Last Mission questions

[Jon.Topps]

So I'm trying this out, and actually kind of enjoying it! It reminds me of back in the day with Ehrgeiz, which I actually owned, where there was a "mini game" that was essentially an entire game on the side, where you crawl through a dungeon collecting stuff and getting stronger.
I've looked online in general, but there's very little on this game. Even the videos attempting to explain it don't really do a good job. I've made it past floor 15, and I'm doing quite well I think, in terms of strength.

Questions
1. What is a "folio"? I have a notebook, which lets me copy a folio, but I have no idea what that is. It's apparently different than just copying an item?
2. When I equip items, I don't see the effect anywhere, even in the status section. Is it invisible aside from the description on the item? For example my wristband is supposed to increase physical attack more easily, but I'm only getting that levelled up like 1/2 or 1/3 the time.
3. I've heard I don't want my dresses to be "bombed". Does that show up anywhere in the status menu? I know what a bomb trap looks like, and I know there's a message, but other than that, is there anyway to tell if you're bombed? What exactly does it do?
4. I'm currently dropping 1 gil each move, but I don't see anywhere that shows I'm affected (again, there's just not enough info in the game for what's going on). I guess my question is, how do you remove debuffs? Do they just go away? Because sometimes it feels like they don't. I know you can get items and stuff to heal, but those are rare if you're wanting a specific type. Is it just esuna then?
5. When you have an auto-ability, and it says 4/50, that means you have to kill 46 more enemies to get it, right? So it seems to be in use while you're learning it still, but once you get to 50/50, does that mean you keep it, regardless of what dress spheres you have equipped? Or what exactly?
6. Related to 2. The auto-abilities you get seem kinda broken? Like, I was levelling up the "hp heal over time", and it seems to have looped back to zero now. I know it was all the way to the top, then after a few battles it looks like it reset to about 0/65. If I remove the dress spheres the ability isn't there anymore, so it's not like a learned it, and the ability doesn't seem any stronger either. So any idea what happened?
7. Related again. So say for example I have "white + trainer + mascot", so I get "heal over time". But I also get bandage, which does the same thing. Does equipping the bandage reset my learning? Does it stack? Is it pointless to do this?
8. Cactuars are DUMB in this game! Wow! I had full health as Dark Knight, slaughtering everything easily, and I got a miss against a Cactuar and it literally one shot me. Any tips for this? Or is it just terrible game design?
9. Wow confusion is horrible too! Unequips your dress, throws your stuff all over the room, wastes precious items, and nearly dies, before it finally stops. I know there's a confuse proof ability, but abilities seem REALLY hard to actually get (see above points), so is there anything else to do?

I'll probably think of more as I play.

[Jon.Topps]

Just to answer some of my own questions, in case others want to know how the game works.

1. A folio is anything that looks like a book, with pages and what not. Copying a folio basically just means you can get an extra of any book. This is especially helpful with the folio that lets you create any dress sphere.

4. It does seem that esuna is basically it, but there are abilities to prevent each status, but obviously you're going to care about something far more valuable, like half damage and what not.

5-6. Here's how the abilities work. If you have certain dress spheres on, you get auto-abilities, and they work the moment you put them on (you do not need to get all AP to have it, like in FFX2). Once the AP is full, it will create an accessory for you that does the job of the auto-ability, and then the AP will reset back to zero. You can only have two accessories though. What's this means is that you can plan out what dress spheres to equip to get the best abilities, and then you can have to free abilities that you earned through AP. Currently I've got a build where I can have half damage, heal mp (way overpowered), doom proof, and attack goes up faster. I'll probably swap the last two for things like no front damage, and never miss. This way, I can use curaga basically infinitely, because my MP replenishes so fast, and I barely ever take much damage at all.

8. Cactuars are incredibly easy if you just use a spell, since the spell cannot miss, and the Cactuars, if hit, are incredibly weak.
9. For the enemies that inflict bad stuff like confusion or doom, again, just use a strong spell to get them before they get close enough to inflict a status effect on you.