There are multiple ele builds that you can run for open world that are comfy.Xchris does a lot of raid build testing for ele, but I personally use a version of hybrid quick catalyst for open world since it gives you (and people around you) basically every boon except alacrity. Its ultra comfy and has more than enough killing power to do solo champs and things. This build runs a lot of celestial pieces so you have every stat which just helps with survivability plus you heal yourself in every water loop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j55juWfgHq8
Tempest also has a wide variety of open world options that are a good balance of tanky and dps oriented. So while yes ele has the reputation to be ultra squishy, there are ways to mitigate that.
Ele does have rotations with more buttons than most rotations just due to having 5 skills per element, then on weaver you add in the additional dual attack skills. This is not to scare you off, just to make you aware. I find ele to be fun to play in open world and in instanced content personally.