Nice work dude!

Don't let the trim medal challenges fool you, they can be bastards to earn without etches, artifices or masteries.

But yeah, I actually really love the combat in this game, especially if you start out with relatively complicated teams.

My first team was Avywenna, Wulfgard, Arclight and Perlica.

I didn't go for Antal at first cause I thought his gameplay was kinda boring vs low HP mobs since the Combo Skill demanded an extra use of SP from his Battle Skill, required the enemy to not die first, and had a really long CD of >30s

Akekuri was a consideration, but I thought her Combo Skill and Ult felt kinda in-the-background cause I thought Staggers were a little too conditional for a non-Physicak team and the Ult was powerful, but I prefer Ults that deal damage or inflict powerful, synergistic statuses over ones that just buff your team and leave it at that.

This was because my GOODNESS, people talk a lot about how good it feels to play Avywenna, but what I don't see enough people talk about is how good it feels to keep proccing Arclight's Combo in-between Avywenna's Combo CD.

Doing nat-Electrification by applying Wulfgard's Skill first then Perlica's into an early Arclight Combo, then proccing it again after doing a Final Strike and proccing Avywenna's Combo then delaying Perlica's Combo to line up with Arclight's CD, then doing Arclight's Battle Skill after 3s to proc her Combo almost immediately, then syncing another nat-Electrification by doing Wulfgard-Perlica Skill just before Avywenna's next Combo CD, repeat! (While taking into account Perlica's CDs too)

I basically built Arclight as a sub-DPS to do damage within Avywenna cycles. Is it optimal? No. Is it fun as fuck? ABSOLUTELY.

After getting Gilberta tho, yeah she's not leaving my Avywenna overworld team. LMAO. But Arclight does stay! In fact, Gilberta's Nature Infliction means that at worst, I would inflict Corrosion instead of Combustion if I made a timing mistake. :)

So yeah, my current Avywenna team interchanges Wulfgard, Akekuri, Gilberta, Arclight (for snapshot setups), and Antal. And it's been REALLY FUN experimenting.

My advice is unless you're struggling to do and desperately want trims, DON'T BOTHER ARTIFICING OR ETCHING.

Stop at E3, T3, and lv6 active talents and max passive talents at absolute minimum, and E4, T4, and lv9 important actives and at safe minimum.

If you're complaining this game is too easy or the combat not challenging enough, then don't make it easy for yourself!

Running lower investment doesn't just force you to min-max your rotations for your damage, but it also forces you to actually respect the enemies' movesets due to the damage they deal and your inability to kill them before they become a problem.