If you pick Elemental Defense, it is active as long as you have gathered an element.. Or just outright build it into "Gather element" so they gain a benefit while that element is gathered.
Fire - Provides a damage shield
Water - Provides concealment
Air - Provides a teleportation reaction? "If a target attacks you, instead, you may move 15 feet away as a reaction, vanishing from the spot you were just in. The attack instead misses completely." (This is to satisfy my inner weeb in terms of anime like bleach.. =P)
Earth - Provides damage resistance and AC along with a shield block reaction. (Pretty much their shield ability but built into gather elements)
Wood - Passive Barkskin ability with a single action activity in which I can entangle the area, but it removes the gathered element. I can select targets equal to my con modifier to ignore this ability.
Metal - Magic resistance, similar to a golem in a way?
