Having had time to think about the changes, it's actually sad how bad Elementalist is. I'd argue that with the upcoming ascendancy revamp Elementalist is even worse compared to the other ascendancies than it is right now, which is really damn weird. They're trying very hard to make multiple ele-damage builds work on Elementalist, but then you have a few nodes that actually make it impossible to play that sort of playstyle. Taking the herald node locks you out of using EE while having the same benefit you had before. Previously most elementalist builds were cold/fire anyway and you easily procced the -pen with flamedash/lightning warp, while you now have to reserve mana which compromises defenses. You also cannot use the old reflect-node on purpose anymore with 90% reflect damage reduction to keep up the bonuses it provided, and you barely get any decent amount of damage out of the ascendancy itself. Most of the damage you get from Elementalist isn't actually from a notable, but from the small nodes that lead up to them instead.
Let's have a look at what it actually provides. Most caster-builds will probably get Shaper+Beacon+Paragon as a baseline, so you'll have to decide between Liege or Pendulum.
-Liege is worse than before for most builds, since now it only provides 50% buff-effect from golems instead of 100% like before. Lightning/Ice golems have lost some value here, Chaos/Stone gained some. You also get generic damage increase instead of a specific one, which is a small buff. For fire-builds the new Liege is straight-up worse though, because it now only gives 70% inc damage compared to the 80% you got up until now. For Cold/Lightning the inc% is a bit higher (70% instead of the old 60% if you were running flame+cold/lightning, 40% if you were running a defensive one+your element). Less castspeed/crit than before, which sucks ass. A bit more regen/phys mitigation. No double inc% damage for conversion builds anymore either.
-Pendulum has been buffed, but the cyclical nature of it is still a big issue. You never really played around conflux, and you wont be playing around Pendulum either. Sometimes it's gonna be there, sometimes it wont. On average it's worse than before, 37.5% compared to the current 40%.
Most of the builds will probably still go Liege, so the whole ascendancy will get you a whopping 110% inc% from the small nodes+Liege and 20% more from Beacon, less than that when you are playing a lightning build that can reliably shock bosses. You also get some inc. AoE every 5 seconds and most importantly you get some ele-leech and reflect-immunity (which is not a big deal, because you got that before too with the old Paragon, Sibyls and Yugul). Basically frees up a ring-slot and a minor pantheon, but minor pantheons usually suck balls.
All of this is good enough in a vaccuum, but then you have a look at occultist and realize that two notables beat the 4 you're gonna take on Elementalist, with cursable hexproof enemies taking care of any reflect or leech issues, while Forbidden Power provides more consistent aoe and damage than elementalist. And you still got 4 points to get at least 26% more damage from Malediction, which can easily become 40% with a little investment, or just take WW+Bloom to boost your defenses, something that Elementalist just doesn't have. Oh and you get 25% inc curse effect too, which is pretty damn big against bosses.
At the end of the day most caster-builds will either go occultist or inquisitor, depending on how that revamp is going to turn out, while elementalist remains to be an ascendancy you go for when you're either playing a golemancer or want an easy demi on a build that is good enough to not need an ascendancy at all.
