air4/water4. The orb mechanic is interesting, but feels like the duration is limiting, as others have said. It doesn't feel like you can do much other than cycle through the elements hitting 3 if you want to build multiple. If it's a balance concern, I'd rather have longer duration, less damage and have it feel a bit smoother to use.
The utility skills honestly felt pretty underwhelming. Using them out of the sphere feels bad, and as previously stated, maintaining good uptime on the sphere is hard enough, let alone staying in it, in the right element, while evading attacks etc. Maybe if the Augment effects were significantly better (or were not element specific), it would be more worth the build-around. In terms of PvE, unblockable feels largely useless (I'm happy to be wrong when the expansion releases). 1/2 a second of chill per attack also doesn't feel like a real benefit when many of the hammer skills are built to be on the slower side. Maybe it's more fun with other weapons, but most of my testing was with hammer.
The elite is a bit more promising, and I can imagine being fun in builds that like to camp a specific element, of which there was not previously much support for outside of Fresh Air.
Personally I had a lot of fun with a Hammer(lightning) + lightning hammer setup using Lightning rod and glyph of storms. It felt both thematic, and as though it worked reasonably well with the traits and profession mechanic. Celestial gear also felt quite nice for the synergy with the buff, and more tanky mid-range playstyle it allows.
Overall, I'm interested to play more, but feel it needs a bit of quality-of-life improvement to feel truly compelling.
Keep up the good work! :)
