I suppose this video is kind of reminder that sometimes, the silliest ideas can work better than doing things the right way 🫣😂 This is a clear on my alt account that uses only lvl 1 cards, focusing on myth collection. 

My stats are in the end of the video, I showed them immediately after this stage since I wasn't expecting this would actually work and didn't record the stats before. It's just trying to maximize HP and crit rate with the 1lvl cards.  

I was struggling with this stage, mostly for 2 reasons: 

1. I'm not really good with GoA yet, so my rotation is most likely quite bad

2. Those teleporting f-ers are just really difficult to deal with melee. I noticed I was constantly having issues with connecting the extremely tight rotation into theme enemies - either they teleport under from my charged attacks or active skill, which made it very difficult to get the enemies grouped or just get the golden feathers for the special skill.

Then I went to look at the skills and realised... The claymore is supporting the rotation well, but it could work with pistols. Using pistols would remove the difficulty to connect the hits to the enemies as they can't dodge them with the teleport, and they won't be teleporting as often since you're not meleeing them. 

Immediately when I swapped to the pistols, I noticed this was much easier. The 4 basic attacks combo is actually almost as fast if not faster to get with the signature claymore, and same for the charged attack. The active skill stack return works with the pistol active skill as well. The rotation itself wasn't that much different, and I could use my normal positioning tactics with pistols as well. Also my survivability was much better with the pistols, as I didn't have to try to connect shots and hope I won't die for any hits I needed to take for that. I had a couple failed attempts with the claymore because I died for the risk taking. 

In the latter part of this stage, I started to default my usual charged attack - dodge - charged attack rotation with pistols until I remembered I need to do the GoA rotation, but still managed to beat this. With claymore my best attempts were that the last 2 shielded enemies were at 75% of their last HP bar. 

Obviously, as a disclaimer, **I don't expect this to work in higher orbits or at higher levels**. I assume MC's damage with the claymore will have much bigger impact than trying this, but at the same time... It doesn't hurt to try. 

And maybe the takeaway from this video should be that try to learn your companions skills and techniques in a way that you can apply them in different situations. And maybe, you can use the companion in another way. 

GoA with pistols (Ice Orbit 54 with 1lvl cards) - Combat analysis on why this worked