I'll chime in here for a moment, not too deeply about the AST "balance" topic because despite reading the thread I'm still unsure in what aspect balance is desired. I think it's argued that N-AST is to be made more desirable with relation to the rest of the AST toolkit, but I'm not sure. Perhaps it's AST vs SCH/WHM. Time Dilation if nothing else is a thorn that needs attention.

Quote Originally Posted by TatoRazzino View Post
[...] Most people that cry about Nocturnal are not clearing the fights as WHM/SCH as well, simply because they can’t do the mechanics properly.

[...] This raid tier has been having a lot of issues that are not related to job design, but to raid design. Most groups can’t clear A3S because of issues like latency, which makes the Wash Away + Digititis mechanic impossible to handle.
Although I don't fully agree on A3S being a badly designed fight (personally finding it the most enjoyable fight in this tier), I support the claim that a certain number of statements regarding the weakness of AST stems from not using the job the way it was intended. AST possess tools that are similar to that of the other healers, but to have the rest of the party (or more importantly the healers themselves) act as if the AST is whatever healer the AST's replacing probably plays a part in failures experienced.

As a small tangent, I'd like to point out that it's quite possible to clear Wash Away, Digititis and Equal Concentration even with medium to high latency, but the way to tackle the mechanics need to be adapted and it makes the whole phase much more stressful.