OK, you'll asked for it..... WTF am I doing wrong here on the
Chapter 5 school house boss? This guys just keeps wrecking my party in no time at all, yet I can easily cut through everything else in the school house....
Rean (lvl 44)
Force:
Holy Breath
Thelas
Action2
Leg Breaker
Invigorate
Detection
Reaper
Attack2
Laura (44)
Brave:
Attack1
Volcanic Rain
Tearal
Dragon Vision
Impede1
Demonic Scythe
Spirit Vision
Fortuna
Elliot (44)
Criminal:
Flame Tongue
Athelas
Voice Breaker
Chrono Drive
Seiryuu
Crescent Mirror
Cross Crusade
Breath
Alisa:
Angel:
Volcanic Rain
Suzaku
Fortuna
Athelas
Attack1
Speed Breaker
Impede1
Earth Pulse
(43):
Cypher:
Chrono Drive
Analyze
Recuria
Dark Matter
Flood
Heal
Grim Butterfly
Water Bell
(43)
Aegis:
Yggrasil
Teara
Nightmare
La Crest
Phantom Phobia
Hydro Cannon
Silver Thorn
Attack 2
Is that the Ice Dragon thing? First of all you want to put Freeze resistant accessories. You might already have some normal ones, but I'd recommend getting 2 Passionate Rouge from Micht Pawn shop. Stops Freeze, Petrify and something else while also putting Str +50. Speaking of accessories you might want to get enough Evergreens for the entire party. You should probably have 1 already, so you'll need to make 3 more. These are expensive though and will probably set you back 120,000 Gold roughly I think. You can use Elliot to buy the ingredients for Simple Omelet and make it. It sells for a profit so just make 99 at a time, sell and repeat. It might sound like a bit of effort, but it's worth it. Those accessories will last you the rest of the game and NG+ as well it you do it, I nevwr stopped using them except when I got the accessory for max Rank at the end of the game. Just listen to a podcast or something while you get the money. It would have been easier to buy them directly from the Shops in Chapter 4, but now you'll have to mess around with exchanges at Micht's. Not really an issue though.
As for quartz it at a glance it looks like you've got too many spell types of quartz on the likes of Rean and Laura. I'm not sure if you can create them now, but try and get as many Breaker type quartz (Leg, Armour, Speed) so you can stack as much Strength as possible whilw allowing for debufs at the same time. Get an Attack 2 (3 if you can afford it, check Micht Shop if George doesn't sell) for Laura as well. Spirit and Speed Breaker's are good for Laura and Rean respectively since they need that type of quartz on them anyway.
As for the fight itself. Use Elliot to constantly maintain Resounding Beat. Don't let it wear off. Make sure you use a Detect on the boss as early as you can for break chance and as long as people have their health topped off just do whatever. Do you have a Gladiator Belt? Put it on Alisa. You can her AoE Craft to restore HP/CP on everyone and also use her as support to buff other people Str, Spd and so on. Insight woukd help but I don't think you've learned that Craft. Maybe if you have a quartz
At that level Rean hasn't learned Flame Impact yet. I played on Normal so never had a problem, but since you're on Hard I'd advise using Laura and
. Use Laura to knock it's defence down and/or break the boss with Armour Breaker, and the other character uses it's Craft that has 50% Faint and also good chance to break. Again Elliots Detect will improve their chances of breaking. Those two can keep using their Crafts every turn until Faint kicks in since Alisa should be restoring the CP regularly. If you manage to inflict Faint, use regular attacks (or Crafts if you have the CP to spare) for guaranteed Criticals and chain attacks.
This might sound overboard for one fight. But I played on Normal first time and walked through Nightmare second time around. I don't know how difficult I would have found it on Hard on my initial playthrough so there it may be somewhat over preperation. But in the end those accessories will always be useful anyway and similar tactics can be used for a lot if not all tbe bosses in this game to degree.