[Neraphym]

Elementalists can't exactly dish out a lot of damage, so they rely on having an ally (their summon) to do damage with them. They still don't do a lot of damage, even combined (compared to other classes at the same post count). This draws the battle on for a long time. Their advantage, though, is having a large chunck of health. This large health, combined with the fact that their elementals take all the damage from them, lets the elementalist act as a tank, so that they can survive the long, drawn out battles. If your elemental dies, you can have it replaced. When you are replacing it is the only time when you'll take damage (ecxept AoE attacks).

The problem is, now the summon gets disrupted if you take that damage. This means that when the elemental is defeated, the elementalist becomes worthless. It is left with nothing but it's horridly low strength and no offensive spells or any way to do some significant damage. It'll just end up dying slowly.

I have to say, this class is becomming more and more annoying. I really like the concept behind it, but the abilities are very lacking. An offensive spell would be very nice... also, at some point, I'd like to see an ability that would let elementalists summon 2 elementals at once. Maybe more abilities to enhance the elemental's stats. These things would be very useful. I'm just throwing some ideas out here.

[Ferret Overlord]

A- Elementalists usually (as in most games that have them make it so they have this) elemental attack spells, such as meteor shower, ice beam, etc.

B- What...the...crap. Elemenalists? LARGE AMOUNTS OF HEALTH!? ARE YOU CRAZY!?

[Neraphym]

As elementalists only use EP to summon elementals, there is no need to put any of your skill points in Intelligence. You only do 2 DP per Strength point, so putting it there is also useless. The only thing left is Health, and my Health is really getting up there. If elementalists had some kind of offensive spell, then EP might actually get used.

[Cspace]

As I think was mentioned previously, there will be affinity-related items that will be of use to elementalists. These items would provide equippable abilities (persistant and/or castable), and they could assist where an elementalist is weak. An elementalist shouldn't be capable of freely summoning elementals during battle, because that would make him/her basically invincible. However, I will guarantee that there will be multiple affinity items to make it possible at other costs to assist in the concentration required to summon an entity. Two likely possibilities are a flat time cost increase or an EC increase when summoning during battle.

The affinity required for these necessary abilities will balance HP more than it is currently, and some items will require intelligence to use as well.

[Neraphym]

I must have missed what you said about affinity. That does sound promising. Sorry for missing that. If I can't find it, I may have to ask you for a link.

Edit: found it

An elementalist is in effect a tanking spellcaster. The companion would do damage to the target while the elementalist is likely to be the one being attacked (unless the elementalist does nothing and lets the elemental take all the damage). Therefore once spellcasting abilities are sufficient, HP would be a natural focus. However, Elementalists are unique in an advantage with affinity. While an elementalist is commanding an elemental, he or she will be able to use the abilities within certain affinity-related items. There are also going to be some locations that require sufficient affinity to reach. While the uses for affinity are not really apparent now, there will be items in not too long a time that will require it to use. These affinity items can make the elementalist more versatile in and out of battle.