Draw Steel Elementalist Guide

Introduction

The Elementalist manipulates the primal elements of the Timescape, and chooses one of those elements to specialize in that will shape many of the features they gain.

For each choice I've assigned a star rating based on how powerful I think the option is and how often it will be useful, as well as a short explanation.

Base Features

The heroic resource Essence fuels the Elementalist's abilities. The amount of this heroic resource you can gain is pretty limited compared to other classes, 3 per round at level 1 and only ever reaching 6 per round at level 10. This makes it quite hard to use your strongest abilities consistently.

To make up for this the Elementalist has Persistent abilities, which can be repeated on future turns for a reduced cost as long as you maintain them. Abilities without a Persistent option are generally less desirable because of how slow it is to regain Essence.

Your Practical Magic maneuver lets you gain your bonus Essence easily if you need it for your main action and is a great way to take advantage of a variety of damage weaknesses. The teleportation option can be quite useful to remove the prone, grabbed, and restrained conditions from yourself, or as a pseudo disengage.

The Hurl Element ability is mostly there to make sure you have a free strike option in case you are granted one, but can still be used well against a damage weakness you can't otherwise hit.

Enchantment

Enchantment of Battle ★★☆☆☆ Worse than the Enchantment of Permanence unless you really want a light armor/weapon treasure, and if that happens you can switch later. Technically your director could say that you can't Imbue Armor unless you take this enchantment, but considering imbuing clothing is an option I consider this a silly ruling.

Enchantment of Celerity ★★★☆☆ Mobility isn't normally very important for ranged characters, but the Green specialization has the Great Cat maneuver that requires them to get into melee, and can then try to kite away again if they have enough movement.

Enchantment of Destruction ★★★☆☆ +1 damage is such a small bonus that it's hard to say it ever makes a significant difference. It's better for the aoe abilities you have access to, but you might choose to lean into single target abilities instead.

Enchantment of Distance ★★★☆☆ Your ranged abilities are 10 range anyway, so a +2 bonus isn't much better. It's easier to keep your Persistent abilities going the further away you are and you could stack this with the 1st level Void feature but in some combats, you'll struggle to create this much distance anyway.

Enchantment of Permanence ★★★★☆ This is a lot of stamina at level 1 and can make the difference between dying immediately or getting to your turn to spend your recoveries at every level. The Earth specialization already gets a good amount of survivability and stability so could consider taking something else once they reach level 2.

Ward

Ward of Delightful Consequences ★★★☆☆ Free surge generation is fine, but +2 damage a round isn't much and you don't have many abilities that can use them to increase potency.

Ward of Excellent Protection ★★★★☆ Immunity can help keep your Persistent abilities running, and this gives several different kinds so is useful quite often.

Ward of Nature's Affection ★★★☆☆ This will usually be worse than Ward of Surprising Reactivity but can be used for the same reasons. Once the range gets farther at later levels it can hit things that Surprising Reactivity wouldn't, especially larger enemies that have a melee range farther than 1.

Ward of Surprising Reactivity ★★★★☆ Being able to push enemies so far away helps you stay at a safe range or can add a lot of damage against groups. Some enemies might have their plans ruined by dealing damage to you as part of one of their actions and then being pushed too far away to use their other abilities.

Ancestries

I'm not going to run through every Ancestry you can take, just point out any that are interesting for the Elementalist for a specific reason.

There are so many viable ways to build your character that it's hard to give an objective star rating to these options, so most of these get a high rating for being any good at all.

Devil ★★★★☆ Wings can be useful for avoiding enemy attacks to keep your Persistent abilities going. Depending on your Specialization your triggered action might not be consistently useful, so "Glowing Eyes" helps and even triggers your bonus Essence gain.

Dragon Knight ★★★★☆ Similar to the devil they can have a triggered action and Wings. The triggered action isn't very good at reducing damage, but it can make the difference in maintaining your Persistent abilities. The damage immunity they get overlaps with the "Ward of Excellent Protection" but can also help with Persistent abilities.

Revenant ★★★★☆ 2nd level Fire Elementalists gain enough fire immunity to offset the fire weakness and more, giving them most of the immunities from "Ward of Excellent Protection" but better.

