I used a QHY5 II L Colour with PHD2 without much difficulty on a C925+0.63 reducer.
A 1.5 or 2 sec exposure worked well and didn’t over-correct for seeing.
This gave enough stars to easily id the field using Guide9.
However, I soon moved to a Lodestar and would echo the sentiments above. Big improvement in sensitivity.
My pointing accuracy on a CGEM (albeit hyper-tuned) using Guide9, Astroplanner or CdC puts the target in the guider fov, even after a flip. (I should point out I never slew at the highest speed). Although I still use a secondary finder-guider for comfort as David mentioned!
The only downside from the using the Lodestar was a slightly smaller field than the QHY.
Good luck and stick with it. Just practice really!
Regards
T