https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=45988
This is the guide I used to step back in after a long hiatus. Its still being updated for Lost Grove of course but probably explains it better then I could.

The big thing I'd say though is your party makeup does depend on preferences, I run a very damage heavy party, others might run more defensive. Finding what works for you is important.

I've been testing my battle party with the Lost Grove. In my experience, a Dark tank, Light healer and Air attacker has worked the best. Its pretty self-sufficient.

I tried Earth/Air/Fire and Shadow/Air/Fire, but I was using a lot potions and dying often. I did not test out Earth/Air/Light, but I believe that would work decently as well.

I'm using Max Stat sylesti, which are currently level 63. This is my setup.

Dark Tank - Focus on HP and Agility with gear, also boost Intelligence for more damage (Prof. = 2 HP, 1 Int)
Light Healer - Focus on Intelligence and Dexterity with Gear (Prof. = 3 Int)
Air Attacker - Focus on Strength and Dexterity with Gear (Prof. = 3 Str)

While you can experiment with a party I have found that you will need a tank pet, meaning a pet with high health to withstand being attacked because when you are in a battle, the tank is usually targeted the most.

I have also found that having your tank aligned with Water or Shadow is really helpful as its basic attack can help restore health. Personally I like the Water element because it has a greater chance of granting "Frost" which helps absorb damage to your pet for a few turns.

A battler pet who has high strength is essential, it will do much of the grunt work so Earth or Air is good.
Earth is good because it has a 25% chance of granting "Leeching Strike" which drains your enemy and helps restore your pets health.

Air is good because "Slash" will cause "bleeding" and weaken your foe over time. Really good in more difficult areas (especially Lost Grove)

Now..a Magic based pet is really useful too. Having it aligned with "Light" can heal your party just by attacking.

NOW..it may be a good idea to have another battle pet in reserve, something that is just as good or better than your initial battler because there are certain battles where a magic user will be an impediment.
(Like defeating Vorpar) Sometimes you will need to take down an enemy quickly so having a couple of fighters is great.

FINALLY...do not underestimate the value of doing missions. I would suggest training up a few pets just for missions. Have one or two who specialize in each attribute....for example have one who specializes in intellect and another in dexterity.
As they develop and improve they can eventually do better missions. Soon you will be able to get better and better equipment not just for your mission pets but party ones too.

Just don't rush things. I know it seems tedious but it is best to wait it out and keep fighting until you can beat enemies in a couple of rounds before moving onto more challenging areas.

I'm just going to squint a bit because Earth is absolutely not an attacking-oriented element (obviously you can use it as one, but that's not really what it was designed to be).
Earth is Primarily a Tanking element; the basic attack has Leeching Strike, but the second ability is Thorncoat (has zero attack capabilities, merely repaying any damage an opponent does to the pet, and protecting from crits) and the third ability is Mocking Blow (which inflicts Taunted to the target, forcing them to aim for the pet who inflicted it on them)

Also, Tanks are Typically given both HP and Agi- the Agi is pretty important.


Our main team (the primary one we use when we're doing battle boards during fests) is Earth/Light/Fire (Fire for taking out multiple opponents faster) with our Light and Fire statted 2attack/2dex each, and the Earth statted 1hp/1attack/2agi, and we can reasonably switch our Light to substitute our Earth as Tank for a short time if required in a battle (although we're still deciding if we might need to mess with the stat setups now we have the fourth point to see if anything else works better)

We've been running a max Dark/Light/Air team to great effect too, with the Dark statted 2attack/2agi (this one we messed with a lot before finding the stat setup that worked for us), Light statted 3attack/1dex, and Air 2attack/2dex.

We have run another team in the Grove, two regular pets (our starter and a wild-caught ryori) supported by the same light pet as the last time, running Water Tank 1HP/1attack/2agi and Fire 2attack/1dex/1agi (we're not entirely settled on their stat setups either, but they've done decently enough against regular and most elite enemies in the Grove)


Overall, Light can Tank, Heal, or do Damage (with the bonus of healing) and is Very useful (ability 1 can restore the party's health, same with ability 2, and ability 3 just heals the target)
Air is an exceedingly good single-damage element
Water is a good Defensive element, can deal respectable damage, but also buff the whole party at lv65
Fire is a nice damage-dealer, especially for taking multiple opponents (never underestimate Combustion, it is Very Useful)
Shadow is good both as a Tank and Attack element, slotting wherever you want to put it
Earth is a pretty good defensive element.

