That sucks Devile.

I just completed 6p Tal's on 3 of my team. The 4th is missing several pieces yet. Two have gotten lucky while gambling gloves and have TnT's though they aren't great (one is 46% the other is 48%). I have had two non-ancient SS drop, but they are far from good. I still have a long way to go in my gearing process that is for sure, but I am getting most of the basics out of the way.

I think I need one more Halo of Arlyse and maybe one more Convention of Elements to deck out all my guys with them. I have FnR on two of them, but toughness is my primary issue, not damage currently. So I am working on building up the teams tankiness. I can do low to mid 30's if I play somewhat cautiously. Deaths are what slow me down more than anything. Once I get Halo+APD's on the entire team and get some defensive gems leveled, I should be doing a lot better.

Last night I almost got my Gizzards to 25. After that I will start on Esoteric. With both of those leveled I will then start leveling my damage gems probably in this order Trapped -> Toxin -> Zei's -> PE. I plan to level all of them to 25 just to swap them in and out for testing to see what works best with my play style.

I had considered Mutilation guard, but we already get a large melee damage reduction with Halo ring. Not really sure if it is worth a jewelry socket spot.

I went with Gizzard first because it just gives a lot of toughness for low to mid GR's, but I feel Esoteric will eventually outstrip it especially once I have Halo and APD's on the entire team. Once I am to the point of just running Esoteric for defense, I will probably run Trapped and Toxin as my dps gems. Zei's could work but that requires perfect Hydra placement to maximize it and with 4 characters to controls I just don't see that happening. Besides 4x Toxin provides a larger buff than Zei's anyway and comes with a DoT which gets nicely boosted by Tal's 6p to do decent damage as well. I think Toxin will be our best second gem.

I don't plan to use PE much to reach crazy ias breakpoints on Hydra. I am shooting for the 3.07 breakpoint for the Hydra and that only takes 38% ias if you have a 7% roll on your SS and a 50% TnT. That can be reached with IAS on rings, gloves, paragon, chest all perfect rolls. I may end up using Slow Time with the attack speed buff rune to make it easier to hit the BP's.

I have also toyed with the idea of dropping one of the Wizards for a Tiki WD. The WD could provide elite affix lock as well as constant BBV for 20% attack speed (assuming I can get an SMK). Dropping a wizard would be made up for by the Doc providing a large amount of damage buffs to the wizards (30% BBV, 20% poison haunt, 15% piranhas).

The other option is to drop a Wizard for a ZDPS crusader. Laws of Valor would cover the attack speed buff and the sader could also bring 20% crit and 20% damage from Shield Glare. This option is more appealing because Shield Glare can be put right in the round robin rotation with Frost Nova to maintain boss stunlock, whereas the WD has to actually cast his stun (Black Blood Sacrifice).

I don't normally play mixed teams, but I could see those swaps being pretty easy to manage and they could bring a lot to the table.