Bashagons

Dude simple, Their IAS causes their armor to drop. Their spear skills are weak. Shouts and chants are underpowered with long recharges in Motivation. In short; Anet nerfed the hell out of them because of pvp and never revisited the class to rebalance for pve. The fact they can't solo farm is not a problem, they were meant to be party leaders. Imbagon is the only build Viable for High End PVE and there isn't a decent pvp build due to nerfing. Answer your question? (I rarely use Pvx I can make my own builds)

Imbagon is the only build that truly plays to the paragons strengths, everything else can be run more effectively by other primaries.

This would probably be largely due to the paragon nerfs throughout NFs release to present day. The paragon definitely offers utility, but its inferior to other forms of utility (like SY! spam, Panic, ST-pooping, Weapon spells in general, EOTN PvE skills and their flexibility across professions(ex: GDW can be brought on almost any bar).

The profession is definitely in need of a PvE revamp, its quite obvious that SY!-spamming in whatever form the PC tries to run it is the only bar where the paragon actually performs effectively.

hmmm, interesting considering i now run 2 paragon volley heroes with my ranger (and they work better than their ranger counterparts)

and because of what i have seen with some builds from other players (and a few from posters here), i have even begun playing a paragon

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User:Khomet/Kway
this is where i stole my hero builds from, and after a lil tweaking depending on area, i have had much success with my para heroes (thanks to the guy that first posted the link, i have enjoyed my para heroes ever since)

As most have said - its not the para thats bad but their skills and yes anets not done anything really to improve their skills.
Also when players make team builds yes paras are over looked in a lot due to bad skills - same as mesmers were overlooked a yr or 2 ago for same reasons.
Professions whose skills are either lacking enough dmg or bad recharges will fall out of meta faster than ectos prices rise an fall - and if dervs had a big buff next week ... dervs would suddenly become meta in teams ( all in theory ) .
So in a nut shell - most players are not saying praras are crap but are saying their skills are crap.

the para has been nerfed to oblivion, 'nuff said.

All this brings up a good point that chronic para fans like myself and Khomet have brought up at least a thousand times...
Why can't the revert the nerfed skills back as PvE and PvP splits?
I understand why the dervish update is taking a while. They are reinventing a profession...all while they develop new content for GW:B.
However, wouldn't it take an intern with a few spare hours to simply read off the original functionality, copy paste the PvE/PvP split code, and copy and paste the two different functionalities?

I know ANet has rules about testing changes...but these have already been implemented in the past. This would not be a reinvention as much as it would be simply changing some numerical values back to release numbers.

The end result...I would like to see paragons have a greater impact in the support role than an ST ritualist. Which is very powerful and only because it has not been embraced by pvxwiki do paragons even still have a job anymore.

Paras are awesome. They just need some work on the skills. I think Anet will take care of it.

Even with reverts, Paragons would still seem very sub-par compared to the other classes for several reasons.
One, the Paragon is supposedly the profession that boasts party support, but even it can do that right. When you go out and try to join a PUG or almost any group for that matter, people will not expect much of the para and will most likely ask just to run an Imba or some other build that does not utilize much of the paragon skills; which comes to my second point.
Like previously stated paragons do have their niches, and you can probably can make decent builds out of them if you are committed to. But because of that many Paragons have to rely on other professions' skills to create a build that can be inferior to any other profession that can run it equally by switching to a paragon secondary. For example, some builds I use are Para beastmaster, SF nuker, and even a SoS spammer. Even though there are skills that compliment these builds quite well, the corresponding profession can run them just as good or even better.
I can go on for several reasons more why the para lacks so much, but I will leave it at that for the moment, and wrap it up. As a Paragon main, I pride myself in stepping up to the challenge into making this class better than what it seems, but as so many others have noticed you can only go so far.
I'm not totally against Imba, but I do not like the fact that it must rely on so many foreign skills to make it an even viable build, and who says it can't take on an ST rit? I've been on many teams where an Imba is more reliable seeing as STs and MMs do not mix, but then again that's my opinion. On a more positive note, to all you Paragon lovers: Do not give up on your toon just because they cannot play as good as another, play them because you want to and be proud that you can play a class that some people do not play just because there on no pvx builds for.

When para came out there was a build that gave any one or two party members (such as monk) infinite energy and 50% damage reduction, which you could now stack with TNTF (which was also nerfed). Unnerfed paras would have plenty of powerful support.