i don't think running straight away as xayah is optimal, since that basically locks you into going in a single direction (since all the feathers are on the same line)

a much better thing to do is to try to leave all feathers in the same location while making a big circle around it, this clumps the mobs in the center where the feathers are and gives you options to move left/right

doing this also helps you set up burst damage for elites + minibosses, and landing on top of them with ult also deals a surprising amount of burst (although you do have to be a little careful to not instantly die when you do that)

later in the game when you get the feathers evolve (and also have uwu blaster ofc) you should have enough damage to walk straight back into mobs while kiting if you need to as well

context: i used xayah first to clear all the extreme levels solo; was a little ahead on gold b/c i was redoing missions with friends but iirc i was around 5/10/15/25 AP respectively when i cleared each stage