Lazarillo

I might be misunderstanding your question, but:
The Electric nuke, like most, has a stacking effect on the caster based on the number of targets. Hypothetically, missing everyone with a nuke will cause no drain, but hitting the maximum number of targets will zero out your Endurance and Recovery many times over.

First you say Energy Melee isn't good for the raids.
Then you admit Energy Melee is still just peachy against AVs.

Some two-thirds of the BAF raid is fighting AVs.
A significant part of the Lambda raid is also fighting an AV, and the main part of it that isn't involves concentrating fire on high-HP breakable objects.

...so what's the problem?

It's interesting because you've actually kind of hit on to two completely separate problems here that don't really have much to do with each other, and sorta tied them together in a way that, while it doesn't work...still highlights them both.

Problem #1 is the whole "league starts when you hit the minimum" bit. Having a "wait for more" option seems like it'd be nice. I could see it being annoying for some though desirable to others. While I personally do feel it's broken, I'm not sure how the Devs could fix it in a way that actually makes it effective.

Problem #2 is more about the whole zone-encroachment thing. This, on the other hand, seems very easy to fix ("seems" being the operative term here; standard code rant applies). Ideally, it feels like it should be possible to allow pre-formed Leagues not to have to all be in the same zone to start an event. It's already the case that individuals using the LFG tab don't have to all zone into the same place before starting a raid. Allowing the same convenience to be extended to pre-formed leagues would mean there would be no need to crowd everyone around Lady Grey and interfere with Mothership Raids and the like.

When Hasten becomes an Incarnate power, obviously.

Back when I was still rather new to the game, I joined in a Cavern of Transcendence Trial. It was a group entirely of level-appropriate folks, so we had decided to fight through the Tunnels for the XP. I was playing a /Regen Scrapper and still very much learning what I was and was not able to survive. So the team engages a group of Trolls, and I did what I always did, I jumped in as quick as I could to fight the single meanest looking guy there. I notice neither of the other melee-types was with me about a second too late, as I then learned that nobody survives the bombs down there going off.

Once the explosives and finished their job, the team mopped up the couple of survivors pretty quickly. The other Scrapper on the team hands me an Awaken, and sends me a simple tell: "r dum".

...I had nothing I could really argue back.

One of the strengths of Earth/ is that can do quite a bit from range or even from around corners, further adding to your safety level. While /Earth Assault is definitely a cool set, it focuses primarily on melee, so there's not actually a lot of synergy there. /Fire seems to be a pretty good match, since it's pretty blast-y.

I originally intended to do just one a day, so as not to burn myself out. Then I realized that after 3 days, I was already burning myself out. So I tried to cram pretty much every raid I'll need one one character into this weekend, so I won't have to do any again for a while. Almost made my "goal", too. It's going to be a while until I bother to work on my second, but I have a feeling that I would be burned out already either way, so at least now I'm burned out and made progress.

It still sucks, but at least I have something to show for it, I guess.

The enemies in the Incarnate trials and whatnot have a higher base accuracy average. If you're soft-capped to Defense by being at around 45%, then you're still about 20% short of the new Incarnate soft cap.

On the plus side, you're still getting hit less than people who weren't soft-capped before, though.

The problem with starting to give enemies level shifts is that progression becomes gated behind rare Incarnate powers. I'm pretty sure the theory, at least, is that rares aren't supposed to be a "necessary" thing.

Mind you, my faith in this system is low enough, though, that at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if the Devs did it anyway.

I read this, I notice Venture is sounding incredibly sensible, and then I begin to weep.

But seriously folks...
I want to elaborate a little on the answer to the "why quit if the old parts of the game weren't taken away" question.

I pretty much look like it like this: up until Issue 20, the game had a "size". I could look at that, assess that size and say "okay, this is something I have time for, this is something I want to do". Suddenly, with i20 (and i19, too), that size has changed. I take another look, and raise an eyebrow. "Is this really what I want to do?"

When thinking in terms of goals, to use the tired old carrot-and-stick analogy, the Incarnate system extends the stick while correspondingly increasing the size of the carrot. Now, it's certainly a mighty juicy looking carrot. And man, it's really big, too. But I look at the size of the stick and I think that once it passes a certain length, I'm not really playing a game anymore. And so it doesn't matter how impressive the carrot at the end is, I look at the long, uninviting stick and say "eh".

The most common response to this I see tends to be along the lines of "well then...just don't worry about the Incarnate system. Just get to 50 and stop, like you did before". That doesn't really fly for me, either, though. I'm focused on goals. I could stop at 50, sure. But I could also stop at 20, or 32, or 4 for that matter. I play this game to get to the "end", and then I do it again. Now, the "end" can also be assigned arbitrarily, sure. That's where the size and scope of the game come into play.

There's a lot of talk about "endgame content", and how much this game needs it. But to me, content is something I "do". It's not something I "use" or something I "get". There could be no rewards at all to it, just advancement of story, just new things to do with the same old characters, and I'd be quite satisfied with that. It'd be something to do with all those "retired" characters.

In this case, though, I do the two new trials once, maybe twice, and I'm already done with the new content. Any repetition being done is being done for the sake of the rewards. By the time I have those rewards, there's no longer any point to having them. To my mind, for endgame content to exist, progression has to stop. I didn't ever even consider getting Purples before the Incarnate system came out because there was nothing to do once I got them.

I realize I'm on one far end of the spectrum here, but that's how I see it. To sum up, since I've rambled a bit: If I run out of things I want to do, without running out of things I want to have, then the game as a whole becomes too large, too daunting a task. It becomes work, and that's just what I play the game to avoid. I see the biggest picture, and in this case, that's not to my benefit. If I can't start a new character without thinking about how much more that character will have to obtain, then it doesn't matter if that new one can do the same as all the old ones.

...and even my summary has rambled. I think my point has been made, so I'll stop. No, really. Stopping now. Totally stopping. I mean it!

...thanks for reading this long, if anyone did.
No! Stop now! Stoppppp!!!!!

Super. Thank you, sir.

So here's a question I haven't seen answered anywhere. I'm steadily working my way through BAFs (one per day), and really of the various stuff I want to get out of it...the level shift from the Lore slot is really the most appealing. So obviously, my current goal is to be able to slot my rare Lore as soon as possible on the characters that I'm using. Presently, I don't have any slots unlocked (my highest is at ~80% for Judgement), so the question becomes: since I'm already getting Salvage that can be used to create the various powers, can I create them first so that they can be immediately slotted upon unlocking them? It looks like it should be possible, but I'm afraid creating a power I've no slot for might result in nothing being created, or the like, and then I'll see my hard earned threads simply disappear into the ether.