Is this an impression or is FC taking the direction of "less solo action" ?
Tha both on PvP and PvM activities, and more exactly for "non TL7" part.
For PvM, removing heal from Mongo and more generaly target level locking HOTs will make life of soloer under TL6 quite a pain... (remember, heal delta doesnt do much before TL5)
For PvP, everyone will be affected by the HOT nerf, and it's not necessarily a "bad thing"... but planning all the rebalance on "you ll have to be in a team for PvM or PvP" is a dangerous bet, in my opinion, considering the population size in AO...