So when is AST getting nerfed in Frontline

[Naizakane]

Pre-mades can be a huge issue.
Yes, these same skills are available to everyone and, naturally, you can be very lucky and get an amazing team of randoms. But this isn't particularly common. And, as much as you may try, even in the good random teams, coordination has its limits.

A well-coordinated premade can very quickly pick up battle high and easily control any frontline. In the worst cases, unless the other two random teams make a silent alliance to blindly focus down the premade, there's little hope of winning. Even this isn't remotely guaranteed as, usually, one of the two random teams will decide it's not worth the fight and will take the easy option of siding with the premade to secure second place. Now imagine them spamming it, again and again. Same pre-made, same outcome every time.

Some premades are a slight nuisance, but perfectly workable. Others are a nightmare. There is no-one who can persuade me that pre-made teams are a non issue. I can only imagine that they haven't met a nightmare one yet!

Premades aren't actually an issue. I just got out of a seal rock game that had Flames win while being over 600 points ahead of second place. Did they have a premade? Yes, probably. Were they the issue? No. What was the issue? Every time they went for a DRK pull, at least half the people on my time refused to press Guard, and they got deleted. No, they weren't throwing WAR/DNC/RPR limit break into it. Premades are not the issue. Rather, they highlight the real issue: people cannot be trusted to use their 90% damage mitigation cooldown.

[Scintilla]

Premades aren't actually an issue. I just got out of a seal rock game that had Flames win while being over 600 points ahead of second place. Did they have a premade? Yes, probably. Were they the issue? No. What was the issue? Every time they went for a DRK pull, at least half the people on my time refused to press Guard, and they got deleted. No, they weren't throwing WAR/DNC/RPR limit break into it. Premades are not the issue. Rather, they highlight the real issue: people cannot be trusted to use their 90% damage mitigation cooldown.

If you're only saying it was 'probably' a premade, then it clearly wasn't a particularly good one.

I spend the majority of my online time in frontlines and about the only role I don't play in them is ranged. Yes, in random teams a sizable proportion of the players will be playing purely for roulette. They may take little interest in the game, just want it over with as quickly as possible, and probably wouldn't think to use Guard: they were full HP one second, dead the next.
But even amongst the players who do use it, whilst Guard may save you against many smaller or less coordinated premades, in some cases even that isn't remotely enough. Against some teams, even using Guard can leave you almost instantly deleted - it just buys you maybe an extra second, making you one of the last of your team to be so.

When it becomes clear we're vs a premade all you can really do is try to avoid grouping together too much (almost impossible in some areas, such as Fields of Glory and the centre section of Onsal Hakair), mark the DRK, use Guard if you do get caught. Focus them down and hope that the other random team does the same. I suppose some classes can help somewhat: AST and PLD for heals/defence and perhaps MNK or MCH to try to push away the DRK when they see them coming to buy a little time.

[Valence]

All you can do is turn down non personal FXs, and open your eyes for DRG LBs coming from miles ahead.

Problem is exactly like low ranked CC but exacerbated. Certain things are just too much for casual players.