I had the same problem trying to get a shield, but then I saw how a small group low-manned it for gear:

It's worth noting, they were after gear, not currency, so they weren't trying to stagger all that much.
Blue Mage would round up a bunch of mobs, usually 6-10, bring back to camp. Black Mage would sleepga everything, 2 thieves would solo/proc TH on a few at a time, and then blue mage and black mage would either do an extra sleepga if necessary, or both AOE nuke.

I honestly thought I was getting disconnected when I zoned into Dynamis Jeuno because I saw not a single monster, till I found where they were camping. Using this approach, instead of trying to avoid links, they just grabbed all the links and dealt with them by sleeping them all. They were tossing relic base weapons left and right and just outright gave me a shield lol.