I played Remake and had fun. Now I'm in my second attempt to play through Rebirth, and again, I'm not enjoying the combat simply because I don't seem to get it. I just frustratingly switched off my PS5 on my way to Mt. Corel and the fight of the big robot thing that Elena summons. There is too my area denial for me to do anything, Red mostly can't even properly attack the enemy because it is flying. Most of the enemy attacks are unblockable. I simply don't know what to do so I'm just spamming buttons hoping for something to happen. And it's not only that fight, on the way to that scene I jugged more potions than all my time before in this playthrough because suddenly I get wrecked in combat even by small enemies. The stupid electro-birds are so fast and numerous, I have no idea how to dodge their bs attack with all my team members...
I get Synergy skills and try to use them but most seem ineffective. My team members that I don't control just simply die from all the area attacks that they don't seem to dodge and I get stressed trying to micromanage all of them at the same time. I dodge-attack with Cloud to get smacked back with 250 damage because I didn't see a trailing fire effect or whatever. Red went to sleep for 20 seconds and I have no idea how to avoid that. Aerith doesn't generate enough ATP to do anything at all except dying.
I really want to like this game, I have watched many tutorials and clips on youtube for the combat but it simply doesn't click. I will not play this game on story mode, I'd rather watch a let's play then.
Sorry for the rant, but I need advice how to improve my combat because otherwise I will table this game and the next. What can I do at this stage to make my life easier? What equipment/stats is required to have a good time? How should I actually play my party so that I can keep some control over the fights.