The standard empress team loses in almost every case purely because it has the main on "Move 2" and most fires etc run on "Move 1" so regardless of your initiative you won't go before them unless you land a cc or it's a ninja with a non prompt mystery.

To counter it I swapped talents to run clone standard attack and multi shadow clone with main on "Move 1". Yes I realise this lowers the damage of the empress build, but that damage is useless if you're slower and getting locked down.

^This method does rely more on your main having a good amount of initiative to go first, otherwise you're in the same boat but with less damage to boot :D