Not only that, but because the descends are coming from Japan, the difficulty seems to keep in mind that Japan gets a shitload of skillup collabs. Here in the US we get fuckall for collabs. So, a ton of our monsters either flat out can't be skilled up, or are so ridiculously hard to skill up that it's the same difference.
I'm glad you used Athena as an example, because it helps illustrate my point as to how REM reliant it still is. Athena is one of the rare few descends which is actually a "top tier" leader and sub. The problem is, her UVO mats are a complete pain in the ass. Not only do you have to wait for the proper descends, you have to hope the orb event is active,andyou have to spend 50 stamina a pop for achanceat an invade. Even with all that being said, it's not something I'd considercompletelyoutlandish. Now, the problem with an Athena team is that you might as well not even bother without Izanagi. Where does Izanagi drop? Exactly my point. Now, even if you do manage to have an Izanagi, her "ideal" team still relies on 3/4 subs from the REM.
I have a fully awoken/max level Anubis, so I've experienced just about all the content there is to experience (like I said earlier, a lot of it will likely never even be released here, because our licensing stateside is awful). Any descends I fall just short of being able to pass, I typically only fall short due to a poor skyfall/bad luck. The issue is, even when I pass these descends, I'm getting monsters that do absolutely nothing for me. I'm not progressing at all and that's a huge problem. My only progress happens every 2 or so weeks, when they decide to throw us a bone with Starry Lane appearances. Even then, you better pray your group gets a timeslot that won't interfere with work/life. The power curve of descends made a massive swing. So much so that they just about flat out require max skilled/REM only monsters. Now it's quickly creeping up into requiring alotof +eggs on your monsters, because of things like preemptives.
Thats not really true. I have a red sonia, and have her hyper maxed with a pretty good team. And the new descends she isn't good for. You do need a top tier burst leader though which are generally super rem dependent which is really what all the bitching is about.