Proficiency setup of any given pet would vary and depend on what works for the user and their battle style.

My objection with using Light to tank is that tanks need health to withstand damage and if your tank bites the dust then you no longer have a healer PLUS a tank is gonna be attacked the most so I just am not sure about light tanks.

You are right that fire is a great addition and can help take down enemies quickly, sometimes i wish that at least another element could do the same so you didn't have to use a magic user to attack.

However with the addition of new relics and stuff from the Lost Grove, I suppose it may be possible to extend the abilities of the elements.

It just takes so darned long for the expertise levels to increase and you cannot even gain that until your pets reach level 60.

So what I am planning on doing is raising a new party, hatch some eggs, use philters and see if I can't create a better party. Maybe I will try making my new tank a light one. Sounds interesting.

Since other people are sharing their parties I'll share mine with you and my reasoning.

I run Shadow/Light/Air. But the difference comes in the statting.

Shadow is traditionally a tanking pet, with its ability to self heal. I decided to see how well it could survive with healing so it is set as 3 attack/1 agility thinking of moving the agility to Dex. It can outheal damage against most enemies, I only have to use a potion against the strongest of bosses.

My light is a standard healer 3 attack/1 agility again considering moving agility to dex for more consistent healing.

Air is a standard physical attacker, 3 attack/1 dexterity looking forward to the level cap rising so I can get another dex but the damage output is nice.

We typically only use our own Light pet, as we said, to temporarily sub for our Earth, but we have used them for it perfectly reasonably against regular enemies as a Tank- Light running Tanking/Healing with Earth drawing away blows if needed. If you were, say, running a triple Light team, or some combo like Light, Shadow, Shadow, or Light, Earth, Shadow, then the whole team already has healing on some level.

As for hitting multiple enemies:
there's Tidal Surge, the newly unlocked Water ability, which hits all foes (Water will also be getting Blizzard at level 70, another hit-all attack)
Level 5 of Air's Razor Wind will be able to hit all opponents
Fire abilities already are multi hit
Fairy light at level 3 will hit two opponents, and all opponents at level 4
Shadow's Hateful Strike can hit two opponents at base level, and all at level 4

Yeah, I originally had my tank as a earth element only because I was told that this was a good idea.
I channeled most of its points to health and a bit to agility but at some point it doesn't work too well because you have one pet that basically can't do anything to contribute so all the fighting falls on the shoulders of a battler and if it cannot heal itself and your magic user is possibly the only healer then it will fall short.

Right now on my current party, my tank is a water based tank which is good, I guess, but it takes so long to accumulate expertise points that it will take forever before its main attack is more effective and granting more frequent chance to grant "Frost".

If my tank and fighter are going to be attacked more frequently then I either have to do something unconventional and make my battler a shadow or fire and my tank a light and my magic user another light or allocate my proficiency points better.

It's a challenge and I want to be able to get through a battle quickly but still have my pets be able to heal themselves without wasting so many potions on them.

Guess I just need to keep experimenting on what works.
By the way I like your layout so I might give that more thought too.

Edit: Well..I just borked my party. I swapped a pet, turned it into a shadow tank and put a point in agility, a point in intelligence and the other in health. It still gets massacred even with good equipment. Maybe I should reset the points, make it a light tank and put all in agility and intelligence maybe.

I decided to make my tank a shadow (This guy https://www.sylestia.com/view/pets/?petid=1389757)
so now I need to see how well it fares once I increase its expertise rating a bit. I can't let my magic user shoulder all the healing especially if my battler has no healing ability of its own. (sighs)

I am following your advice and made my tank a Shadow and put 2 points in health and the last in intelligence while boosting its agility and dexterity with gear and see how that goes. Pretty expensive to do this but now I need to focus on my light healer as it is suddenly incurring more damage than I care it to.