OK... so I've been running NG+ to try to get familiarize myself with the game again... and have found the Duty Support system to be fantastic! I have yet to have a single NPC die. Note tho, I did level skip my RDM to 80, so I'm in full iLvl 530 Cryptlurker gear. But a funny thing happened... I was at the Copperbell Mines dungeon and realized after selecting the dungeon, I was going into "The Porta Decumana"!!! So... the first phase was pretty exciting and the NPCs handled everything like a champ. Second phase, out of the blue a huge explosion and I dropped dead. Next round with Echo, everything went smoothly and completed with no further deaths. All in all, I was shocked how well the NPCs handled it.