Why people says AST is bad?

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Originally Posted by Eudyptes

Ok, ok, I concede. AST is literally the worst class in the game and can't do anything. The job should be removed completely because it's clearly so awful.

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MCH is the worst class. AST is just the worst healer, though AST is still viable because of how easy healing is atm.

Ravanna Ex and Bismark Ex are so easy to heal that they are being solo healed, so AST isn't suffering at all compared to the MCH who are being refused invites.

When we get stuff that isnt solo healable like Alex savage and maybe Alex normal. Thats when undergeared or progression groups may start booting AST like how warriors were booted from coil 1-5 even though warriors were completely fine outside of coil.

People really need to stop pretending that the secret to playing AST is locked inside a puzzle box, locked inside a safe hidden in an ancient living sphinx that will only let you in if you answer his 5 riddles correctly. It isn't difficult to play, it really isn't. I understand using the cards may make you feel clever, hell, they made me feel clever for a good while while I was leveling up but that doesn't make it a superhuman feat worthy of awe. It takes some time memorising all the effects so you don't have to think too much about it but there's little else to it. Pretending the mechanics are difficult is just harmful to any discussion since all people, without fail, that do this just assumes everyone else sucks.

People also need to stop saying that they can make up for X shortcoming by spending Y card on themselves in the same post they praise the excellence of cards in group content. Any card spent on yourself is ultimately a reduction in group utility.

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Originally Posted by Seeri

People really need to stop pretending that the secret to playing AST is locked inside a puzzle box, locked inside a safe hidden in an ancient living sphinx that will only let you in if you answer his 5 riddles correctly. It isn't difficult to play, it really isn't. I understand using the cards may make you feel clever, hell, they made me feel clever for a good while while I was leveling up but that doesn't make it a superhuman feat worthy of awe. It takes some time memorising all the effects so you don't have to think too much about it but there's little else to it. Pretending the mechanics are difficult is just harmful to any discussion since all people, without fail, that do this just assumes everyone else sucks.

People also need to stop saying that they can make up for X shortcoming by spending Y card on themselves in the same post they praise the excellence of cards in group content. Any card spent on yourself is ultimately a reduction in group utility.

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You are the best

I don't get why people are becoming so dramatic in their defense of AST.

1) The majority of criticism leveled against the Job is highly constructive. If we all hated AST and wanted to bash it, this thread would be many pages shorter and much nastier.

2) If you need to use Ewer and Spear on yourself to help with MP, that's really missing the point and most of the group benefit of the card mechanic.

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Originally Posted by Seeri

People really need to stop pretending that the secret to playing AST is locked inside a puzzle box, locked inside a safe hidden in an ancient living sphinx that will only let you in if you answer his 5 riddles correctly. It isn't difficult to play, it really isn't. I understand using the cards may make you feel clever, hell, they made me feel clever for a good while while I was leveling up but that doesn't make it a superhuman feat worthy of awe. It takes some time memorising all the effects so you don't have to think too much about it but there's little else to it. Pretending the mechanics are difficult is just harmful to any discussion since all people, without fail, that do this just assumes everyone else sucks.

People also need to stop saying that they can make up for X shortcoming by spending Y card on themselves in the same post they praise the excellence of cards in group content. Any card spent on yourself is ultimately a reduction in group utility.

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A hundred billion times, this.

Yeah, I too felt clever when I was using cards on people and thinking, "Hey, this is neat! I'm buffing the party!" Then I realized just how little of a difference the buffs were making and I thought, "Why would anyone ever play this over SCH?"

We have MATH that shows that that AST's buffs aren't worth it, MAAATTTHHHH! SCH can give a constant 1.5% damage AND healing increase to all players, with no RNG involved, and SCH has some great emergency buttons.

And seriously, is the class designer for AST donning a few different forum identities and defending his work here? I don't understand how people are getting so upset over this...

If RNG is going to be part of the class, each card needs to do something powerful enough to offset the chance that you won't GET the card you need (because the odds are you're not going to).

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

I don't get why people are becoming so dramatic in their defense of AST.

1) The majority of criticism leveled against the Job is highly constructive. If we all hated AST and wanted to bash it, this thread would be many pages shorter and much nastier.

2) If you need to use Ewer and Spear on yourself to help with MP, that's really missing the point and most of the group benefit of the card mechanic.

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This right here. I can see that AST has the core of a competant healer, but it has issues right now that ened to be addressed in order for it to compete for a spot on a raid team.

At the moment, AST really is the 3.0 version of the 2.0 Warrior, a class that looks good on paper, but fails to meet those expectations in reality. It needs love and care and reworking of some of its mechanics and skills, then we will get a healer that can compete with WHM and SCH for a raid spot. Until then, its sadly too gimmicky and problematic.

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Originally Posted by Seeri

People really need to stop pretending that the secret to playing AST is locked inside a puzzle box, locked inside a safe hidden in an ancient living sphinx that will only let you in if you answer his 5 riddles correctly. It isn't difficult to play, it really isn't. I understand using the cards may make you feel clever, hell, they made me feel clever for a good while while I was leveling up but that doesn't make it a superhuman feat worthy of awe. It takes some time memorising all the effects so you don't have to think too much about it but there's little else to it. Pretending the mechanics are difficult is just harmful to any discussion since all people, without fail, that do this just assumes everyone else sucks.

People also need to stop saying that they can make up for X shortcoming by spending Y card on themselves in the same post they praise the excellence of cards in group content. Any card spent on yourself is ultimately a reduction in group utility.

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And this right here. As a healer, ASt is very straight forward, but lacking. The cards do not make up for it decrease in healing power, and by this i mean not only decreased potencies, but lack of cooldowns like divine seal and fey illumination. More over, the lack of any real emergency button on this class makes its raiding viability very small indeed - Essential Dignity looks good on paper, in reality, it kind of smells.

Even while leveling AST, the card buffs seem to be very underwhelming. Yes, they're oGCD and free to cast, but I don't think they'll make enough of a difference in a group setting compared to SCH or WHM in terms of utility. All of the utility AST brings to the table is tied to RNG, and it's very underwhelming even when you draw an "ideal" card at an "ideal" time.

The offense in this thread is huge...

AST lovers...shy away!

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Originally Posted by Rajeme

The offense in this thread is huge...

AST lovers...shy away!

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On the contrary, this thread is full of AST-lovers; why do you think the criticism is so heavy? We want this Job not to be at a very obvious disadvantage when compared to its peers.

AST-lovers need to continue to provide feedback so that SE can at least consider it for future balancing.

Yea and if we agree with the complains of the self-proclamed "Dark knights lovers" this job would become the new Op class and the first comer could well-manage it.