Time Raider ★★★★☆ Psychic is one of the few immunities you can't get from "Ward of Excellent Protection", so it can be fun to add another into the mix. Dazed immunity is the main other thing worth taking as a purchased trait here.

Elemental Specialization

Each Specialization changes which triggered action you have and gives a variety of features at levels 1 through 5, as well as at 8th and 10th level. It does not determine which heroic abilities you can choose, but some Specialization features will encourage taking abilities with certain descriptors.

The 1st to 5th level features will generally be considered more important when determining the overall rating, while some of the 10th level features can break the game in fundamental ways and shouldn't really be considered.

Earth

Triggered Action - Skin Like Castle Walls ★★★★★ Halving damage is a nice effect which can be applied to whoever most needs it in a round, and preventing a potency from working is a good use of your limited Essence. Great if it can help keep your Persistent ability going.

1st Level Feature - Acolyte of Earth ★★★★☆ Your triggered action has these keywords, and using any earth action in addition makes this feature at least +2 stability most of the time. As a ranged character this might not be as useful, but there will always be abilities that this can help you resist.

1st Level Feature - Motivate Earth ★★★★☆ This is a decently sized wall to create on command and being able to break into or seal certain structures is a useful ability.

2nd Level Feature - Disciple of Earth ★★★★☆ The extra stamina isn't a game changer, but it will always be a welcome addition.

3rd Level Feature - Earth Accepts Me ★★★☆☆ Being invisible and untargetable while still being able to move and sense your surroundings is a really strong spying or scouting tool as long as you have an appropriate place to fit into. As an action it's hard to make use of in combat, and you don't have any way to bring your friends along for an ambush.

Mantle of Essence - Quaking Earth ★★☆☆☆ Against a crowd of minions this can do some work pushing them all into each other, but it likely won't kill many of them and leave you vulnerable to retaliation. 

5th Level Feature - The Mountain Does Not Move ★★★★☆ This and Acolyte of Earth gives you plenty of stability for any forced movement that can be resisted, or can save your team from important effects too.

8th Level Feature - Summon Source of Earth ★★★★★ The attack the Source makes is a fine use of your action, and melding into it gives a 45 stamina overshield. By this level the Source will likely die quickly, but in some situations, you can use it to easily maintain your Persistent ability to future rounds.

10th Level Feature - Master of Earth ★★★★☆ Permanent global damage immunity works together with your other features to give you a lot of durability. The "Ward of Excellent Protection" can already give you several kinds of damage immunity, so this won't always be as strong as it seems. Gaining access to godlike power as a respite activity is pretty neat.

Overall ★★★★★ Making use of Persistent abilities is important to make up for the Elementalist's poor Essence generation, and this specialization is best at helping you maintain them. Even without focusing on earth abilities for the extra stability, this makes any build stronger just with the added survivability.

Fire

Triggered Action - Explosive Assistance ★★★☆☆ At early levels this isn't a significant improvement. It can consistently deal a bit of extra damage and in some situations, you can throw a melee enemy far enough away to annoy them.

1st Level Feature - Acolyte of Fire ★★☆☆☆ It's unlikely that you'll want to only take fire abilities, as versatility is generally helpful, and even if you do +1 damage won't make a difference to most combats.

1st Level Feature - Return to Formlessness ★★★☆☆ Destroying mundane objects can help achieve certain objectives, destroy enemy fortifications, and generally be used inventively.

2nd Level Feature - Disciple of Fire ★★★★★ This is a lot of fire immunity, being guaranteed to deal the full amount of fire damage is convenient, and the easy surges can be used for potency increases.

3rd Level Feature - A Conversation With Fire ★★☆☆☆ I can't imagine many situations where consulting with an NPC from a distance is an important mechanic, but it is very convenient to be able to talk to them, or even other party members whenever necessary. Good roleplay ability.

Mantle of Essence - Burning Grounds ★★☆☆☆ It isn't really worth putting yourself in danger for such a small amount of damage, unless you can take advantage of fire weakness.

