The foundation of animus creation and balancing

[paper nebula]

Characters shouldn't be made to solely be PvE or PvP oriented. They shouldn't be made to revolve so importantly around specific sets of characters making them nonviable without them. Ofcourse some characters will naturally be better in PvP than PvE, some will have better synergy with other specific characters, but that is very much different than designing mechanics and characters that only functions within extremely specific synergy and content.

Since DoT and specifically Shadow Sania is the more popular topic right now, I'll use them as an example, but make no mistake, this isn't just about them, this is to set a precedence going forward:

What makes DoT mechanic so troubling that the devs need to gatekeep contents by granting special DoT immunity to PvE content? The fact that they make the mechanic scale off [enemy max HP %]. The problem is that you can just purely build a team to be tanky and easy clear anything without putting a single investment into damage. You are unkillable yet you hit harder than any DPS (except for diting lol). This is a disastrous concept, the foundation is nonviable, yet the devs try to make it viable, building on this unstable foundation, but an unstable foundation will only crack further, cause more problems, and we're seeing it all unfold.

The first nerf attempt was reducing the amount of HP % portion per stack, in theory this makes DoT do less damage, but it creates another problem, now DoT has to be used in a package, otherwise it's not viable, now you need to specifically run DoT with absolutely Shadow Sania supported by Obol and Fungas or Fangus and [Lily for reasons].
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Now you can't reduce DoT damage further otherwise even a whole team of DoT won't work cause you can only make them so tanky to outlast NPCs while stacking DoT, but now you also need a whole DoT team to work through stages to stack DoT fast enough, but a whole team on one mechanic that scales off max HP % will always be too powerful. So what solution did the devs come with now? DoT immunity and DoT unfriendly event rules on PvE contents, which is a bizarre thing to do when you marketed DoT to be purely PvE, but this isn't the point as I was saying no characters should be gatekept to specific contents only otherwise it sets a reasonable expectation that this character should be broken in their expertise to makeup for the fact that they aren't flexible in any other essential part of the game.

DoT while being marketed as PvE, can't do any of these events as they're locked behind elements, this spreads your inflexible team apart, where as other characters like Kraken, Diting, Lian, Messiah, Xiadia, Lily, ext. can be used in a make-shift team perfectly fine and function as they should. DoT are slowly encountering more and more DoT Immunity, these introductions began during testing and again recently with Aurora. DoT can't do union bosses or Phantom Theater. All of these are essential PvE content.

Yes, they still work great where they still work, but what's the point when non-DoT is a better investment even in PvE and can still do PvP and every event you present into the game thus far? And with the constant band-aid you're constantly putting on this DoT issue, who is to say we won't be seeing more DoT unfriendly actions take place, even if on accident.
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This is why I propose you go about making sure the characters you create and changes you introduce allows them to function in every content, just perhaps less useful in specific scenarios. Don't gatekeep SR/SSR characters, don't design them in a way that you need to do so.

The most reasonable change to DoT is to stop with the max HP scaling. Make them perform damage scaling on ATK, forcing them to build ATK so they can't tank damages while constantly dishing stacks. For example DPS DoT should be half as useful with their direct attacks, and the other half their DoT damage, to a any other DPS, even take aspiration from Rosa's follow-up attack mechanic. Now there's no need for DoT gatekeeping content as stacking a full team of tanky DoT is gonna be unreliable thus they need to fill the team with others, and it would make sense to fill team with debuffs, buffs, shields or sustain, ext. to help with their direct kit and survivability like any other DPS.

To make DoT further viable in PvP, make it be activated easier, like upon taking the next damage, or maybe even not able to be cleansed so long as the ATK scaling isn't too huge that won't be a problem, as right now DoT can be stripped too easily, it's not an ordinary debuff, it is a core mechanic, and thus far every single core mechanics, such as Messiah's self-buff, has been uncleansable, however the more emphasis you put into their direct kit dmg and viability, the less you need to worry about their DoT being cleansed as that point it's a lesser important mechanic like a DEF% debuff.

And there you have it, DoT that doesn't need to be stacked with specific DoT characters to function, and they can go on doing every content, including future events where you are limited to certain elements, without an issue.
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That is how I would envision character design and buffs/nerfs should be in this game. Again not limited to DoT, but ofcourse this is the hot topic of the week and DoT has been a huge elephant in the room so I broke it down for you.