Alright, after discovering (I might be retarded) that you can enter and exit the towns on the overworld map to heal your characters infinitely, I am digging the shit out of this. Also the computer AI isn't terrible at all, and they do a better job of killing shit than I do occasionally. The outposts/towns you free during the minimap battle deals have tasks and shit you can complete, so there's reasons to revisit them anyway, but anytime you enter one you heal your entire party to full. I've been basically organizing my roster so that the lowest level people are at the top, and I just keep fighting shit until it wipes out most of the cadets before I return home. Now I need to start calling in help during missions to get upgrades, I guess, but the kids don't need any help. I almost killed the golem "unkillable" boss during the retaking of Togoreth, so I might be a tad overleveled. The melee characters are alright (Eight is a goddamn beast) but I enjoy playing the ranged aspect with King and Ace the most so far.
And yeah, the control type with R1 being the lock is the way to go. Unless I'm on the 5th chain of an encounter I rarely switch mobs mid-health to do damage to another, but then again I'm probably overleveled.