5th Level Feature - Smoldering Step ★★☆☆☆ I don't think it's very likely to have humanoid sized fires lying around for you to teleport between, and the extra fire damage isn't anywhere near enough to reward using your ranged abilities in melee.

8th Level Feature - The Flame Primordial ★★★★☆ This is a fine increase to your damage output, especially for fire area abilities or with "The Flesh, a Crucible" being a cheap Persistent fire damage source. It also makes your Mantle and your Smoldering Step reliably useful against minion groups. Ideally enemies won't be starting their turn next to you, but the fire weakness can add up to a lot of damage if you can fully take advantage of it.
When you use your "Return to Formlessness" as a free triggered action it will trigger your Smoldering Step which with the extra 1d6 is a decent damage increase. Technically you could argue that if you target multiple objects with an aoe then this will trigger on every use of Return to Formlessness, but this would be far too much damage so should probably be limited to once a turn.

10th Level Feature - Master of Fire ★★★★★ The damage increase is decent, but more importantly being able to consume spare supernatural objects for Breath solves the Elementalist's Essence problems permanently.
With followers you should be able to finish the 1st echelon Craft Treasure project every respite or so to create 1d6+1 Snapdragons. This converts into an average of 13.5 Essence gained for free per respite, which totally belittles the entire game design philosophy of having to manage your heroic resource.

Overall ★★★☆☆ The obvious choice for what people imagine an Elementalist to be, but it mostly only has the 2nd level feature going for it over the other specializations.

Green

Triggered Action - Breath of Dawn Remembered ★★☆☆☆ As a way to spend recoveries this is very action efficient, letting you act effectively as a healer if your team needs one. The big problem is it doesn't add a way to win a fight more efficiently and it's not a great idea to spend your limited Essence generation on recoveries.

1st Level Feature - Acolyte of the Green ★★☆☆☆ The temporary stamina is a tiny amount and requires you to spend Essence on the ability, so really won't happen often enough to be worth it.

1st Level Feature - It Is the Soul Which Hears ★★★☆☆ Can be used for gathering information, depending on what kind of campaign you're in.

2nd Level Feature - Disciple of the Green ★★★★☆ Nice to get some temporary stamina as a maneuver, but most of the features aren't great as free strike is still a weak main action. Notably the Great Cat has an amazingly efficient maneuver to knock a creature prone and free strike them, or any flying form can keep you safe from melee enemies.

3rd Level Feature - Remember Growth and Sun and Rain ★★★☆☆ If you're playing a campaign where there's some investigating going on, this can get you a lot of information.

Mantle of Essence - Flowering Bed ★★☆☆☆ The temporary stamina generation is quite low; it would be much better to do something useful with the banked Essence. Once you get the Mantle upgrade at level 7 it's okay just by being free and automatic.

5th Level Feature - Hide of Tenfold Shields ★★★☆☆ A little extra temp stamina keeps Disciple of the Green relevant until you can get King Terror Lizard at 10th level.

8th Level Feature - Chimeric Manifestation ★★★★☆ You can now turn off your animal form for free and reactivate it on the same turn for a significant amount of temporary stamina every round. Combining animal forms is mostly useful to take a high temporary stamina form with a utility option like flying or fire immunity.

10th Level Feature - Master of Green ★★★★★ The increase in number of recoveries available is a small benefit compared to the new respite activity. The closest parallel consumable to the Life Fruit is the 3rd echelon Wellness Tonic, which only heals conditions. If you take a few respite activities producing Life Fruit, you'll soon have more stamina recovery than is possibly reasonable to balance encounters around.

Overall ★★★☆☆ Your temporary stamina production ramps up at 5th and then 8th level, but until then the best thing the specialization gets is the Great Cat's special maneuver.

Void

Triggered Action - Subtle Relocation ★★★★☆ Like "Practical Magic" the teleport can be used to remove conditions or disengage, but as a triggered action and for allies as well. Based on developer gameplay this can also cancel forced movement which is great to prevent damage and tactically position your team.

1st Level Feature - Acolyte of the Mystery ★★☆☆☆ Bumping range up to 12 isn't very impactful and this only does it for your void abilities.

