Imho you are largely undervalue earth main. Earth main with 2 females and 1 male works perfectly fine due to the passive that gives immunity he got with 5.0 (you consider op breeze dancer for flower guard and earth main with guidance that do the same thing but with males no?) and who said you have to use boulder jutsu? Chakra wall and the knockdown mysteries in zenith work way better in many situations (with the random teams you can make and find).

You said yourself that most of his good things are shield based. If is so, then, just use the mysteries that give you shields when you want and ninjas, if available, that selfshield or that grant shields (like utakata, gakido, kurenai, omoi, toroi etc...).

A team, for example, like earth main + utakata, if you are able to make proc the 20 chase, in zenith, due to how the enemy teams can be made, may be very op.

P.S. Monkey king works also with earth main and earth main clone casts immobile...