Why people says AST is bad?

[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.

[DarkmoonVael]

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.

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.

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.

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.