Super tedious having to wait for cooldowns. mages would rebarrier anything I didn't flat out kill. Trickle spawns were just frustrating. Ended up being a much slower playstyle than I thought it would be. Deathblow would have made things much, much smoother.
Which just means kill the mages. SB is clearly unable to adapt his playstyle to the changing circumstance. You seem you're able to though. "Here's how to win" -- me "I don't want to" --him.
Promotions to make it easier, but it seems you can do it. If you had Rock's promotes and gear I'd expect you to have a very fair chance of surviving.
There's also a difference in perspective between tedious and fun depending on the circumstance. If I'm solo'ing and no allies are dead, there's less reason to carry the map. If I'm with friends or on stream, there's incentive to actually play well and try to win. I've been in those shoes of being low level or even level 1 in NM. Sometimes I survive, sometimes I don't, but a lot of the time I do long enough for allies to rejoin at the very least.
TF/DB will however outright kill most mobs, and at level 10 its possible to even get the first point of hidden blades too while still getting the armor penetration from stealth passive.
So is it hard? Yes, that's pretty obvious to everyone. Did I expect Rock to survive? Maybe, maybe not. Could he? Possibly. Will I give him a hard time about it? Definitely. He chose that class and build and died in public viewing. Do I actually think any less of Rock for doing so? Absolutely not, but I will give him a hard time about it. . . and Bruh too since he's being a cheerleader.