And crossing shallow lava, yeah.

I have mine setup with canons so I can do some crowd control when necessary.

Needless to say, I leave it/her disabled during normal gameplay.

I find her helpful in combat as long as you don't pilot her. I like to give her a frost emitter on one arm and a monster horn on the other.

Purely a guess cause I don't use her in battle (I spam A to get Riju), but try fans on her arms. She'll blow away enemies giving you space and make them stumble. Add the rocket to her back when you want a vertical boost.

You can fuse flamethrowers and the like to her arms, but that's about it I think.