What is your preferred team and EX-skill setup?

[I Am Klaus]

My main team these days is Lloyd, Colette, Sheena and Raine. Sometimes I'll swap Lloyd for Zelos, but I never leave Zelos on AI control anymore, it's manual or nothing.

Lloyd: S-Type
-Guard Plus
-Sky Combo
-Ability Plus
-Follow Up
*Counter, Sky Attack, C.Combo

Makes Lloyd a better frontline fighter, able to extend and freeflow his combos better, with more stagger power, less damage when guarding, and can resume attacking more quickly after defending.

Combo: Tiger Blade > Sword Rain > Fierce Demon Fang > Hunting Beast (or Beast Sword Rain or Raining Tiger Blade)

Colette: S-Type
-Vitality
-Spirit
-Stat Boost
-Eternal
*Life Thief, Spirit Thief, Life Up, Spirit Up

Not a whole lot better for Colette except maybe Resilience, but her spells are generally situational at best.

Combo: Ray Satellite > Whirlwind Rush

Sheena: T-Type
-Dash
-Prolong
-Add Combo
-Speed Cast
*Quick Turn, Combo Force, Hard Hit

Makes Sheena an excellent support for your main fighter, able to extend combos and lock targets down effectively, and she moves like greased lightning to boot.

Combo: Power Seal > Mirage Seal Pinion > Pyre Seal

Raine: T-Type (but switches to S for Holy Lance, Permaguard and Keenness)
-Speed Cast
-Item Pro
-Spell Save
-Happiness
*Concentrate

The only real choice for Raine

Uses Holy Lance in the Unison Attack w/ Colette's Grand Cross for Gospel.

Zelos: S-Type
-Speed Cast
-Spell Charge
-Super Chain
-Sky Combo
*Aerial Spell, Landing, Concentrate

Gone are the days of using Super Blast, this setup is far more fun and AI Zelos can't use Super Blast anyway, which was my only incentive to ever have him on AI control. It's manual or nothing with Zelos now.

Presea and Regal both get Glory, and Genis gets Concentrate. I also set up Genis so he can have Absolute and Prism Sword.

[Aifread]

My usual party is Lloyd, Presea, Zelos/Kratos, and Raine. I usually use Lloyd or Zelos/Kratos but Regal is fun to use as well (he's unfortunately a bit fragile for the AI, especially with Glory where he doesn't feel the need to block anything).

My EX skills set-up is pretty much the same for Lloyd, Zelos/Kratos, Regal, Presea, Raine, and Genis. Colette I go with Resilience because I only use her for Grand Cross spam against extra bosses and Sheena I never bother with aside from the mandatory summon spirit fights. Genis gets all S-type spells except for Indignation and Explosion, the goal being to have Absolute, Atlas, and Prism Sword while still having access to Indignation Judgment.

For Lloyd I like Heavy Tiger Blade (odd choice, I know) because it combos really nicely with Demonic Chaos and even if a human opponent backflips out of the knockdown you can keep chasing them down. I also like Sky Attack combos, so I usually have Sword Rain: Alpha or Omega Tempest with Rising Falcon. Or I'll just use mid-air Rising Falcon on its own for dodging or positioning.

My standard combos for Zelos/Kratos are Aerial Spell combo (usually Fireball) -> Super Lightning Blade -> Grave Blade -> Demon Fang (distances work quite well here) and Light Spear -> Super Lightning Blade -> Demon Fang. Hit stun from Demon Fang with the speed of Light Spear lets you chain the latter indefinitely. I also like doing a ranged combo like so: aerial Fireball -> Demon Fang -> charged Fireball -> another Demon Fang. To round things out I throw in Lightning Blade for spell cancel combos and Demon Spear for knockdown to set up spell charges and Shining Bind. I'll sometimes switch things up with Victory Light Spear for flying enemies or Guardian Field to combo with Light Spear for crowd control (Kratos only, of course).

I don't do anything really special with Regal other than your standard combos and spell cancels.

[Boop]

I always have Lloyd Regal Zelos and Presea because who needs a heal when you 100+ combo them over and over? The only reason for taking a healer is that you don't know how to extend a combo or you're fighting someone with alot of status effects. Colette is basically useless untill she gets Grand Cross+ that takes a while to charge. Sheena is only usefull for her limit spells which is almost never active so that's a no. Kratos is a good swapout for Zelos depending on which rep route you take. Genis is also a fun spellcaster but on your first playthrough his spells are just to weak to use instead of Presea/Regal. Raine has good spells like Prism swords and Revitalize, but those are endgame and MP intensive.

