Have you met...Molly? If you put Rage gems in 4 of a Kind and Straight, a cluster in single pair and whatever utility you like(shields and lightning are great) in the rest, you'll be able to cast a massive rage on turn 1 in...I'd say 95% of games. After that the world is your oyster.
If you don't mind taking a fair bit of damage in return, combining Chloe/Akane and Molly is even more insane.
You can get the most done with Molly, Dylan, and Bella.
Molly + the Rage and Cluster setup you mentioned means everything dies in 3 turns max, 4 for the ice/fire lords but only if you're unlucky, and Bella can fix that
Dylan means you never run out of health
Bella gives you +5 moves
Without Dylan, you can do more damage, but you will run out of health eventually, and have to rest.
Basically, having Dylan instead of Akane:
occasionally, killing a fire or ice elemental lord will take 4 moves instead of 3 (with Bella's special attack it's almost always 3, but without her you need a pair available turn 1 and 2 to get 2 4-of-a-kinds)
daemon prince, draugr lord and minotaur lord will almost always die in 3 turns, and regular daemon almost always in 2 turns (unless there are no pairs at all so you can't get 4-of-a-kind on turn one)
everything else is a turn 2 kill no matter what
Akane is not worth saving 1 turn on a few fights every once in a while... I did the all-chosen run just once, to get the events, then back to Dylan
And, I used to go all fire, but it's just sooooo much weaker at this point. Especially against the highest exp enemies in the game right now, the fire elemental lord.
