MA missions with custom critters are almost impossible to classify from one MA to another in terms of difficulty from AT to AT.
My Inv Tanker can usually sit in the middle of a any (non-MA\non-Psi) spawn while I go watch my favorite Lord of the Rings director's cut version and not get a scratch.
I can run the same Inv Tanker solo (so small spawn counts) through an MA and more times then not, end up running around screaming like a little girl.
Electricity, slows (both recharge and movement), stacked patch or rain effects, and so forth will bring a Tanker to its knees *if* you approach MA missions the same way you do normal ones.
When I do MA missions now, I treat them as if I'm doing a full group Posi TF. I corner pull a ton, run n gun my rocky butt off, use LOS where possible and so on until I either beat the mission or figure out that it isn't that tough.
Ironically enough, my Fire/Dark Corruptor blows through MAs with nary a concern (different play type and controls obviously).
But in either case, I always approach MAs (even farms) with caution first (moreso then I approach "normal" content that is).
I went with Presence instead of Fighting on my WP/SS and have been glad that I did when running MA missions. You'd be surprised how much mitigation Fear provides against unknown assailants.
"I never said thank you." - Lt. Gordon
"And you'll never have to." - the Dark Knight
Three guys walk into a bar...
That's what I read from your title. =T
There are some difficult power combinations you can throw at players via custom critters, especially when they get stacked.
Not knowing what was faced in your scenario, I guess after the first death they could have stocked up on either blues or purples, depending on what was happening to them.
Yeah. What was funniest to me was the Blaster's apparent belief that a Controller with Radiant Aura would have romped through content that repeatedly felled Granite, Invulnerability, and Willpower Tankers fighting side-by-side. That may represent an all-time high in overvaluing healing.
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
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Yeah. What was funniest to me was the Blaster's apparent belief that a Controller with Radiant Aura would have romped through content that repeatedly felled Granite, Invulnerability, and Willpower Tankers fighting side-by-side. That may represent an all-time high in overvaluing healing.
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The healing in itself would have very little influence. Now however if you add in the debuffs of radiation and it paints a completely different picture... Radiation has insane amounts of debuff... Put up Radiation Infection, enervating field, Lingering Radiation and you debuff enemy to hit, defense, damage, resists, regeneration, recharge and speed. Choking cloud is good for holding and if you have radiation emission as a controller, you also got a good toolbox for holds/immobs in your primary.
Two Mammoth Tanks.
The only cost a little extra, too. 
It seems to me the main goal of the people who make their custom mobs is to make their mission as hard as friggin' possible. I might just be getting bad arcs but the few I have played with custom groups have all had LTs in them that are harder to kill than an AV(bit of an exageration but they have been tough!).
This arc I did last night had LTs that were Bots MM set to extreme + some electric powers that take your end in like 2 shots. There were 2 of them with every mob so you go from fighting 4 to 10. I ended up quitting after my 7th faceplant in less than 10 minutes, lol.
Coming back out of the woodwork after a couple years away from the game...
There's absolutely no doubt that a certain number of mission designers make the missions deliberately hard. Whether trhey're seeking challenge, trying to piss people off, or just measuring their self-worth by the toughness of their creations, I don't know. in far too many cases the bad guys are not just hard, but have a selection of carefully-mixed abilities to negate as many standard player powers and tactics as possible. The old end-sapping/toggle-dropping/holding/stunning/knockback-proof/self-healing /to-hit-buffed/resistance-debuffing/blinding/critting/slowing/minion trick, as it were. With gigantic aggro radius and enhanced perception.
That kind of thing could have been fun in limited quantity -- the sad fact that it's a major theme in MA missions is kind of tawdry, though.
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
Another issue with MA Arcs is that really good feedback can be rare. Given the number of arcs created, it's rare to get someone to even play the missions, let alone give you helpful feedback.