[Aifread]

Raine with Prism Sword? That would be very good if true :D

[DSpecht]

I mainly controlled Zelos and occasionally Lloyd.

For Zelos (T-Type) I used Eternal, Slasher, Super Chain and, depending on the situation, either Personal or Taunt. Personal for free items of course, Taunt unlocks Combo Force and I also get Super Blast regardless of choice. I am not a fan of Magic Attacks, so I mainly use him as a melee attacker.
For Techs I mainly use Demon Fang, Light Spear, Fierce Demon Fang and Super Lightning Blade. Shortcuts to First Aid and Judgement (in case of Overlimit).

If I opt for Lloyd (T) I use Spirit, Add Combo, Follow-up and, depending on the situation, Personal or Guard Plus. This grants me Technical and, if Guard Plus is selected, also Counter.
As for the Spell, I ususally used those I wanted to get to 999. I am a big fan of Tiger Blade, Hurricane Thrust and Sword Rain Alpha or Beta. However, once Zelos joins and I get access to enough characters, I usually remove Lloyd from my team, as the AI blasts all his TP in seconds as long as it isn't limited and is barely usefull if he cannot use Techs.

As a supporting attacker I use Sheena (T). I cannot control her myself, but the AI does a decent job at attacking and stunning enemies. She has Dash, Prolong, Add Combo and Speed Cast equipped. This also grants Quick Turn, Hard Hit and Combo Force. As melee attackers tend to run blindly into spells, having the movement speed to run out again upon a quick switch is really a blessing. Overall I let her cast most seals. I chose Power Seal Absolute for the garantueed Def drop, but otherwise took Pinion for the higher damage, as I do not value the drops they can cause. Her utility spells are pretty awesome and I also like her Life Seal and Overlimit.

Raine (T) is somewhat mandatory, especially on higher difficulties as she is the only dedicated Healer. I like Concentrate, so she has the required EX Skills selected. As for spells. I chose the AoE-Spells for Healing and status removal, but prefered Keenness and Permaguard for the permanent and incread stat boost. On the offensive side, I opted for Holy Lance.

In my later playthroughs I often used Genis (T). His spells are awesome and melee characters tend to act suicidal against tough enemies when controlled by the AI. Having some ranged backup is pretty helpful. Like Raine, he has the EX Skills required for Concentrate. As for the spells, when not taking adavantage of the poorly implemented elemental system, I usually prefer Atlas or Prism Sword. Overall, his S-Type spells are cooler, so I chose them over their T-Type counterparts.

I never cared much for Colette (apart from stealing and the occasional poison shenanigans), Presea or Regal. If a battle required heavy hitters I sometimes picked Presea in my team, but that happened rarely.

[I Am Klaus]

I had an idea for using Zelos on AI control again. So the two setups that I would normally run, neither of them get utilized by the AI. It won't use Aerial Spell, and it won't use techs after the fourth hit from Slasher, which makes Super Blast worthless on AI as well.

So what if I compromise? What if I take Concentrate like normal, but instead of taking Sky Combo for Aerial Spell, I take Guard Plus instead? Not only does this save me a Lv4 EX gem, but I get Spell Revenge instead of Aerial Spell, which DOES get used by the AI, and would be used a lot more under AI control as the AI will likely get hit and knocked away more than if Zelos were under player control. Guard Plus would also help Zelos to tank better under both AI and Manual control.

Guard Plus
Super Chain
Speed Cast
Spell Charge

Get's Spell Revenge and Concentrate, loses Aerial Spell and Landing.

[I Am Klaus]

I've actually changed my mind about Colette. She doesn't need Life/Spirit Up to max those stats thanks to herb farming in the Shadow Temple, but one of her absolute best EX Skills, Item Getter, requires her to have one of each type of gem in her table, a Lv1, Lv2, Lv3 and Lv4. What I only recently realized about this setup is that three other really good Compounds can be used with this particular loadout, Resilience, which requires a 2 3 and 4 (and comes with Super Guard if you have a 1), EXP plus A, which requires one of each, and Life/Spirit Thief, which also requires a 2 3 and 4. So with one of each gem, you can swap between a large pool of really good Compounds depending on what's needed most.

Welp, I know what I'm doing with my Colette from now on.

[Fryman]

Lloyd and Raine are the only two I try and have in the party at all times. Depending on the enemies I'm facing I'll fill out the rest with some combination of Zelos, Genis, and Presea. I keep Sheena in the party for a while every now and then so she can pick up some bonus HP to help with the Kuchinawa fight, but Regal and Colette are permanent benchwarmers for me.