The idea that burst and bunker builds need to brought it line is known and has been talked to death but I would like to express some ways i think this can be done that I havent seen talked about.
Protection: This is an incredibly powerful boon, arguably the most powerful boon. Since it has a % damage reduction it is always effective and it only becomes MORE effective the more damage an enemy builds against you. Even with vulnerability there is no real counter to protection beyond boon stripping (a point a will bring up in another paragraph). My idea would be to move protection down to 25% damage reduction. 25% is still a VERY sizable chunk of damage but this would make it far more manageable. Also give protection to warriors…they’re the only class without it in some form. I would also improve the scaling of toughness a little more since it can be controlled much easier than protection.
Boon stripping: I believe a large problem with the current meta is that while every profession has access to a wide variety of cleansing skills that remove conditions very few have reliable ways to strip boons. While this is largely less important in PvE it becomes utterly amazing in pvp if utilized correctly. While there are professions with boon stripping it is nowhere near as prevalent as condition removal. This sets a precedent against damage (with conditions at least) and an advantage for defenses. If every profession were able to reliably strip a boon once every 10-20 seconds with a skill(s) spread widely throughout builds you could pick apart this bunker meta.
Warrior(Kick): Strips 2 boons in addition to its current effect.
Elementalist(Cleansing Fire): Strip up to 2 boons, you remove 1 condition per boon stripped. This one is probably op… but you get the idea.
ETC. ETC.
Regeneration: This is a tough nut to crack. The easiest answer is to change how regeneration stacks. Move it from being duration to intensity, but the intensity has diminishing returns. This will promote CAREFUL use of regeneration while making people who are spamming it liable to heal for less overall. I’m still working on how to tweak this but i think this is a good start.
Damaging conditions: (improving performance / functionality)
Bleeding: Fine the way it is. I would love for each individual to be able to apply it uniquely from others but this could get hairy unless the stacks are reduced.
Burning: I would love this to not stack duration. Instead stack intensity, however unlike bleeding, Burning would not tick faster. It would always tick at say once per 2 seconds or so (obv 1 second burns would be 1 second) and the damage each time is increased by the amount of burning. Sort of a nuke dot that is predictable and hard hitting. Duration based conditions are easily removable and in pvp are naturally weaker.
Poison: Fine as is. Duration stacking suits this as its effect is not for damage but to retain the low health of the target as much as possible. Id love to see its damage scale as the targets health gets lower but thats just me.
Confusion: This condition is tough for me because it hits REALLY hard and is tough to notice immediately. I think that confusion should start at 1/3 its normal damage and each time a skill is used the damage is increased up to and beyond its current damage in this fashion: 1/3 > 1/2 > 3/4 > 1/1 > 3/2 > 4/2. The idea is to punish if they spam skills.
Again these are just ideas. There are obviously builds that need changing, skills and traits/runes/sigils that need adjustment but I dont think anyone has really spoken to the boons / conditions and removal of them and how that REALLY does have an affect on things.