I agree and I've been reserving too many comments about the job as a whole until I got a chance to play it entirely in end game scenarios.

From a theorycraft standpoint - it has the same baseline healing output as a WHM and SCH, they just lack the ability to significantly boost those numbers. Lack of MP regeneration skills is partially made up for having cheaper baseline cures.

To me, AST feels like a highly technical class that isn't quite as straight forward as SCH is. It rewards situational awareness and appropriate use of their toolkit - being able to make the current decisions with the cards you draw will be important. Yes, the cards have an RNG aspect to it but there's enough control to at least make use of every single draw you get.