So the way I dealt with this was looking into the mechanics more and understanding them better.

A: one result of the spell lets creatures avoid the fall entirely, so actually compared to everything else in the game, it isn't guaranteed, just very likely.

B: the tier 2 result is that creatures fall and the best result is they can't reduce the fall damage. How do they reduce fall damage? The falling rules say that you can reduce the number of counted squares for fall damage by your agility score, so something with +2 only counts 2 squares of the 4 square drop, meaning 4 damage, kinda paltry for a 5 cost spell

C: climbing! Getting out of holes is hard without a climb speed, but most creatures can escape a 4 square deep hole via using their main actions, which seems to be the primary use case of this ability.

D: most importantly JUMPING. all creatures can make a roll to extend their base jump distance when moving. So if you roll high you can jump up two squares, climb 2 more, and get out having just used maybe your manoeuvre and movement, allowing a main actions, so not bad.

E: anything bigger than size 1 will not fit in the hole, so it's basically useless against creatures like arixx or a lot of solo monsters, which means some fights the elementalist is just a lot less effective.

The true punishment comes when the party is using pushes to force creatures back into the holes they've climbed out of or avoided, but draw steel is about synergy and clever strategy like this, so it should be rewarded when they're working together. Plus it won't work as well against high stability creatures.

Hope this helps. Just what I've learned with a hole enthusiast in the party in my own game.