So as most of Char Op agrees, the Elementalist is resoundly underwhelming. If you are one of the few that like it, that's great for you, but from a char op standpoint I think it is significantly underpowered. The absence of Dailies, better encounters, and utilities just completely makes it obsolete in my eyes for any type of combat that you'd like to stay relevant at and do your job as a striker.
There's a wonderful homebrew forum that would be a more adequate arena in which to field this particular concern.
Okay, I'll take a swing at it. Everything about the Elementalist is as written, with revisions and new content below. Important edits of existing features in bold:
ELEMENTAL MAGIC Elemental Versatility: At 3rd level, you gain an additional sorcerer at-will attack power of your choice.
ELEMENTAL SPECIALTY Benefit: Choose an elemental specialty. You gain the benefits of that specialty.
Air Elementalist Benefit: You gain the following features. Favored Element: When you use a sorcerer at-will power and boost it with elemental escalation (air), or when you use a sorcerer at-will power while in the elemental evolution (air) stance, that power gains the following effect: Until the end of your next turn, the target takes a -2 penalty to his next attack roll.
Earth Elementalist Benefit: You gain the following features. Favored Element: When you use a sorcerer at-will power and boost it with elemental escalation (earth), or when you use a sorcerer at-will power while in the elemental evolution (earth) stance, that power gains the following effect: You may push the target 1 square.
Fire Elementalist Benefit: You gain the following features. Favored Element: When you use a sorcerer at-will power and boost it with elemental escalation (fire), or when you use a sorcerer at-will power while in the elemental evolution (fire) stance, that power gains the following effect: Until the end of your next turn, The target takes a -2 penalty to Fortitude defense.
Water Elementalist Benefit: You gain the following features. Favored Element: When you use a sorcerer at-will power and boost it with elemental escalation (water), or when you use a sorcerer at-will power while in the elemental evolution (water) stance, that power gains the following effect: You may shift up to 2 squares as a free action.
ESCALATING ELEMENTS Benefit: You gain the elemental escalation power for each elemental specialty: air, earth, fire, and water. You may only use elemental escalation once per encounter, but may choose whichelement with each usage. At 3rd, 7th and 13th level, you gain an additional use of the power each encounter, but you can still use the power only once per round.
(N.B: The rest of the elemental escalation power is as written, except for the extra damage which is now typed, and the upgrades it now receives at 13th and 23rd level instead of 17th and 27th.)
EVOLVING ELEMENTS Benefit: You gain the elemental evolution power for each elemental specialty: air, earth, fire, and water. You may only use elemental evolution once per day, but may choose which element with each usage. At 5th and 9th level, you gain an additional use of the power each day, but you can still use the power only once per round.
Elemental Evolution (Air) Sorcerer Attack Avatar state, yip yip! Daily + Arcane, Aura, Elemental Minor Action Personal Effect: You evolve into a creature of air until the end of your next turn. While you are a creature of air you gain the following benefits: -You gain a fly speed of 2, and you may hover. -Your elemental bolt power may be used as a melee basic attack with a range equal to your reach. -You activate an aura 1 that lasts until the start of your next turn. Any creature that starts its turn in the aura takes damage equal to your Spell Source and slides 2 squares. Sustain Minor: Your DM may slide you 2 squares. The effect persists until the end of your next turn.
Elemental Evolution (Earth) Sorcerer Attack Are you ready to rock? Daily + Arcane, Aura, Elemental Minor Action Personal Effect: You evolve into a creature of earth until the end of your next turn. While you are a creature of earth you gain a burrow speed of 2. In addition, your elemental bolt power may be used as a melee basic attack with a range equal to your reach.You also activate an aura 1 that lasts until the start of your next turn. Any creature that starts its turn in the aura takes damage equal to your Spell Source and is knocked prone. Sustain Minor: You are slowed until the end of your next turn. The effect persists until the end of your next turn.
