This is a decent control spell imho

I hate it, summoning an elemental is much better than just  a roaming area of effect spell. Instead of say summoning a water elemental to kill a fire elemental your just dealing cold damage. And it’s slow!

so this is no longer able to move around? it just stays in place and hits one creature if it is in range? i guess its cool if you are good at moving creatures into its range. but it does litterally nothing if the creature succeeds its save and it can only affect one creature at a time. seems like a pretty bad spell all in all.

agree with williamisunavailable: immobility takes this spell from a useful-but-risky signature in 5e to extremely niche. not a 5th level spell.

While "conjure" and "summon" are similar words, they are not the same spell.  Summon Elemental is a level 4 spell on page 325 of the Player’s Handbook (2024) and still let's you have a roaming elemental spirit with a stat block to do you bidding.

This spell is built for a pinch point scenario. Put the spirit in a bottle neck and let it mess things up. 

What happens on a successful save against this spell in regards to damage? It says that they are not restrained but doesn’t mention anything about damage. Do they take the full 8d8 damage or nothing? 

Quote from Talldrummerboy >>

What happens on a successful save against this spell in regards to damage? It says that they are not restrained but doesn’t mention anything about damage. Do they take the full 8d8 damage or nothing? 

The spell doesn't say they take damage on a successful save, so they don't take damage on a successful save.

Any idea how long this spell is likely to remain so substandard?  In addition to its abysmal effect, there's ambiguity.  What happens if the creature it's restraining dies?  Does it still have a creature grappled?  Why can't you, the conjurer, decide to have it switch targets?  Letting one go to try and damage another as an all or nothing seems fair enough, especially since you can't move it.

Why can't you move it?  It doesn't even create difficult terrain in its space... my goodness it's bad.

Older version of this spell also cast a minute to cost, so it might have been good if you could sneak up and have time to cast it. I hate the emanation idea because yeah sometimes you need an earth elemental to tank for your team for a few rounds but having it be an action cost for a pinch point or small room is helpful. I think it should have more reach than 5 feet however, at least give it like a 15 foot radius emanation 

This spell doesn't use an Emanation.

Keep in mind Summon Elemental still exists, and does basically what the old version of this spell did, but without the lengthy casting time.

I don’t think a summon elemental is gonna have the same impact as an actual earth elemental which has nearly double the hp as a 5th level cast of summon. 
It works in a similar way to the emanations or guardian spirit, it can’t move, and it can only do damage if it’s not already grappling another creature. That’s arguably worse than an actual elemental creature that can soak hits or be an extra body. The saving grace is the casting time difference. Conjuration spells were sort of gutted with this edition, try and play a shepherd Druid with the 2024 spells 😂😂😂

Big Oof. Compares well to blight, earthen grasp, and bigby's grasping hand.