People who are invested in AST and truly enjoy it should be candid about its opportunities.

Trying to convince others that it's fine because it's special, unique, complex, and just needs to be appreciated is not merely silly, but is counterproductive to promoting the Job. There's nothing particularly challenging about playing AST well, and no special reward for being amazing; you simply end up having to play at a higher skill level if you want to match the performance of someone with somewhat less skill, but with an inherently more powerful Job.

This thread was fine when it was "I enjoy AST because..," but lately it's full of this nonsense about AST having magical onion layers that conceal its true power....