@Aionwen: There is a dozen or so people maybe more that can't buff mercs, how do you expect them to do s23 when they can barely get through it or not even at all, a animality costs 12 bc yes its cheap but they shouldn't be forced to buy it just to do 1 run it would cost them 48,000 gold average for each run they decide to do, they would be completely broke by the end of the day, the russian team have said that we should be able to do the runs with mercs comfortably, yet it's not possible, they even put the same statement in for 9.0 since there is only going to be 1 normal sector, 1 rare, 1 epic, 1 legendary instead of the current s23/s24 no more hard astral, except for fable and heroic modes.
@Yosuf3: exactly it has been like it since 8.0 and that was the only astral where mercs died the others we were able to do comfortably.