If you're having trouble with the fights, here are some things you can do to strengthen your party in order of priotity:
1. Armor upgrades
2. Training Arena battles at Mistral Village
3. Good Weapons/Armors
4. Blessing Upgrades
5. Cafe Upgrades
6. House furnishings.
You can definitely make the battles a complete 3-4 shot breeze if you do everything before the next battle. On my current 0 grinding playthrough I'm officially strong enough to beat the Misty Woods Area Conquest battle, and the Survival Game. Which is insane to think about, so insane that I ended up nerfing some stuff.
It's hard to balance the game around players with fewer resources compared to those that did all the optional content.
I think I bought the Tier 1 armor in Misty Village, and I've been looking at the other armor for a while, no, I'm not a hoarder, really!
I'm just torn on whether to buy the T2 armor for the party or start collecting T3, and just skip T2.
I'm using the witch's blade for the MC so I get more skill attacks in the round, Ogre and Roc Head shield, with Ray's and the Nurse's blessing.
Bessie is using Cupid's Crossbow with the Giant Feather and Red gooey bracers, I know I should upgrade the gooey, just not sure what with atm. And Historia's and Mimi's blessing.
Ray had the Advanced spell Tome, Paladin's Bangle and the Banghoul along with Jiangshi's and Dimple's blessing.
*All used blessings are currently at rank 2, that was the first think I did at the Colo, lol.
My main issue with some of the fights are the RNG where all three mobs go before me, and monkey stop Ray or Bessie before I could get a cheer or blind/silence / nul off.
I just did some end of content grinding now that I don't have to fight the mobs in the wilderness, and got the group up to 18+, plus because of the exp boosts the MC has.
Oh yeah, just hit Bessie's "virgin" scene in the elf village, should I have gone there before the weavers? Because she owed me her pussy for bonking the MC on the head.
Anyway having a grand time.