you can play whatever you think you're good at, just don't think of it as messing up in the long run because someone else says so.

i am saying this because i trust people can understand what it is they are doing wrong despite the lack of faith people normally have. at least in most cases people have pretty straightforward issues that they fix up pretty quickly if you give them specific advice. if you have "skill walls" don't hesitate to ask for help.

for example, people usually give advice to stay away from HR but not many know for how long they should avoid it.

it is true that when people say too much hr is bad before playing nomod but it really just means you will need to play other mods/nomod or different bpm/difficulties eventually if you encounter "skill walls" because you've already spent too much time on a certain bpm range/difficulty(star rating or od)

in this case people would assume playing anything other than "HR" instead would have not got them into the skill walls, but some people forget they played HR because they had a good reason to etc. and they forget they would have lost out on that experience. you can decide if you know what you're doing or not in many of these cases.

look for good maps and remember the names of the good mappers out there, collect their maps and just enjoy playing them.

you'll find out that you improve at everything with time regardless of your playstyle granted you play a variety of maps/styles, but only one specific part of your playstyle will be the best and that will be the main point you'll use to improve.

going for fc usually is the safest way to tell you're decent for the speed/difficulty you're playing at imo at your skill level. you'll be fine. hope i helped.