No idea if this was the intent they had, but past crystal people still drop in one shot anyway, delay or no delay since everything happens at once. HP went up, but so did damage, and doing a competent synced burst will result in the same end that it used to before, whether the drop happens right now or 1s later due to animation delays. All the damage and associated effects come at once anyway one way or the other. It is only harder to KO people at lower ranks, because people don't know how to focus targets down.

I do feel however that one of the biggest offenders of matches dragging for ages is AST, because it can top someone from low HP back to full instantly. So if your team is unable to burst down a target at once, then the AST will just top them off and we're gone on the same dance until the next burst in 20s, where the AST will also be able to do that again if burst fails. Special mention to Guard that now works admirably (one of the only true benefits of this change), then the AST will also heal that person back up back to square one. Even a WHM can somewhat do it too, it's just less overpowered.

But perhaps that's also the conundrum of the mode, either you get the experience of base random games and nobody can kill each other unless someone fucks up and overcommits, but on the other hand at top ranks (or especially scrims/LP I'd assume? havent seen/tried those with the new changes) people just insta die because people know how to CC and burst a focus target. Generally you get CCed, you barely have time to press purify before dying there at times. I just feel that the changes exacerbated this a great deal because it didn't feel as terrible before to me.