1st Level Feature - A Beyonding of Vision ★★★☆☆ These benefits are quite situational, but there are a lot of them and are useful when they occur. Shared Void Sense is harder to share than advertised.

2nd Level Feature - There Is No Space Between ★★★★☆ Being able to so easily teleport your team around can totally warp how adventures play out. Can bypass impassable terrain, and the 10 squares can be vertical movement to climb terrain, structures, etc.
In combat certain objectives become much easier with this much mobility, and you can easily create distance between you and the enemy should you need it.

3rd Level Feature - Distance Is Only Memory ★★★★☆ Being able to teleport anywhere you've ever been before is an awesome benefit, including places such as the evil warlord's audience chamber, the dungeon at the top of a mountain/bottom of the sea, or even other planes of existence. I'm quite fond of this feature because of how significantly an hour worth of portal technology a day would shatter real life conventions of international trade and warfare.

Mantle of Essence - Veiling Bed ★★★★☆ Having on demand concealment lets you use the hide maneuver, which if it works can help keep Persistent abilities active. A bane on incoming strikes is an okay benefit to keep active anyway.

5th Level Feature - Pierce the Veil of Substance ★★★★☆ Being able to shoot through barriers can give a lot of tactical superiority over your enemies. Going through walls lets you use "There Is No Space Between" to teleport into even more places. There are already enough teleport options in your kit but adding extra to every void ability is a fine benefit.

8th Level Feature - Black Hole Star ★★★★☆ The free vertical pull is mostly only useful for hitting enemies into each other by this level, which is a fine increase in damage to get for free. Stripping enemies of their stability is an amazing benefit that you have very few ways to make use of, but it does work well with the "Ward of Surprising Reactivity", and your allies will appreciate it.

10th Level Feature - Master of Void ★★★☆☆ The void specialization already teleports on demand so much that adding more is barely a benefit. Applying infinite progress to research projects is interesting, but research projects are generally plot related so not strictly time limited, and it's unlikely this will save you many project points this late in a campaign.

Overall ★★★★☆ The 1st level benefits aren't great apart from the triggered action, but after that this specialization is the most consistent at getting interesting features, and being able to hide within your Mantle of Essence is a great way to try keep your Persistent abilities active.

Ability Choices

The 5, 9, and 11 Essence abilities you gain two of and come in two "batches", where the second batch comes a level later and can be replaced with an ability from the previous batch. I'll keep the two batches under separate headings for clarity.

Signature Abilities

Afflict a Bountiful Decay ★★★★★ On demand condition removal is very useful to have on standby and is well worth the slightly below rate damage.

Bifurcated Incineration ★★★☆☆ Your other aoe options are usually more effective than this, but you can use it to get the "Acolyte of Fire" and "Enchantment of Destruction" benefits on two targets easily.

Grasp of Beyond ★★★☆☆ For a Green Elementalist it's nice to have a melee ability for when you're using Great Cat to jump on people. For everyone else you generally shouldn't need a melee ability as you can just disengage or teleport. In any case "Meteoric Introduction" does the same job but better.

The Green Within, the Green Without ★★★☆☆ This is similar to "Viscous Fire" but requires there to be a second target and has the added downside of splitting your damage output.

Meteoric Introduction ★★★★☆ The push can add some extra damage and get you back out of melee, but most Elementalists should be trying to keep at range, and "Viscous Fire" does mostly the same damage. It is the best melee ability for Green Great Cat builds, and the best earth ability for Earth stability builds.

Ray of Agonizing Self-Reflection ★★★★☆ The Elementalist doesn't get many condition applying abilities, and this is an okay condition to help maintain range. In certain situations, it will easily be the best signature ability to fill in time.

Unquiet Ground ★★★☆☆ Making use of small area abilities like this can be tricky, and you have other options from your heroic abilities. The difficult terrain isn't very relevant either, but it is the most consistently useful earth ability for the Earth specialization.

Viscous Fire ★★★★☆ Can help build distance from enemies, and great damage if you can push them into something. A solid default choice if you don't need something more specific.

