For one thing, all the classes have abilities that are powerful in PvP, like a constant healing aoe or cover on demand, so I kinda don't think Gambler's Dodge is so much more powerful than Rifts or Barricades that it needed to be gutted, but even if we say for the sake of argument that it did, they could have easily figured out a way to gut it in PvP without gutting it in PvE. What they've done just ruins the entire Hunter class in all modes.

The dodge does exactly as intended. It’s a dodge, and increases difficulty being hit. The hit registration is a little funky (Bungo) with dodge. 50% return is still very generous. This needed to happen. Imagine if casting barricade refunded full melee energy. You see where I’m going with this.

In PvP, sure, I can see how just moving quickly in a direction could be strong, like Icarus Dash, but in PvE, a short dash in a direction is pretty useless, and if you don't even get a significant effect from it, what's the point? Refunding half your melee ability in PvE is just a glorified Outreach mod, and it doesn't provide any immediate helpful effect to keep you alive and let you keep killing enemies. Like I said, I could see the argument for nerfing it in PvP, but in PvE, it's going to massively hurt the vast majority of Hunter builds.