Elemental Evolution (Fire) Sorcerer Attack Is something burning? Heh, now it is. Daily + Arcane, Aura, Elemental, Fire Minor Action Personal Effect: You evolve into a creature of fire until the end of your next turn. While you are a creature of fire you may shift 2 as a move action. In addition, your elemental bolt power may be used as a melee basic attack.You also activate an aura 1 that lasts until the start of your next turn. Any creature that starts its turn in the aura takes fire damage equal to your Spell Source and grants combat advantage. Sustain Minor: You take fire damage equal to your Spell Source. This damage cannot be reduced or prevented in any way. The effect persists until the end of your next turn.
Elemental Evolution (Water) Sorcerer Attack Just go with the flow... Daily + Arcane, Aura, Elemental Minor Action Personal Effect: You evolve into a creature of water until the end of your next turn. While you are a creature of water you gain a swim speed equal to your speed, and may shift 2 as a move action. In addition, your elemental bolt power may be used as a melee basic attack.You also activate an aura 1 that lasts until the start of your next turn. Any creature that starts its turn in the aura takes damage equal to your Spell Source and -2 penalty to its next attack roll. Sustain Minor: The next melee attack that hits you will also push you 1 square. The effect persists until the end of your next turn.
Elemental Expansion Prerequisite: sorcerer, Elemental Magic class feature Benefit: Before using a sorcerer at-will attack power, you can choose to take damage equal to 3 + your level to increase the size of its blast or its burst by 1. The damage cannot be reduced or prevented in any way.
Elemental Elongation Prerequisite: sorcerer, Elemental Magic class feature Benefit: Before using a sorcerer at-will attack power, you can choose to be slowed until the end of your next turn to have the burst or blast create a zone until the end of your next turn. Any creature that enters the zone or ends its turn there takes damage equal to your Constitution modifier. A creature can take this damage only once per turn.
Elemental Extension Prerequisite: 11th level, sorcerer, Elemental Magic class feature Benefit: Before using a sorcerer at-will attack power, you can choose to be immobilized until the end of your next turn to change the power into an area wall 6 within 10 squares if it is an area attack, and an area wall 6 within 3 squares if it is a close attack.
Elemental Spellfury Prerequisite: 11th level, sorcerer, Elemental Magic class feature Benefit: Whenever you deal damage with a sorcerer at-will attack power that deals a specific damage type, your arcane powers ignore all target's resistances to that damage type until the end of your next turn.
EDIT: Fixed wall of text. OMG, wizards forums. You make me cry.
As much as I am a fan of ruining things, that's not exactly the intent behind the houserule. Perhaps a more detailed critique of my ruination is in order.
The problem that did not guide any decision-making is:
1. Elementalists don't have enough DPR.
I don't think they have a problem in this area. You want DPR, you take your 1d12 RBA and go to town. Everybody knows how to do this. If the absolute maximized optimum you get spamming E.bolt is less than the ranger or more than the warlock or less than the rogue, I will lose no sleep at night. Regular DnD players don't recognize such distinctions.
The problems that did guide my decision-making are twofold:
1. Elementalists straight out of the book are boring, boring, boring snooze fests with no interesting choices presented to them during a fight. 2. No Resist piercing.
Giving every elementalist the option to upgrade their powers with any escalation power handles both in one fell swoop. The bog-standard 'I champion one element and despise the rest' fluff is lame. There are plenty of classes that can make a one trick pony. Elementalists are about the elementsss... All of them. They should handle resistance issues by attacking with a different element.
Now it may be harder/more dangerous for them to do so. That's why the easy, optimizable stuff (elemental bolt) is locked into their specialty. I just made it more feasible/attractive to dip into the other at-wills or mix and match toppings.
Toppings incidentally are the hidden theme behind the elementalist, and thing that makes them exciting during play. Sliding a bunch of dudes 1 square at-will is not exciting. Popping an escalation to deal more damage AND slide them 1 square AND give them a -2 to their next attack AND fly out of the way so the defender can waltz into their clump with relative impunity is far more interesting.
None of the effects in the powers and features above are very useful by themselves. It's the way the elementalist knits them together into one power that makes it an interesting class.
But I am interested in what you have to say, Eisenritter. I'm new at this houserule thing and not at all sure I wrote everything in a coherent/legible fashion.
