Shai's talent design is something from an early mmos. The buffer design was and has always been flawed. It creates a character that is just a buff bot and can't actively be played. I don't think the issue is hard to fix but would require a rework, something PA likely won't do. I would suggest:

Shai songs are removed. Instead she summons forest spirts who provide the buffs for her, think of how succ nova summons axian. The forest spirit summons activate depending on what Shai does. When she deals a certain amount of damage, a forest spirit activates sun, moon, stars. When she heals a certain amount a forest spirit activates shout to the sky, periodically a forest spirit activates time to shine and when she inflicts a certain amount of CCs a forest spirit activates summer rain. When a buff activates the shai has to then manually activate it. Similar to her 30 ap leaf buff. 

Its not perfect but the idea is to shift the character design from a passive buffer to a more active one. Letting her participate in combat and such without being limited to just buffing songs over and over. In return her base kit is buffed and changed to allow her to actually participate in combat. Her forest spirit buffs are put on a internal cd to prevent abuse. 

This is just a reminder that the protest will still be this week. I hope that we can spend this time getting to know the community and showing our support for having the class looked at for a rework as shown in the OP. Everything is merely a suggestion but PA does need to do something.

When: April 24th
Where: Heidel on Mediah 1

What to do: Discuss class, share/play music, compose new songs, hold signs for 'shai rework' etc.
What NOT to do: Insult people, argue over opinions, attack others, PvE, or PvP of any kind.
NA or EU: My region is NA, but don't let that stop you from participating in the EU or even hopping over to NA on your Shai alts if you want.
End Date: This week-long event ends after the next maintenance. 

Good luck Shai players! I hope something good comes of this. =)

Here, here!  My Shai will join at least for tomorrow.

In lifeskill merge update:

Due to the consolidation of families in living levels, the Shai class' Foraging/Alchemy base level (Specialty 1) no longer applies.

- The Gathering/Annuity experience bonus for the Shai class remains the same as before.

Will something replace this?

Nah

It is comical the overdramatization of shai issues being that they are "slaves" because they are useful. People are actually talking about removing shai's songs in this thread. This reminds me of the time players cried that infinite potion was "mandatory" and how it must be made easier to aquire or the game will die.

PA themselves admitted to designing grind spots around the requirement of having both the infinite potion and fairy. As a result any players without these items would inevitably die due to something others don't even think twice about. I think the buffs followed a similar pattern of becoming more and more OP as the duration was increased. The window is still too small to cover an entire fight and as a result causes players to mald over buffs. You should watch the clip I posted and read the full post. There are a ton of cool skills on Shai but without buffs then the class really falls out of favor not just in PVP but also pve which is why this will take a serious rework regardless of whether they keep buffs in or not. My suggestions also do the most to keep Shai as she is without the rework, but it is just a bandaid.