1. New wonderful equipment is released promising a new way to play the game and opening up opportunities for new builds and playstyles.
2. You farm the living daylights out of the new gear to get every piece you need and set up your various characters how you want.
3. PVP players complain that the equipment is too OP and needs to be nerfed.
4. Zos, rather than rebalancing the equipment in a way that is beneficial to EVERYONE, instead nerfs the equipment into irrelevancy.
5. Rinse and repeat.
There are so many other ways of balancing equipment so that it fits in with every part of the game. If your first instinct to rebalance an item is to nerf it into the ground then you shouldn't be working at a game company.