for me AST is out of three healer who really need good awareness of your surrounding and party. which card to chose, which healing spell, which card for who, which utility, there is so much we can do as AST.

its also the most jarring class if it handled by bad / below average player. unlike WHM or SCH, the contrast for AST between good and bad player is very obvious.

- using same stance (both AST same stance, same regen stance with WHM, etc)
- bad card choice (ewer to blm/drk <-- seen this a lot)
- stingy with card (keep card on hand and only use it on boss)

combine with the typical healer mistake (spam aoe nonstop, spam cure 2 over and over instead of 1) i say yeah, if you see bad AST, they are indeed bad.