My team for the parts where you could choose your squad were:
Rean/Laura/Jusis/Emma (Machias can go into Jusis's spot if needed, pick a top tier, etc.)
in Y Formation, so:
R X X X L
X X J X X
X X X X X
X X E X X
From the starting turn, both Jusis and Emma can buff the whole team if necessary (I don't recall if Emma can buff herself with Crescent Shell, but she never needed it because barely anyone ever attacked her physically lol)
Also, this layout makes it less likely that you'll get more than two characters caught in a sweeping attack.
If you need to make a run for it, you're less likely to suffer group damage while running away.
If you're in a wide Box Formation, like:
R X X X L
X X X X X
J X X X E
X X X X X
buffing all characters at once becomes harder or impossible due to distance; Jusis won't be able to reach Emma or Laura to buff them.
Also, this puts Emma needlessly close into the line of fire.
If you try a thin Box Formation (which is actually a default set by the game at some points), like:
X R X L X
X X X X X
X J X E X
X X X X X
You make yourself more susceptible to AoEs, and line attacks compared to Y. This particular formation got me in big trouble versus a few bosses that fired line crafts such as one particular chapter 3 boss (first line attack shoved characters into other lines, so L and J were hit first, then R, L and E were hit by a followup). The closer Y Formation which is also recommended by the game at some points:
X R X L X
X X J X X
X X E X X
X X X X X
is even worse than the thin Box, because now you are much more susceptible on a multi-character level to every kind of AoE out there. Especially the ones that are a wide strike from the front like the big guys that stomp the ground in front of them.
The game sometimes scrunches offensive characters on the front line by default before when switching around squad members, so you have to watch out and make sure you select Tactics in the menu after every important character swap to make sure there are no shenanigans.
Noble command is super useful in the early game. Later on I feel that chrono burst makes Alicia the best support in the game. If you start a battle with 200CP and have stacked enough speed on her, she can take enough turns to both charge every battle member to full CP from 0 and buff their strength (Moebius is useful here but it can be done without) before the enemy even has a chance to move, and no boss even on nightmare can withstand 6 buffed 200CP S-Crafts in a row. Anybody can fill this role with Moebius and enough CP restoring items, but those tend to be either expensive/rare or don't restore enough CP for my tastes, and strength boosting food is super cheap.
Interesting. However Alisa doesn't build any CP for using this craft, so she's limited to using it 5 times, plus you have to make sure that your units are stacked close enough together, which is risky and sometimes not feasible against deadlier bosses with lots of range that knock you around.
Chrono Burst is really busted in this game, especially for Machias, but I didn't think about using it for Alisa because I kept getting painfully pushed out of range by bosses to buff CP for my buddies, so I dropped Alisa like Galileo in a gravity test.
I do agree that super-buffing each high STR unit and firing off all their 200CP S-Crafts in a row pretty much trivializes every boss though, regardless of how you do it. lol
I just looked up the Moebius quartz potential... holy shit... lol
