Expertise

Uhm, you are comparing apples and oranges then. If I say FC Water Magic Mesmers are fine because Elementalists have access to the Distortion Mind Blast because this means E/x see play as well, I'm talking complete rubbish as the playstyles don't match.

This is also the reason why you have to take Shattering Assault in a build if you want to compare it: What is being discussed here is whether Assassins have a build that exerts as much constant reliable pressure coupled with survivability as Rangers do. It really makes no sense to use another Elite Skill (SA is a pressure elite that removes defenses, very important) or even a bar with an entirely different purpose (such as the Palm Strike Assassin) as comparison.

Lightning Reflexes can be removed but to put it bluntly, it won't. Stance removers are rarely taken in HA, where we find the R/A bar. The fact that you use this as an argument is pretty pathetic and shows how little understanding you have of PvP. Enchantments and removals of them are everywhere. That is why we can assume it's likely that it will be removed.

But this all is beside the point of this nerf to Expertise: Even if the R/A build wasn't as overpowered as it is, it would still be a good idea to take it out. It's because of its playstyle. Mindless skill bars that require no strategic insight or skill have no place in serious PvP. It leads to bad play. Since this nerf wouldn't affect any strategically valid Ranger build, it's pretty spotless. For a primary such as Fast Casting it's different. Making it exclusive to Mesmer only skills will also gimp valid Mesmers, which is why it's not ok to change FC like this.

99% of balance is about reworking things. 1% is numberchanging and removing things. This is part of that 1%.

LR has a 45 second recharge now. First of all, that kills the build's DPS. Secondly, it's only up ~1/5 of the time now, so your melee should have ample time to rip the relatively squishy ranger a new one while he's waiting on the recharge.

Also, the flaw in this:
is that there will always be mindless bars available for people to play. As long as they're not competitive in serious PvP, there's no reason to worry about them. You can't possible take away every option for mindless builds, because a) some people want to run them, and there's no real reason why they shouldn't be allowed to as long as they don't succeed in the really competitive arenas, and b) there are way too many options. Most "bad" builds are bad because they're mindless, and mindless builds just aren't as effective as builds that you need to put thought into; very rarely will someone make a build that is horribly weak and horribly complicated.

If the bar is nerfed, and it was, then it won't have a place in serious PvP. Being able to roll one or two noob teams in HA does not make a build OP-ed as long as it fails to a decent team, because there will always be some simple and effective build that destroys uncoordinated randomway teams.

This is a bad philosophy that will lead to people leaving the game.

Yes "mindless" builds will always exist in some form, but drawing the line at the 'competitive' playlevel is a terrible spot. Okay top level competitive play is still enjoyable and satisfying, but everything below that is unfun, unsatisfying, shit. Games are not made my catering to the top players to the point of ignoring everyone else. Everytime new gimmicks that were strong enough emerged, they took over the entire middle of the ladder. New players were discouraged to run anything other than the new supergimmick and no one had any fun in the middle of the ladder. This is what that type of balance philosophy will end up with, as this is what gimmicks that are too strong, but not strong enough to take over competitive play have done in the past.

The only way to balance is to look at risk vs reward, how much good play, whether movement and overall tactical or individual micro, change the effectiveness. If something is "mindless" yet more effective than it should be, it is something that needs to be changed regardless of whether or not it has reached competitive play.

It's as simple as this:

Strategically valid builds: Strong
Mindless builds: As little effectiveness as possible.

Since there are many gimmicky, shitty and weak builds that remain if this change is done, the bad players can still run their bad bars and have "fun" with it. I'm fine with that, as long as said builds never give them the opportunity to defeat decent, not-proish people.

To Skyy High: This build is clearly not nerfed enough as it's the FotM gimmick of choice. This change to Expertise removes all Expertise based spambuilds in one fell sweep. It's an easy change and although the best course of action would be to rework the Dervish (an Enchantment based profession, a lot of rework has to be done) and the Assassin (a mobility based profession, Shadow Steps need to be balanced and limited to the Assassin) so that their unique abilities are needed to be truly effective (this is easier for Assassins than it is for Dervishes but for both it will require careful and precise balancing), I don't believe Anet has the time and resources for that.