I feel you on the lighting march. I have been trying to make it work for a year now and keep thinking like you that I can get the damage up and it can do better if I just get one more skill or immortal. I have also tried using Hemmiko and other immortals in my March. I have also tried two different dragon tree marches. I am sad to see you have found simmilar results further in the game.
100% on point lightning is 1 of the worse right now, i as a f2p main lightning took me ages to build it up and i reap no rewards, developers know it they wont fix or revamp they will only release p2w immortal as "fix" such as tokugawa to make lightning not so squishy, darius was a fixed for peter failure to counter alex. If you just started the game and reading this the best advice is dont do lightning mains.