3-Essence Ability

Behold the Mystery ★★★☆☆ Because of how slowly the Elementalist gains Essence there's going to be a reasonable number of times that this is the only area ability you can use when you need one. But this isn't great damage, and most of the good 5 Essence abilities are aoe options so you should probably take a good single target option here instead.

The Flesh, a Crucible ★★★★☆ This needs to get an extra activation to make it worthwhile but once it does, you're getting a lot of damage for 3 Essence. If you can manage to keep this going long term, then all of your turns will be quite strong while still gaining a decent amount of Essence.

Invigorating Growth ★★★★★ Can generate a ton of surges with all the ways characters can deal damage multiple times a turn and will waste the action of an enemy in order to clear the effect. The action wasting effect isn't very useful while there are still smaller enemies around so isn't for every situation. This ability has a really high maximum value for very little Essence.

Ripples in the Earth ★★☆☆☆ Normally you won't want to be close to enough enemies to get use out of this, and for the Earth specialization there's "Unquiet Ground" you could take as a reasonable aoe earth ability anyway.

5-Essence Ability

Conflagration ★★★★☆ This deals a good amount of area damage, especially for Fire Elementalists. Maintaining it basically nullifies your Essence generation at early levels, so should usually be stopped once the combat is down to a single target.

Instantaneous Excavation ★★★★☆ As long as you're fighting size 1 creatures this is a really efficient maneuver, dealing up to 16 damage, the prone condition, and making any creatures that can't climb or teleport have to spend 8 movement getting out. The Persistent ability can make a non-mobile enemy significantly less effective for as long as you can maintain it.

No More Than a Breeze ★★☆☆☆ This is a rather poor buff to spend your Essence on in combat. Even out of combat this only sends a single ally through a wall you might want to sneak through, and only for a limited time.

Test of Rain ★★★★☆ In an ideal scenario you can use this as an area ability that also removes multiple conditions from your team, but it's hard to actually make use of its full effect. "Afflict a Bountiful Decay" could be used for self-condition removal instead, and "Conflagration" has the Persistent feature which can be quite important, but it's a fine ability for some situations because of combining the two.

5-Essence Ability (2)

O Flower Aid, O Earth Defend ★★☆☆☆ Being a maneuver is an okay benefit but overall, this ability is too awkward to make use of. The damage is very low, and the difficult terrain won't matter very often.
Being able to spend any number of recoveries is a good healing ability, but it doesn't happen until your next turn, and your team can be knocked out of the area in the meantime, so you really don't want to rely on this for your healing.

Subvert the Green Within ★★★★★ The best single target damage you can get out of an ability if you don't want to wait for Persistent effects, which even scales with how strong the enemies get.

Translated Through Flame ★★★★☆ Teleporting a melee character into the enemy backline can be a good tactic, and having a long-range teleport can be useful out of combat or for achieving certain combat objectives. Another area ability to compete with all of the 5 Essence options, I'd only really take it over "Conflagration" with multiple melee focused allies.

Volcano's Embrace ★★★★☆ The Elementalist doesn't have many ways to apply conditions to enemies, so taking the option here can be nice. There are a couple of ways to put enemies in large holes which can be similar to the restrained condition, so this ability isn't super important.

7-Essence Ability

Erase ★★★☆☆ Each target you hit with this ends up with a 25% chance of being erased which means if you're a little lucky then a tier 3 will remove an average of one enemy from the encounter after 2 rounds. Most of the time it's better to use your Essence on a Persistent ability or to take out a group of minions instead, but in an encounter only composed of 3-5 elite enemies this can have its place.

Maw of Earth ★★★★☆ It's a neat upgrade to an area ability to drop them in a pit and potentially drop them prone. Even against single targets, as long as they have low agility this is decent damage, makes them prone, and you can gain high ground benefits while they're stuck in the pit.

Swarm of Spirits ★★☆☆☆ There are better area options out there, plus being low range is bad for you in general and makes the Persistent less likely to continue. Being more likely to resist potencies is nice.

Wall of Fire ★★★☆☆ This is a lot of Essence to spend on relatively low up-front value. The best use of the ability is with forced movement, but this isn't a significant improvement over just hitting enemies into things until you get at least 2 more Reason.