I've got two arcs, one for villains, one for pre-10 heroes, and I've managed to get great feedback on both which helped me tone down a few enemies in both arcs.
Some of the issues would come from intent, ie people who like tough challenges, and some likely come from inexperience, ie hey, I think I'll give every critter Extreme SR! I'm not really an 'in it for the challenge' type of guy, I'm just here for fun, so I try to make custom enemies to fit that mold. I did have a custom lt, DB/SR scrapper, that got changed to WP because it was frustrating me to no end.
I definitely agree though that if custom critters are dropping any kind of tank with regularity, they're likely much too hard.
They ALL float down here. When you're down here with us, you'll float too!
@Starflier
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It seems to me the main goal of the people who make their custom mobs is to make their mission as hard as friggin' possible. I might just be getting bad arcs but the few I have played with custom groups have all had LTs in them that are harder to kill than an AV(bit of an exageration but they have been tough!).
This arc I did last night had LTs that were Bots MM set to extreme + some electric powers that take your end in like 2 shots. There were 2 of them with every mob so you go from fighting 4 to 10. I ended up quitting after my 7th faceplant in less than 10 minutes, lol.
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A big problem with designing MA's is that newbie authors don't understand that if they have a neat concept mob, it might not necessarily be a good thing to make every pack full of them.
Imagine fighting Malta where every minion was a Sapper. Yeesh.
Another problem (from a playability standpoint) is making themed MAs that don't exactly endear itself to players. For example I had a friend make a "Matrix Revolutions" MA, where every mob was an Agent Smith who spawned more Agent Smiths. Simple and neat right? Except everyone one of them was an MA/SR Scrapper ... kind of annoying to just whiffle yourself to death.
Most people who gripe about this game's ATs not measuring up to comic books enough seem to fall into this trap with the MAs constantly.
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A big problem with designing MA's is that newbie authors don't understand that if they have a neat concept mob, it might not necessarily be a good thing to make every pack full of them.
Imagine fighting Malta where every minion was a Sapper. Yeesh.
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Or where every minion was a Sapper with knockback resistance, Hold, Sleep, and Disorient protection. And huge perception radius.
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For example I had a friend make a "Matrix Revolutions" MA, where every mob was an Agent Smith who spawned more Agent Smiths. Simple and neat right? Except everyone one of them was an MA/SR Scrapper ... kind of annoying to just whiffle yourself to death.
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I've played that one! It wasn't too bad, but my character had two to-hit buffs (Invincibility and Rage) so it was probably worse for everyone else.
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
Nah you're right ... it wasn't too bad ... but playing it with a Scrapper was a little nutty (good practice for scrapping though).
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Two Mammoth Tanks.
The only cost a little extra, too.
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Last night I joined an Architect mission team with a lot of Tanks -- at various points the team was three to five Tanks and one Blaster.
I asked if I could invite a friend, and while I was sending the /tell to my friend, the rest of the team went through the COT portal into the next room. And died.
A Willpower, Invulnerability, and Fire Tanker all went down hard from the custom foes. The enemies were level 40 and our level range was 38-40, mostly 40, so it wasn't the difficulty setting.
My friend the Stone Tanker joined, and while making his way to our position, drew aggro and was killed. Fair enough, maybe he wasn't traveling in Granite. Once he caught up with us, he turned on Granite and was good. I changed characters to a 39 Scrapper. The rest were all rested and recovered, and while my Scrapper navigated the hallways to join up, the team moved into the next area.
Boom, the WP, Inv, and Granite Tankers all went dead before my Scrapper caught up. I tried to pull just a few and quickly joined everyone at the hospital. Holy cow!
I don't know exactly what powers the bad guys had, but the mission creator (the team leader who invited us) said he'd beaten it with his Controller solo. I don't doubt this is possible -- a Controller can often hold/mezz the nasties before their debuffs go off, making things much easier.
The Blaster then pipes up, "Yeah, but did your Controller have a heal?
:P
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog