5.0 AST is a failure

[xDaemianx]

I still disagree, People only used balance and spear that was not engaging, now you have to decide on the fly and plan on actually using stuff instead of just spread balance, spread spear and that’s it. But like you said this is about the kit because the uniqueness is still in tact

What plan? The only thing we can do is use cards on the right job. That's about it. Before, we could at least decide who could benefit more from that buff (BRD - Crit; MNK - Dmg; Arrow - BLM; just to give some examples). It was no easy task trying to spread balance, though. In 4.0 we could actually plan what to use and when to use it.

If by uniqueness you mean "cards", then I think you missed the point of what an AST is. Think of it as if SE had decided to let you summon Bahamut provided that you only cast Ruin 2 while on Trance, nothing else. It's a loss on your DPS but, hey, you get to summon Bahamut and that's the essence of what a SMN is, right?