Another tip. Blocking DOES matter. A lot of people aren't too happy with how block is done, but the upside is you can block way more than you think. In fact, one of the bosses becomes far easier if you employ some blocking.
Anyway, I'll just start with my current team.
Luceus
He has the whole attack attribute filled out, almost all of the MP, almost all of the Defense, and 3 segments in Wisdom. This allows him to hit hard, cast spells without worrying about the drain too much, and stay in the battle for a while. The Wisdom helps with the spell damage, but we'll get to that in second.
I also dumped a point into HP because why not.
His Special Effects are
Deftness,
Artful Dodger which allows him to have a better dodge window,
and Best in Tension.
Next, let's talk about those Exclusives.
Inferno Slash Extender
Rebuttal (helpful on bosses that shoot shit, and it does decent damage enough for it to be effective),
Increase in Strength,
Powersaver, which gives a discount on casting spells.
Finally, I bought all of his spells. You should be doing this for all characters once you hit level 30ish.
The end result is a main character doing great damage, able to take more hits than usual, spells that do decent damage when he needs to clean up mobs or for weaknesses, and most importantly, always getting buffs when he gets criticals, which come out more because of the Deftness Boost. The last thing I'll focus on doing is pushing up Deftness to Burst.
He's also tension focused too, as I have some items, but I'm not so ingrained in the accessory area that I know what to do with that.
Very reliable and well rounded character.
Alena
Buffed out her Strength to 4 out of 5
One in MP (to cast spells more)
Three in Defense. She's a glass cannon on the melee side, so it helps to boost that area.
She hits super hard, can cast her ORAORORAORA attack a bit more, and can hang in there when she normally couldn't.
As for SEs:
Best in Tension. Always have this. Can't stress it enough.
Deftness Boost
Critical Impact
Critical Cover. She has a problem with Defense, so any time you can get that up without having to sacrifice points elsewhere is a godsend. Plus, they stack, so you can have attack and defense going at the same time.
Exclusives:
Multifist Multipler is a boss killer. All those hits on a weakened boss plus with the increase of criticals can make short work of bigger foes and bosses.
Divide and Conquer, because you basically always want to be in Divide as much as you can.
Divide Booster for the same reasons as above.
Feel the Burn puts that damage received to good use.
Knockout Knuckle Sandwich increases the chance for a crit on hit with that move. Great way to start out against a stationary boss.
My Alena is all about damage, some crits when she can get them, and boosting her defense on those crits. I stay in Divide as much as I can, because that's where she shines the best.