A.I scaling

[Blackmist_FFXI]

 Wondering bout how the A.I scales to players power level.
 
came back to this game after afew months, and tried one of the DLC missions ( Think DLC 3) and got some LV18-25 Part gear, it ramped my Builder level? to like 35 from 18..

Before this, I was rocking 1,700dmg saber and 4k dmg "Mega cannon" along with ~23k HP and was 2-4 shotting everything. dealing bout 2k a strike. taking maybe 500 dmg per hit.

after fighting overpowered foe's in the dlc mission (on Hard core) everything has become... a grind, CH2 "Qualifying missions" For the next Tournament, it's taking nearly all my active ability's to kill a handful if not just one "mob" Gundam.  - like an entire volly of my 3 "rocket pods" doing 2.5-5k per hit / splash hardly does a dent.  and my HP is cleaved in half every time i'm hit.  I've 230k hp,  20k melee 17-20k Ranged

missions went from 5-6 min to 30+

 but ya all that aside, What's triggering the A.I to send out more robust enemy's, is it equipped parts, builder level, I don't think it could be progress, as i'm only on Ch2 - unless tackling the dlc made the game scale to roughly its difficulty