Ex-Multi-MMO-PVPer here, with an important message

Extremes are never a good thing. Too much water is bad for you. Too much of anything is bad.

Same goes for PVP. Bursty skills are bad for the game. Likewise tanky builds are bad for the game. There needs to be an in-between. Tip the scale down--nerf conditions, nerf healing power, nerf high-damaging attacks, passives need to go entirely (perhaps make one specialization in every class feature a passive, BUT ONLY 1).

Be rewarded for CCing. Remove 75% of existing CCs. Drastically reduce boon sources of spamming, and reward them for timing. Nerf healing across the board--people should be on a consistent dying trend than surviving. Think about it--a Thief shouldn't be able to disengage a plus, heal to full HP, and think "that's totally fine, I never need to die anyway". Yes, every player needs to die the longer they stand. This helps balance out matches, preventing full-on blowouts. It leads to more spectator (Twitch etc.) excitement due to snowballing possibilities and unpredictable events. Nerf PVP healing significantly across the board to improve upon this element.

Some suggestions from me. Take them as you will.

I agree, major rework is needed to make PvP fun, instead of just a farm/grind for gold and gear. Kind of like GW1's RA and TA.

Codex Arena 2k18

yeah, if I were in charge of balance, I'd first nerf access to condi clears, stunbreaks, stability, and resistance, and nerf application of conditions and CCs. Then nerf sustain, and nerf burst, and nerf damage mitigation (target breaking and stealth counts too!)

but this is essentially a full combat rework, so lol at that ever happening. Would make GW2 pvp actually work, and may even work as an esport, but no way it's ever going to happen