Right now special mobs really are far, far worse for ranking because you can't tank them nearly as easily as regular mobs. And tanking is almost always the factor that limits how fast a group can go. There are a few (rare) groups that don't need a good tank (ones with two utility/healer classes), but those groups are still going to be better off fighting normal-difficulty mobs.

As I noted above, the NPCs in question are significantly easier to tank than other NPCs of the same level. Specifically, to rank on them most easily, you wouldn't care much about tanking, but you might want better saving throws and/or smarter characters. The existence of these kinds of mobs makes traditional tanks less crucial, not more.

The change to transmuters, by the way, was general, and not specific to the NPCs in question-- all casting transmuters gained a number of options at all levels, and better mimic PCs. Note that this doesn't necessarily make them harder-- as one example, the old version threw a ton of Disrupt Organ if the NPC's level was high enough, whereas the new version picks from a variety of spells if it decides it wants to throw damage.

They are probably tougher than old transmuter-NPCs at the lower levels, however, largely for the same reasons PC transmuters are tougher at the lower levels these days-- more direct combat options to complement the support spells.

In general, these types of posts exhibit a selection bias, also. No one posts about how ranking has changed when a PC class gets a new ability that helps out. Some changes makes ranking easier, some make it harder, and many just make it different. On the forums, you'll only hear about the latter two, which often get conflated.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com