Recruited Mages, a few questions and notes

[Delta]

So I've just now acquired Blanc and Mages. and I was wondering what sort of party works well.

-Vert seems like a must what with her excellent rush (8 hit wind attack awards so much EXE it's worth it even if the enemy is wind-immune), powerful magic (her EXE Skill in particular is brutal), plus debuffs.
-Blanc I was kinda disappointed with, tending to do low damage in general (although I was a fair bit overlevelled so I guess thinking about it she's actually about 4+ levels behind the others). Seems to be a physical damage dealer.
-MAGES. seemed powerful initially, though not as strong as Vert. Guess not having a CPU bonus doesn't help. Attacks didn't look great so I'm guessing she's mainly for healing and skills.
-Compa's healing is useful, but otherwise she doesn't seem that special, not being much of a damage dealer. Useful but a bit lacking in variety so far.
-IF I haven't really found a niche for.
-Neptune is solid all-rounder, who I mainly use as a second EXE-gauge riser and physical attacker. Her strength buff seems handy too.

So would a core party of Neptune, Vert and Compa work well, subbing in Blanc or MAGES. depending on whether the enemy seems more magic or physical-resistant?

As a side note I've a few other questions:
-Is Lily worth raising and are their any great pairings? I'm using a lvl. 4 Lily EXP boost now but even with that I've only one partnership at level 4.
-How useful are buffs? I've heard someone say good things about Nep's strength buff but in general are they worth using? And are they a set boost or does it depend on intelligence of the caster/the item used?
-Should I hurry up and play Stein's;Gate? I picked it up a while back but it's been in my backlog for a while. MAGES. kinda reminded me it was on my to-do list.

[Groen90]

Yes buffs are useful, use them! I don't think they give fixed values up, because you can always see the difference no matter what level you are. Maybe they scale based on the level, I don't think they scale based on stats, IF they even scale at all that is.
But that doesn't really matter, they're always useful.

[Doresh]

Blanc will get better later on. She's one of the first to hit the damage cap.

IF gets some pretty sweet Break Commands, eclipsing Compa in that regard, whose main feature is cheap (AoE) healing. That late in the game, she's mostly there to stay away from Mr. Monster and keep the other to guys standing.

[Harag]

I usually keep Compa at the back and switch if I desperately need healing because that's her only worth.
If has a quite good EXE and that's it.
MAGES. is a magican which means that she is great against machines.
Blanc is a tank.

I use a Neptune-Noire-Blanc team beacause:
-The cpu-s will gain an EXE finisher called combo link which will allow double attacks for them
-I like Vert the least among the cpu-s :P

That being said if Re;Birth 1 would allow a party of 4 I would use her, because she has a very good debuff and a very good buff skill. Since you probably don't have Noire yet I would suggest an all CPU team. If you really don't like Blanc I found IF to be a very good subtitution for pretty much everything.

[Delta]

I think the problem with Blanc was mainly level. I'd gone fighting a load of the tough bonus monsters and she's now about 6 levels behind the rest which can't have done her any favours.

For me Vert was actually the first to hit the damage limit, albeit only on the last hit of her EXE skill (and with enemy guard broken).

Any ideas on the Lily Rank system by the way? So far I've basically just stuck a Lily boosting disk on Vert and partnered her with IF for now for the high starting compatibility and speed boost.

IF just got a 50% single target heal which is nice. glad that there are now people other than compa who can do it.

[Harag]

If your lily rank is not high enough some of the bonuses from the characters at the back can't be used.
Also I've heard the ending has more scenes if you rise every lily rank to 10. Not sure with this though since I've never done it.

[Doresh]

The only extra scenes I know of are the Candidate CPU scenes, which you get just for having the Candidates unlocked in the True Ending.

High lily ranks only really affect Coupling Skill damage AFAIK.

And Blanc is pretty ridiculous for me atm. I gave here an accessory that breaks the damage limit as well as a hammer from one of the easier Colliseum fights for around 2200 STR. Her Power attacks often deal 10k damage, and her EXE Drive can get to 1 million vs groups and over 500k against bosses. It's like I suddenly have a Disgaea character in my game.

[Delta]

By the way, are there going to be any more characters joining? I've been doing a load of questions and clearing out optional dungeons at the start of chapter 5 (after getting Noire back) but it occurs to me I'm probably getting a bit overlevelled for the next story stuff. I saw from the achievements there are various CPU candidates listed but I thought most of the others would be optional/DLC.

[Doresh]

All non-optional playable characters should join you in Chapter 7 and stay with you till the end.

And yes, there will be more. This might be a bit spoiler-y, but any character you meet you actually see on-screen in the story bits (minus Arfoire, of course) is playable.

[I3lackI2ogue]

mages is great support, shes the only mandatory long range character, (the others being uni, rom, and ram, who are all optional) shes got a 50% heal that doesnt cost most of her SP (looking at you iffy) and an SP resurrection spell (the only other one is compa, a pure healer),

shes a bit of a glass cannon, but shes a mage, she tears stuff up, her only weakness (aside from being a glass cannon if you call that a weakness) would be her lack of buffs, but she doesnt need that to do 300k EXEs without much favoritism, while being an adequate healer with +sp regen chips.

[Yaldabaoth]

Neptune, Noire, Blanc. Nep's and Blanc's EXE Drives delay enemy turns and Noire is simply overpowered. Noone needs Micr... Vert.