9-Essence Ability

Combustion Deferred ★★☆☆☆ Too much Essence to spend on a kind of average amount of damage, and the weird fire spread effect is going to be hard to pull off for not much benefit.

Storm of Sands ★☆☆☆☆ The minor benefits don't make up for the terrible Essence to damage value at all, one of the 5 Essence area abilities will be substantially better.

Subverted Perception of Space ★★★☆☆ For long range enemies this can be a totally debilitating effect, but for such a huge Essence investment you're looking for more than this, and it's not that great if you don't get a tier 3 result.

Web of All That's Come Before ★★☆☆☆ Similar to "Storm of Sands" this is far too little damage, but at least the restrained condition can be relevant to melee enemies. The Persistent effect also isn't very good to set up.

9-Essence Ability (2)

Luminous Champion Aloft ★★☆☆☆ Being able to fly makes it easier to maintain Persistent abilities and this also technically helps with the Elementalist's limited Essence generation. The problem is the huge down payment that must be made for an ability that will take so long to provide value to the combat.

Magma Titan ★★★☆☆ Fire immunity can help some combats, or the ability could add a reasonable amount of damage to a forced movement focused ally. It's a good value over time option as long as you're sure you can maintain it, but by the time you get this much Essence, an immediately strong ability will be more impactful to the combat.

Meteor ★★★★☆ A very large area with good damage, and improves if there's some elevation change on the battle map. It's problematic getting enough Essence in time, but this is a really impactful ability to use early in combat if you can manage it. It's also a fun ability to use late in combat if you've been digging holes with your other abilities.

The Wode Remembers and Returns ★☆☆☆☆ This is a lot of difficult terrain with some okay extra benefits. By this level enemies aren't as likely to care about difficult terrain, and this is way too expensive for what it does.

11-Essence Ability

Heart of the Wode ★★★☆☆ The tree is an interesting "battery" to use to make sure your team stays topped up on stamina and to remove some conditions. The restrained condition helps against enemies who are forced to close into melee with you around the tree, but the best case is to use the massive size 5 tree as an area denial tool that will prevent enemies from even targeting you.
The size can be a problem to place on crowded battlefields, and the Essence cost means this will have to have a huge impact to be worth using, which has a chance of happening in long combats.

Muse of Fire ★★★★☆ Has a similar damage and area to "Meteor" but can take away the directors Malice. Taking away Malice can make a combat safer, but this isn't enough of a benefit over Meteor to be strictly worth the extra Essence, and you don't need to take both.

Return to Oblivion ★★★★☆ The pulling ability is pretty minor, and enemies will be trying to move far out of the area. You can still make good use of it by placing it late in the round on an already winded elite, and your team can use forced movement to move another winded enemy into the vortex on each subsequent round.

World Torn Asunder ★★☆☆☆ The 10 x 2 line isn't as strong an area as it seems because it will only affect prone targets, which this ability only applies to targets within the 5 burst. Might makes creatures less likely to fall prone while Agility will reduce damage from the fall, and most creatures will be strong in at least one of these stats. It's a huge fissure to trap enemies in which is the main benefit, as it won't be great damage for how much Essence it costs.

11-Essence Ability (2)

Earth Rejects You ★☆☆☆☆ This ability is just too basic to spend 11 Essence on. The main benefit over other area abilities is that it is Persistent, but "Conflagration" does almost the same damage for half the cost, which also makes it far easier to start getting Persistent value out of.

The Green Defends Its Servants ★★☆☆☆ Other area abilities can do better damage quite easily, and the temporary stamina will be taken out rather quickly, but it's kind of okay to have them bundled together as a maneuver.

Prism ★★★★☆ If you took a single target 3 Essence ability this becomes the most efficient single target damage you can achieve. Using three low-cost abilities at once will deal significantly more damage than a comparable high-cost ability would, taking advantage of any bonus to rolled damage and any damage weakness multiple times in a turn. 

Unquenchable Fire ★★★☆☆ Other classes get far more efficient ways to apply the dazed condition, but this is the only one the Elementalist has access to. For solo monsters it's normally better to try set up a Persistent ability and/or use one of the single target 3/5 Essence abilities for better Essence efficiency.