Why don't we have more DPS abilities ?

[Carighan]

I feel they could do a lot with extremely simple changes not requiring extra buttons, though. I mentioned this before, but a simple thing I'd do is rework the existing DPS space to accomodate unique per-healer damage profiles:

* Sage can hold down Dosis: After the initial cast that works as-now, the lasers begin rapid-firing as long as the button is held, one-by-one, one every 0.5s at first, over 6s this accelerates to one every 0.25s. Each laser causes 25% of the normal damage, 25% of the normal Kardia healing and costs 25% of the normal mana. They fire as long as you can hold them down. This is a 20% increase at first, rising to a 150% increase as they accelerate.
* Scholar can swap their fairy between a healing and a DPS mode. Tether becomes a very strong DoT in this mode while 10 energy is gained with each nuke cast. While fairy is tethered to an enemy, your DoT button turns into a carbon-copy of it you can also channel at the same target, doubling the already high damage.
* Astro's nuke becomes a 1-2-3 autocombo. Each #3 "waxes" the moon in the UI element of Astros. The more full it is, the faster GCD heals cast but the less they heal, while GCD nukes become slower but stronger. Each GCD heal cast "wanes" the moon, with opposing effects. Total output entirely unaffected, but speed vs power of each cast changes continuously so there's no reliable cadence (fits Astro IMO, dunno).
* White Mage loses their nuke, replaced by another very short and kinda weak DoT (5s or so) that is channeled. While this DoT ticks (once per second), it also tries to bleed one tick (3s) off of all other DoTs applied by this player, accelerating them to deal more damage faster. Several other abilities are now DoTs with overly long durations to make space to accelerate them: Assize applies a 60s DoT instead of direct damage, Afflatus Misery still an area nuke but weaker but applies a 120s DoT, Glare IV weaker but applies 15s per cast (duration stacks) of a DoT, too. So in total you can stack up to 4 concurrent DoTs, while spamming your channeled DoT to accelerate them and deal high per-second damage.

[Shurrikhan]

@Carighan

The WHM effect seems out of place to me (more Arcanist than CNJ or WHM), but I like the diversification. The AST effect seems especially interesting -- though note that the global recast time would also have to be affected, not just the cast time, for wax and wane to have the same outputs, and despite the thematic flavor there probably isn't much to optimize until we get a lot more opportunity for chained non-emergency GCD heals at the least.

[Carighan]

The WHM effect seems out of place to me (more Arcanist than CNJ or WHM), but I like the diversification. The AST effect seems especially interesting -- though note that the global recast time would also have to be affected, not just the cast time, for wax and wane to have the same outputs, and despite the thematic flavor there probably isn't much to optimize until we get a lot more opportunity for chained non-emergency GCD heals at the least.

Oh that's a good point, I should have mentioned it affects the induced GCD by an equivalent amount, too. And yeah that waxing/waning would mostly be for flavor, not optimisation. I'd love some optimization in it, but encounter design would have to change for that to be realistic.