F-111 Interdictor Long (200+ squares) distance ally teleporter. With some warlord stuff. Broken in a plot way, not a power way. Thought Switch Higher level build that grants upto 14 attacks on turn 1. If your allies play along, it's broken. Elven Critters Crit op with crit generation. 5 of these will end anything. Broken. King Fisher Does an excellent job at keeping an enemy disabled in a few ways. Strong. Boominator Fun catch-22 booming blade build with either strong or completely broken damage depending on your reading. Very Distracting Warlock Lot's of dazing and major penalties to hit. Overpowered. Pocket Protector Pixie Stealth Knight. Maximizing the defender's aura by being in an ally's/enemy's square. Yakuza NinjIntimiAdin: Perma-stealth Striker that offers a little protection for ally's, and can intimidate bloodied enemies. Very Strong. Chargeburgler with cheese Ranged attacks at the end of a charge along with perma-stealth. Solid, could be overpowered if tweaked. Void Defender Defends giving a penalty to hit anyone but him, then removing himself from play. Can get somewhat broken in epic. Scry and Die Attacking from around corners, while staying hidden. Moderate to broken, depending on the situation. Skimisher Fly in, attack, and fly away. Also prevents enemies from coming close. Moderate to Broken depending on the enemy, but shouldn't make the game un-fun, as the rest of your team is at risk, and you have enough weaknesses. Indestructible Simply won't die, even if you sleep though combat. Sir Robin (Bravely Charge Away) He automatically slows and pushes an enemy (5 squares), while charging away. Hard to rate it's power level, since it's terrain dependent. Death's Gatekeeper A fun twist on a healic, making your party "unkillable". Overpowered to Broken, but shouldn't actually make the game un-fun, just TPK proof. Death's Gatekeeper mk2, (Stealth Edition) Make your party "unkillable", and you hidden, while doing solid damage. Stronger then the above, but also easier for a DM to shut down. Broken, until your DM get's enough of it. Domination and Death Dominate everything then kill them quickly. Only works @ 30, but is broken multiple ways. Battlemind Mc Prone-Daze Protecting your allies by keeping enemies away. Quite powerful. The Retaliator Getting hit deals more damage to the enemy then you receive yourself, and you can take plenty of hits. Heavy item dependency, Broken. Dead Kobold Transit Teleports 98 squares a turn, and can bring someone along for the ride. Not fully built, so i can't judge the power Psilent Guardian Protect your allies, while being invisible. Overpowered, possibly broken Unnamed Avenger|Runepriest/Hammer of Vengance Do lot's of damage while boosting your teams. Strong to slightly overpowered. Charedent BarrageA charging ardent. Fine in a normal team, overpowered if there are 2 together, and easily broken in teams of 5. Super Knight A tough, sticky, high damage knight. Strong. Super Duper Knight Basically the same as super knight, only far more broken. Mora, the unkillable avenger Solid damage, while being neigh indestuctable. Overpowered, but not broken. Swordburst Maximus At-Will Close Burst 3 that slide and prones. Protects allies with off actions. Strong, possibly over powered with the right party.
Not always. Not all classes in 4e are designed to hit the same level of complexity. They're all supposed to hit a minimum benchmark of effectiveness, but the reason you have a Weaponmaster and a Slayer is because some people like the fiddly bits and some people don't.
The design goal behind the Elementalist was to make a ranged spellcaster as simple as the Slayer. So obfuscating the class in the name of making them interesting invalidates the entire point of their existence.
Now, that doesn't mean it isn't fair to 1) give them resistance piercing and 2) give them dailies. But the dailies should be in the format used for the Acadamy Master paragon path's daily. Namely, "Use an arcane at-will attack power you know and add X damage dice and effect Y to it."
That way, if you're drawn to the elementalist, your choices are still simple - what at-will am I using, and do I want to make it a big hit, a bigger hit, or the biggest hit I can make it - but you've got a little more going on.
I was honestly not expecting that. The one answer that makes a good deal of sense. Well then.
Consider my perspective thoroughly realigned. At this point I could stick to my guns and say I like my version of a more complicated power-bending elementalist, but I'm interested in exploring the potential of a ranged spellcasting slayer.
Will revise in a bit with a new direction for the houserule.
