Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-31278419-20170225015559/@comment-734582-20170225085515

Probably Earth release. Hiding Like a Mole is a very simple but powerful jutsu. Walls, attacks, skin hardening, seems there's no way you can catch an Earth Release user off-guard.

Lightning is pretty cool, but it seems that it only has few, highly specific attacks.

Wind Release is IMHO the most underrated and criminally underused element. The connection to real weapons was really cool (IE small shuriken made into Fuma shuriken with wind release, a Kunai becomes a blade, any weapon can be thrown for extra damage).

Water Release mostly suffers from having mixed effects: water prison is pretty strong, but it also contains extremely meh attacks like the syrup. It seems to me that it neither has the variety of earth nor the brute strength of lightning nor a specific effect like wind (cutting). The series basically gives me no reason to pick Water Release in a specific setting.

Fire Release: A really cool idea (and fire is my favorite element) but it just doesn't warrant that status. It rarely does effective damage and is used more as a covering fire than actual damage. This puts Fire in the same basket as water (no clear reason to favor it) except it does't have ANY special techniques beyond damage. Water can at least make you a prison. Fire only does damage, and it sucks at that too.