I'd say Ella's power is much less intuitive than MC's, because MC collects body templates just from touching others, and can transform into these templates easily.
Ella, meanwhile, has to understand what she's transforming into. She doesn't have the luxury of simply touching something and getting knowledge about it, she has to actually sculpt her forms into her desired form, just like MC at the start when he tried shapeshifting into Deryl without touching him.
And it's even worse for anything more complex than outer appearances. She studied biology for years to supplement her powers, so she could understand what she needed to do to make certain things, and then she had to practice to actually succeed in transforming into that. That's the reason she's shocked if you poison her; that's something you shouldn't be able to do, like, a week after gaining your powers. It's too complex.
The only direct advantages Ella has are that her shapeshifting, by itself, is bound to be at least somewhat innately easier to control, since she doesn't have any memory shenanigans, and her body should also be naturally stronger than MC's for the same reason. However, most of the difference between their abilities is that Ella actually knows what she's doing, unlike MC, who's mixing and matching forms he has.
Xanthe told MC that Ella has shown the ability to shift her body at a more precisely and at at smaller scale than than he could, even at a low level (either 1 or 2 for her, don't remember exactly), but the reason isn't necessarily a difference in their power, but rather, a difference in the way they trained and their knowledge. MC basically speedran power gain using memory, while Ella spent years, probably without even evolving, just learning how to use her abilities.
Sorry for the yap lmao
