I dont know what the expansion does for the change of PvP but this meta is turning alot into the last one.
What made this new meta so exciting was the idea that combination builds were potentially back in place. Builds making other builds better but a few things have happened. Celestial and Vamp rune combo has changed it.
Ive noticed alot more cele builds dominating again. I saw a cele mesmer who could hold a point better then i could and i want to say he was running rune of the undead with cele ammy. He had a torch and staff and another build is the guardians with vamp rune and cele ammy. Running scepter and mace focus and we come back to the problem again.
Were coming back around to strong individual builds. Cele necro with signets, cele d/d eles with vamp rune, thiefs with vamp rune, guardians with cele ammy and vamp rune, mesmers with cele ammy and the problem is there isnt counters to these.
To me alot of creative builds and combinations are dead since these builds are simply better for every situation. The bunker guard with the dps warrior isnt being used as much. There hasnt been a use of a combination for like a wells necro or a dps melee characters in general. What vamp rune does is allows characters to escape dps damage and heal. With characters like thief,mesmer,ele and guardians where they have uinque skills that can change fights, it makes alot of other classes unusable. The thief can goes mist form pops a invisibility skill and gets out of combat and heals-(mesmer same thing) ele goes mist form can escape and with d/d they can literally out run any class in the game with the most boons in the game. Guardians arent as good as these classes since they cant run but still a cele vamp rune guardian has enough condi removal with condi/dps dmg to out do other classes. The ability to stacks burns and be invulnerable to dmg with renewed focus and shelter helps them so much if there going to lose a fight and go mist form- heal and then steal life from you which is a triple whammy. Its just a cheap way to get out of fights since there not traited for it and classes ability to heal and run make some players in the game impossible to kill at times.
I dont know what the fix is but were back to a meta where individual sustain that can put out decent damage is whats best for solo queing and team comps. This is just my opinion though.