Personally, I think the cards should maintain their original buffs—rather than the proposed changes in the OP (Balance being increased healing potency is just weird when it has always been a damage card). There’s no need to flip-flop the buffs around like that. MitsukiKimura’s suggestion is one I can get behind—it keeps the arcana relatively the same with regards to what they used to do, addressed the power of Balance, and changed Spire from TP Refresh to something else. Not sure if I would keep the 15 second duration or up it back to 30, personally. Depends on if the cards can also be AOE’d/affected by old Royal Road effects. I would be fine with 15 seconds if we could AOE them all again. I’d rather have that than Divination and the Seals, because I don’t really like that mechanic; but maybe both could fit into a new system to appease those who don’t care for Div/Seals and for those who like it.

I’d rather have the return of AOE party buffs (and just the old Royal Road effects in general). Not a fan of the single-target melee/ranged pad cards. At that point, the cards would go to your highest melee DPS (e.g., SAM) and highest ranged DPS (e.g., BLM/SMN) without much variance because it would be a bigger gain to pad them over the DRG or NIN, or the MCH/BRD/DNC.

I also think there should be only one damage reduction card, and no healing potency increase card. Healing potency isn’t really something the healers need right now—all three are pretty over-powered in that department. Splitting held arcana into 1 offensive type card and 1 defensive type card would also allow for things like MitsukiKimura’s Bole (10% reduced damage) or their Ewer (MP Refresh) to no longer have to compete with offensive card types (Balance, Spear, Arrow). The mitigation will, obviously, always be RNG—but I like the idea of keeping a held Ewer for myself if I need the mana. Because AST really needs a secondary method of MP Refresh.

Lord and Lady should also be what they used to be: Lord is free oGCD damage ability to weave in between Malefic casts; and Lady is a min-Tetra heal to toss out as needed. AST could use another single-target oGCD heal, and Lady was nice to have back in SB if the tank needed it.