You can break through almost anyone's magic armor as an elementalist within the first turn in mid to late Act 1 and still have enough AP to CC them depending on your build. That's pretty much parity with everyone else. Your burst damage also exceeds or is the same as everyone else.
On anything more than the typical low magic armored melee unit? Is this another strictly Lone Wolf plan? Because it sure as hell
doesn't happen at level 8 in a four person group even on Classic. You start with a total of 4 AP, 5 if you're an Elf. You aren't going to be CCing anything, let alone breaking the magic armor of most units at that point on your first turn.
Glass Cannon? Adrenaline? Flesh Sacrifice? Most things do not have more than 3k magic armor pre-18 for a fact and you know what? You can possibly chew through 3k with a single crit, otherwise it'll take you two spells.
Dive -> Pawn -> Flesh -> Nova -> Adrenaline -> Ray -> Medusa. Total AP used 4. Total damage exceeds 4k.
Dive -> Pawn -> Flesh -> Nova -> Searing Daggers/Fireball
Total AP used 3. Total damage exceeds 3k.
At level 8? Flesh -> Fireball -> Pawn -> Nova -> Adrenaline -> Searing Daggers -> Medusa. Total damage will be around 290, 340ish if you pre-cast Medusa. If you're on a glass cannon character you can squeeze in Ignite and Combustion for around 85~.
So yeah, regardless, you have a guaranteed CC. You could also just charm the target too. Most things under level 8 don't exceed 300 magic armor. Alexander is one of the few.
I feel like you haven't ran through the game with an 'elemental first and make this as best as I can' mind set to see what the curve and experience is like.
Dive, as in Phoenix Dive that doesn't even unlock until Act 2 (It might actually unlock at level 8 with the cave vendor, but I stopped checking him on my first playthrough after level 7.5 or so and Gareth always had it *after* the boat fight and never before), while also dumping a point into Scoundrel soley for one ability early game? Or were you actually dumping two points here for Cloak and Dagger, which is what you meant with "Dive"? Crit? Are you serious? You have almost no crit rate early on, and Savage Sortilege isn't a talent you would grab until your 3rd or 4th talent point anyway.
Glass Cannon? LOL. Unless you're also dumping points into WIT early (which means you're going to be doing even less damage), Glass Cannon is a hindrance as much as a help.
When the stars align and RNGesus blesses you then sure, what you're suggesting works. That's just pretty much almost never.
Have you even actually played
this version of the game?
As for your last statement, that's pretty much entirely incorrect. I even just stated how I ran a with a group of four elemental casters and it was awful. You don't have unlimited spells, memory slots, talents or stat points to do everything you're suggesting on a single character. Your random "Uh, you can do..." scenariors aren't even practical until much later on.
