I was just using my mains, unless you happened to main Zelos like I did. :v

Abyss is good but it has its flaws here and there. The main problems I had were:
1. The skills are learned in a really weird way (I played the entire game with only two party members learning Item Thrower)
2. The story is really hard to follow at first because of all of its terms
3. There is a lot of missable stuff. I missed out on Luke's Sonic Thrust and a good sword for Guy.

It's really enjoyable though. It's also great on the multiplayer; I played through a lot of the game with my little cousin, with me being Luke and him being Guy. :3

Eh, I try to be good with every character in Tales games, except healers and Mages, I am f*** terrible.

Also, yeah I i'd heard about Luke's demon fist and Sonic Thrust, but they don't seem very important, but I'm going to try it out.

Luke has no Demon Fang, so yeah. I made sure to get Demon Fist because I always have some sort of projectile attack/variation of Demon Fang on neutral B.

I guess so, Guy has a Arte set up I can get used to more by the look of it, So yeah, Maybe Demon fist is a must.

Guy's artes threw me off the first time around. I had Void Tempest on my cousin's up-B assuming it was a tempest-based attack. Then I got Tempest and I was like "...Oh."
Oddly enough, when it comes to artes, I hate combination artes.

I like them, they add chances to make complex artes into one big combo finisher/continuer.

They always annoyed me for some reason because I felt like I was being repetitive. In TotA, I never set a combination arte unless I didn't have enough unique artes.
One thing I tend to do with my artes when shortcuts are involved is to put the base artes on circle/B and put all of my arcane artes on the right stick/pad.

Then me and you would probably make a good team, i love mages and healers. In fact, whenever i play multiplayer, i pretty much always pick one.

Just feel that way because out of the games ive played where healers can be controlled by AI, they are only subpar when it comes to their usefulness. In the hands of a human player, they can do so much more.

I'm just used to melee in everything I do, in any game I play, being in the back and spending more time running and casting than dealing damage, especially in later Tales games where the enemy went for the player character more often.

Oh of course, when i play by myself, i need a character who fights physically, since like you said, the enemies come after you more often in the later games.

Though in Graces, i got away with playing as Cheria for long periods of time without ever switching to someone else. Because using the Assault Artes decreases the time necessary for Burst Artes, you can get healing spells and stuff to come out faster if you attack first, even if you dont hit anything. But basically my combo for her was Swift Pitch>Serpent Tooth>Thunder Surge>Frozen Rain/Infinite Wave (depending on enemy distance)>Lightning Blast. You could throw Soul Brigade in there as well if you have the CC for it.

I dint particularly like Tales but I like Lloyd in SSF and SSF2.

If you liked him in SSF(2), then play his game, Tales of Symphonia, it's overall one of the best in the series story-wise, and IMO one of the best Gamecube games in existence. But in 2013, I highly recommend getting Tales of Xillia when it comes out, assuming you have a ps3.

I don't have a gamecube or PS3.

Then just get one at a Gamestop or something. It is a really good game. Unless you want to get the sequel, which iirc is on the Wii.

Better yet, get a Wii, so you can play both Symphonias