i'm not sure what you could do w/ it down... the brute fact is that you need a ton of _something_ in order to counter all the candles. I think I'd have been dumping all of your vast pearl income into juggernauts, and that's not too affected by AC as the casters can all be casting returning.
but even with juggernauts, the wave was just too far advanced - and I'm generally adding 5-7 more temple checks a turn.
Raiding can lower my bloodhunting, but not sufficiently. I'm about to start using all my Gem store (1300 or so) to convert to astrals in order to wish for more Blood... so that'll be a steady 200 blood every 2 turns income.
I'd never take a 4 starting dominion either; I'm guessing neither will Executor from now on.
Some builds I can live w/ a 6, but that's the absolute minimum for me (except some Mictlan strats).